FUSA Speaks

The time has come for the first major FUSA event of the year: The Annual Presidential Ball. As you finalize your outfits and choose who you will be heading up to Bellarmine Lawn with, FUSA Speaks would like you to take a minute to dive a little bit deeper into this staple Fairfield fall semi-formal. Here to give you little background on the event and how it will be changing this year is Rachel Breger ’09, one of four FUSA directors of special events.

Five years ago, Fairfield was blessed with a new President, Fr. Jeffrey von Arx, and with him a new event, a dance that unites students, faculty and’ administration all on one night on Bellarmine Lawn.

This Friday is the Fifth Annual Presidential Ball, the Fall semi-formal that has grown into a Fairfield tradition.

In its maiden year, the Presidential Ball – then the Inaugural Ball – was held in Alumni Hall and was attended by only 700 students.

The dance has since moved to Bellarmine Lawn where a candlelit path leads students through the building itself and out to the tent where they will dance all night underneath the stars. Last year’s attendance neared 1500.

The dance began as an event to introduce Father von Arx to the Fairfield student body and now serves not only for welcoming everybody back for another great year but also in uniting our student body behind the most beautiful building on campus, and on a lawn we will not grace again until our respective graduations.

Planning an event as large as the Presidential Ball is challenging but fun. The Directors of Special Events ‘- Beth Anne Voight-Jause ’10, Caitlin Liguori ’11, Jocelyn Touchette ’09, and myself – began our preparations last May and are excited for everything to finally come together.

The four of us have had countless meetings to plan the catering, decorations, and other logistics of the dance. The process has been long and even grueling at times but we’ve been striving to put together a great event. Although we’re a bit biased, we think that this year is going to be the best Presidential Ball yet!

Throughout the planning stages, we made sure to include the staples that have made the event such a success the past four years.

We’ll have a DJ playing some great music and a photo booth to capture the moments in between songs.’ As always, there will be a never-ending stream of finger foods including chicken tenders, mozzarella sticks and quesadillas.

And of course, there will be not one, but two chocolate fountains.

But don’t worry, we’ve also added a few new twists. There will be a pre-Presidential Ball party at the Levee with food, music and plenty of pictures to be taken of you and your friends.

Also, since we know that the trek up to Bellarmine can be rather daunting in the cold, we’ve created a shuttle that will be running from campus to the dance all night long ‘- look for shuttle stops throughout the Quad, Village and Townhouses and hop on!

So if you haven’t gotten your ticket yet, run to the Info Desk and grab one before they’re gone… And I can’t wait to see you Friday night under the stars!