The ability to problem solve, be entrepreneurial and cognitively adaptable, be comfortable with uncertainty, have a service mindset— these are the exact skills we as a liberal arts institution help our students develop, irrespective of their chosen major. The more we can integrate these skills into everything we teach, the more prepared our students will be.
At the discipline-specific level, we need to prepare our students for those areas that are in high demand now and will be in the future. All aspects of health care, for example, will be at the forefront in the future. So, we have new.
We are developing graduate programs in healthcare management with a focus on health analytics and leadership. Similarly, we are planning more cross-disciplinary programming that focuses on environmental issues and sustainable development.
It is also important to remember that skill instability, the ever changing nature of skills our graduates will need, requires us to focus on lifelong learning for our current students, alumni, and the larger community.
Most organizational leaders I speak with these days, whether they run a company or a museum or a governmental agency, tell me that upskilling and reskilling of their employees is a top priority for them. Loyola offers many programs through our Office of Professional and Continuing Studies.
We offer academic and non-academic certificates in cyber security, leadership, digital marketing, and a lot more. I see us expanding this type of. To meet the need for expanded workforce training in the region, Loyola is planning to relaunch City College, which will provide a range of continuing education and professional certification programs along with degree completion options in a fully online mode.
While the pandemic has demanded a lot from us, it has also enabled us to look at virtual learning as a viable option that fills the emerging needs of a populace that is mobile, adaptive, technologically savvy, and needs more options. Loyola, therefore, will expand and improve its online instruction and programming, and I expect to see us grow in that area.
Finally, our curriculum needs to be reviewed more often to ensure we are being fully creative, responsive, and innovative. The current pace of change requires universities to be relevant and responsive to those we serve. Too many things to adequately capture here. But, perhaps in my role as an academic leader at Loyola, the two most important things to me are the power of education to transform lives and the power of diversity to transform an entire organization.
I have witnessed that dual transformative power personally as an educator and in my role as an organizational leader. Both make us stronger and better, and we must commit to them unconditionally and unequivocally. Higher education is undergoing a massive transformation. Demographic changes are making higher education much more competitive, and technology, while an equalizer of sorts, is also putting immense pressure on us to move at a pace that is not the norm for higher education.
We need to be responsive, nimble, and innovative to compete with the many alternatives in the marketplace while ensuring that we also remain true to our roots and traditions. What do you like to do when not working? I am an avid traveler and have visited many countries and continents, developing deep friendships with people from around the world. I am also an avid reader of fiction and non-fiction of all kinds.
And, I am a nature enthusiast. There is nothing better than a long hike through the wilderness to bring me joy. How does living in New Orleans suit you so far? I moved to New Orleans last June when everything that is uniquely New Orleans was suddenly off limits—the music, festivities, restaurants, and crowds.
I have come to love the city for its creative, resilient spirit and the fun and occasionally irreverent way it deals with whatever the world throws at it. I love the people, the food, and the culture— but not the potholes! The story of Norman C. Noteworthy for the institution, but otherwise ordinary in the experience of southern universities whose acceptance rates of minorities remained low.
Yet this last tidbit fell into question late in when Percy Pierre reached out to Loyola because he believed that, in fact, his sister, Sr.
Clare of Assisi Pierre, and a fellow nun, Sr. It was believed that like most. If Pierre was right, this pushed an admission timeline to the late s, when far fewer institutions risked drawing the ire of their segregated communities.
It was clear that we needed to revisit this timeline, and that meant a trip to visit with the sisters and listen to their unique Loyola story. Turning off of Chef Menteur Highway onto the long driveway leading to the motherhouse of the Sisters of the Holy Family, one is immediately taken by the quiet beauty of the place—its shady oaks and expansive lawn greeting visitors to that particular form of tranquility one often finds at Catholic retreats.
Both in their 80s, Sisters Clare of Assisi Pierre and Agnes Marie Sampia embody this ideal, and they generously shared stories from their remarkable lives. A native of Carencro, Louisiana, Sr. Agnes Marie Sampia grew up in Lafayette, where she lived with her grandmother, a woman who said the rosary every day and who played a crucial role in her decision to devote her life to God.
So I went to the chapel and I start fussing at God. You told the sisters before me? Agnes Marie shares with a laugh. But then I caught myself. Clare of Assisi Pierre grew up in Uptown New Orleans surrounded by immediate and extended family with enormous reverence for those in the religious life.
But unlike Sr. Agnes Marie, Sr. She spent her adolescence as a popular student at St. She worked toward an education degree a class or two at a time until enrolling in the summer session of at Loyola, eventually graduating in August with a bachelor of science in education degree and thus becoming what we believe to be the first person of color to receive an undergraduate degree from Loyola. Clare and Agnes Marie met for the first time in , two of the 13 young women who came to the Sisters of the Holy Family at the end of that summer.
