As Professor Mittag’s Calculus class started filing into the classroom on the first day of classes her freshman year, Karen Donoghue ’02, director of Residence Life, had no idea she was going to meet her future husband.’
She sat down unexpectedly while Michael Rupp ’02, now a Fairfield University admissions associate, took a seat right in front of her.’
Karen’s first words to Mike were, ‘you smell like my ex-boyfriend.’ That was the beginning of their life together.’ Rupp and Donoghue started dating in March of their sophomore year.’
Rupp proposed to Donoghue at a quiet spot in Mystic, CT and they are now planning to wed at Fairfield’s Egan Chapel. According to Rupp, ‘it was our easiest decision of wedding planning yet.”
If you think you could find your lifelong sweetheart at Fairfield, like Karen and Mike, chances are, you’re right. And the chances are even greater that you will stay with them.
Other married alumni of Fairfield, share similar stories like meeting in laundry rooms, at parties at the beach or in class. They all have Fairfield to ‘blame’ for bringing them together.’
According to an estimate provided annually at freshmen orientation by Father Allen, Executive Assistant to the President, ’60 percent of Fairfield graduates will marry another Fairfield student.”
Experts say this number seems incredibly high. ‘Wow, I would be surprised if that was the case anymore,’ said Dr. Elise Harrison, Associate Director of Counseling and Psychological Services, ‘I do think though that the main reason that this would be the case is that in college you begin to develop the maturity to start thinking about the future and you are able to find someone who is intellectually at a similar level as you while often having a common spirituality as well.’
Seventeen Fairfield University students when surveyed reported that they were not surprised that many found romantic matches at Fairfield due to similar family upbringings and morals.’
Other Fairfield graduates, Leonard DiBella ’83 and Barbara Redway DiBella ’85, have been married for twenty-three years.’
Their story is on the school alumni website. The pair were friends even before they decided to earn their undergraduate degrees at Fairfield University. He is two years older than she and it wasn’t until attending Fairfield together that they started dating.’
According to Redway, she lived in Gonzaga on the first floor as a freshman while he was living in Claver as a junior. He would come over to ‘help her’ with her creative writing work.’
DiBella graduated Fairfield in the class of ’83 and they married in ’86. Twenty-three years later, they have ‘seven beautiful children’ and are still going strong while reminiscing on their days as a ‘stag.”
Despite a statistic in 2005 from the New York Times stating that one in two marriages results in a divorce, a University of Michigan study suggests that college graduates are much less likely to get a divorce.’
Especially after waiting a little while after graduation.’
An article titled, ‘Should you marry a fellow alum?’ published in The Michigan Daily in Nov. 2007, suggested that ‘the reason why divorce among college graduates has dropped steeply since 1980s is because those who are educated will probably want to wait a while’ before walking down the aisle.
Natalie and John Petrides, class of ’99, waited to marry until after they both finished graduate school. The two got married in 2005 and today, are raising their one and a half year old son in Summit, NJ.’
‘We met in Gonzaga freshman year in 1995 but we started dating in 1996.’ After graduation, they were sure to try and make it work.’
At Middlebury College, according to an article from the New York Times, the president even told an incoming freshmen class at their orientation to ‘look to your left, look to your right, two out of three of you will marry a Middlebury graduate.”
Petrides confirmed that Father Alysious Kelly, former Fairfield University president, told them to do the same. ‘It was a weird thought!’ she said, ‘but look how it turned out.’
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Petrides and her husband can recall 10 couples offhand from their graduation class of ’99 who all ended up getting married.
Deb Picarazzi of Campus Ministry on campus said that, ‘in the past years I have been here, Father Charles Allen, S.J. has performed 50 percent or more of the marriages at the Egan Chapel’ between two people close to the Fairfield community.’
She said that, ‘the students ask him and he so graciously celebrates their marriage if he available.”
In fact, there are so many weddings at the Egan Chapel each year that there has been a position put in place for a Fairfield University student to serve as a Wedding Coordinator.’ ‘
Currently, Jessica Vigliotti ’09 is serving in the position and has been able to watch first hand just how many alumni vie for a wedding at their place of meeting.’
‘Over the past couple of years I have found that a good amount of Alumni do use the chapel for their wedding ceremonies. The majority of couples are still living in the area or relatively close by – unless they want a destination wedding to Fairfield, CT.’
In fact, Picarazzi provided statistics that twenty-one couples were married in 2007 and 2008.’ ‘I think it has to do with the Jesuit community’ said Petrides, ‘I can’t imagine it has changed so much. Everyone is from the same background and withholds similar family values and same culture.”
‘It seems engrained in Fairfield’s community,’ she said.’
So, what keeps college alumni together?’
According to an article from the New York Times, ‘College Marriage Statistics,’ ‘everyone produces such great friendships [in college] that when the time comes for marriage four or five years later, you end up marrying those good friends from before.”
‘The trick is,’ Petrides stated, ‘don’t look for him! You will just meet him randomly.’ (Petrides said she met her husband randomly in Gonzaga when she was locked out of her room as a freshman.)’
On a similar survey, all twenty Fairfield University students and alumni said they were not looking for any type of relationship when they first met their significant other.’
As Barbara DiBella stated on her alumni update page, ‘for all of those young Fairfield college students, you, too, may find the person of your dreams at Fairfield.”
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