Faculty Convocation
Remarks by Reverend Michael J. Garanzini, S.J.
President, Loyola University Chicago
On the occasion of Faculty Convocation
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Welcome to this opening convocation of our academic year. Today, we extend a warm welcome to our new faculty and new endowed chair holders, and to a new dean, Dr. Don Heider, the founding Dean of our new School of Communication. On behalf of all of us, I want to thank them for selecting Loyola as the place where they will continue their work as educators and scholars, expanding knowledge in the service of others.
On an occasion like this, we can remind ourselves of our common and solemn duty as members of the academy.
For Aristotle, three words describe the educated person, and we can say by extension, the academy that is dedicated to the formation of men and women who will become leaders in their society: Ethos, Logos, and Pathos. Or, to translate liberally, we prepare leaders with sound ethical character who are competent in communication and in understanding a chosen field of human endeavor or study, who have compassion and a conviction that they have a duty to create the just society.
As a Catholic and Jesuit university, we live out this charge by committing ourselves to inclusiveness and diversity and through a special concern for those who are less fortunate, forgotten, or excluded from the wealth and richness of this society. As a community, we profess that faith is a vital dimension of human life, that hope is a realistic human stance toward the world, and that love is the supreme mission of all those seeking justice and equality, and that indeed, justice and equality cannot triumph over their opposites without love.
These convictions and aspirations inform our teaching and interaction with students, and our scholarship and research, giving it purpose and perspective, and frame the way we act collectively in the world beyond these walls.
Our academic programs seek to integrate knowledge, not simply convey or explain it. Our concern for the student extends beyond their academic preparation and includes their formation as ethical citizens, with responsibility for their own physical and spiritual well-being and those of their neighbor. Our research is often inspired by the desire to address the problems of human society, human suffering, and injustice. Our service, individual and collective, comes from a conviction that new knowledge can indeed help set us free, and that discovery and direct donation of self and resources can and ought to make a difference in the lives of others and our planet.
This is an exciting time to be a part of Loyola. This year we see the largest student body in our history and arguably one of our most talented. We have new colleagues joining our efforts who bring a rich variety of scholarly success and potential to our schools. Loyola is healthy financially and our recent development success can be read as a measure of the esteem and the votes of confidence that our supporters and friends are making in you and your work. Just three weeks ago, we welcomed nearly 2,200 freshmen in a series of very successful orientation events, including the academic convocation for freshmen, which featured an address by Professor Al Gini from our School of Business Administration, and the Mass of the Holy Spirit, where a record number of students listened to the inspiring words of Fr. Dan Hartnett from our philosophy department.
Next week we will officially launch our development campaign aiming to raise $500 million, with $270 million already committed, or in hand. This year’s gifts total a record 43MM in cash and pledges. Since the start of 2008, we have received a 5MM gift for cancer research, a new endowed chair, the Simon Chair in Constitutional Law (John Nowak, its first recipient is here today), the Beazley Chair in Child Law, now held by Diane Geraghty (congratulations Professor Geraghty!) the new Ignatio Ellacuria, S.J., Chair in Normative Social Ethics, (welcome Professor Meyers), and the new Svaglic Chair in Textual Studies (welcome, Professor Shillingsburg). These chairs have been made possible, as I said, by friends who believe in what we do, and we feel fortunate to be able to recruit scholars with international reputations for excellence and for breaking new ground in their field, for each of these positions. Three additional chairs have also reached the $2MM endowment support mark and are being recruited this coming year.
Over the last four years, several new interdisciplinary centers of excellence have been established and promise to help raise our academic profile and provide additional opportunities for faculty and students. Each of the schools and the colleges have developed new centers of interdisciplinary study which are aimed at scholarly production and service beyond the University community.
Finally, this fall, we will launch a new strategic planning process. The present plan we are following took us from 2004-2009 and gave us a pathway for stabilizing the institution, ratcheting up our efforts to attract students, redesigning our core curriculum, expanding and professionalizing our development efforts, and designing and beginning to develop our plant and physical resources. The next plan should stretch us to play more competitively in the world of extramural funding, to attract more top quality students, and to set a higher bar for favorable student satisfaction, as well as performance.
Five task forces will begin their work soon. One is devoted to student success and will look at retention and the shaping of the class. As part of its efforts, it will be looking at class size, faculty/student ratio, experiential learning opportunities, and the extracurricular life of the student. Another will examine research and scholarship development of faculty. The third will review our resources, including facilities. A fourth will examine our commitment to service. And, a fifth to setting goals for our professional schools.
We will be asking ourselves: how can we become an exemplary institution in pedagogy and in curricular coherence? How can we become outstanding in preparing students, both inside and outside the classroom? How can we become a truly vibrant and necessary community of scholars whose research is relevant and cutting edge? How can we become a community, genuinely defined by our concern for the poor and disadvantaged, that inspires students to extend that commitment into their own lives and their own communities?
In closing, I am reminded of a story attributed to Frederick the Great who, it seems, told his gardener one day while waking with him in the royal gardens, “We should plant an orange grove.” The gardener responded: “But, Your majesty, it will be ten years before we have oranges to eat.” Frederick replied, “Then, let’s plant them before noon.”
It’s time for us to build the great Catholic university of the future and we should begin this semester doing whatever is prudent and necessary to accomplish such a goal.
I only wish to add that our students are excited to be back and we are all eager to see you enjoying your teaching and research responsibilities. Not only our students, but our wider society and our Church, need you and the work you do in providing future leaders who are clear headed, open-minded, and expansive in their interests and concerns for the less fortunate and those unjustly treated.
Thank you for your attention and time. And, welcome to a new year.