It was customary for the young women pursuing religious life at the Sisters of the Holy Family to attend a university to further their studies, often in the field of education. This normally meant either traveling to out-of-state universities or attending locally at Xavier University in the summer while working missions during the rest of the year.
This predictable pattern abruptly changed for. Clare and Agnes Marie, though, when they learned that they would be enrolled at Loyola University full-time in the fall of Here come obedience. Agnes Marie. Because you held a certain position, then you could appeal to God in terms of that position or pray for inspiration. Joseph J. Fichter, S. Part of the decision also rested with Sr. Marie Anselm Duffel, who was the Superior at the motherhouse, and whose discernment led to the selection of Srs.
Clare and Agnes Marie—two professed junior sisters with strong characters and excellent academic records. As it turns out, this was not, in fact, the first time that a sister from the Holy Family had attended Loyola. According to Sr. Clare, there was another nun at Loyola when she and Sr. Agnes Marie enrolled there. Letitia Senegal , who had graduated from high school in , began, like most members of the order, attending part-time.
When they learned that these two young colleagues of theirs had been selected, the sisters confessed that not all members of their cohort were happy. But it was also the fact that they were to be full-time college students that was perhaps most out of the ordinary. This detail indicated that individuals may have made conscious decisions to bring about change.
Simply getting to Loyola at that time was a battle in its own right for the sisters. When asked about the car ride to Loyola, Sr. The bus, the bus! Going to School by Bus In , those busses were segregated. I was very. Clare in response. Clare described her feelings about the first day at Loyola.
For Sr. God will always protect you. And I felt protected by her and [the] remembrance of her. Their duty was to attend Loyola and do their best to learn and to achieve good grades. Fichter and Fr. That only these two men stood apart was a reflection of the fact that the overall culture of the university, both students and faculty alike, had yet to embrace change.
Their presence did not go unnoticed by white students and faculty. Thank you for showing me. The isolation at Loyola was part of a broader system of segregation in New Orleans society that seemed to touch every aspect of their lives and governed their movement on campus as surely as it did anywhere else. The underlying separation was fundamentally social. Learning that their favorite singer was going to be playing near campus, Sr.
Agnes Marie was excited and hoped they could go. We love Johnny Mathis. Johnny Mathis was going to sing. It was then the creeping realization hit the room. The show was for whites only.
Graduation Graduation day for the sisters finally came on May 28, Agnes Marie left for Opelousas and later Lafayette to teach in high schools through the era of desegregation. Eventually she would serve the order as far away as Nigeria, where she helped young women form an independent religious community. Clare, meanwhile, headed to a mission in Compton, California, right in time to bear witness to the Watts Riots. Like Sr. Clare would return to Louisiana and the front lines of Catholic school desegregation in the early s.
You see them in perspective. And then I see also the opportunities that I had, and they were not ordinary opportunities at the time. In a roundabout way, the everyday obstacles of receiving their education at Loyola certainly prepared these women for the much greater challenges they later faced.
But it was the university itself that received the greatest benefit in being host to women of such grace, for their example supplied the community with an opportunity to better understand the change of heart required for us to truly live up to our Ignatian ideals. Over the past four years, I have worked around the clock to leave Loyola better than I found it, particularly for Black students.
I am forever thankful for their positive contributions to Loyola. In addition to serving as the current SGA vice president, he is a campus tour guide, lead Homecoming coordinator, and a Magis Student Leadership Award recipient. Though the university is still evolving, I want to paint a picture of what my past four years have looked like as a Black student. It is rare to look at an active organization on our campus and not see Black student leadership.
I myself have witnessed the election of four Black student government presidents and vice presidents. The time and sacrifices of past Black student life pioneers have not gone in vain. When I arrived on campus just four years ago, Black-centered organizations were sparse. Over these years, I have witnessed the formation of the United Brothers Association, the. Outside of student involvement, Black students have their eyes on the prize of what comes after graduation.
My friends and I chartered the Lemon Pepper networking organization for marginalized communities in with this very goal in mind. Black students are securing internships with top companies and looking into national programs.
In spite of this progress, Black students need alumni support more than ever. Entire experience. Whole person. Learn more. Be more than a major Our students and graduates are the best and the brightest: receiving awards such as Rhodes, Fulbright and Mitchell scholarships and fellowships.
News and World Report. Honors Loyola continues to be selected for the U. President's Honor Roll for Community Engagement. New Orleans is your Campus Named one of the most creative cities in the U. A class of your own Success starts here, studying what matters to you. All undergraduate programs All graduate and professional programs All online programs Visit Loyola Request Information. College of Arts and Sciences Learn how to think, how to write, how to research, and how to learn.
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