Loyola University New Orleans: One Day at a Time

Education

Written by Eric Slack

Wednesday, 30 April 2008

Loyola University New Orleans: One Day at a Time - American Executive - RedCoat Publishing

This Jesuit university is helping post-Katrina recovery efforts, helping its own recovery in the process.

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It is impossible to think about New Orleans today without first thinking about the aftermath of the Hurricane Katrina tragedy. But for Loyola University New Orleans, a small Jesuit college with about 3,000 students, the storm actually brought the school and the city closer together.

Kevin Wildes, SJ, President

“We have a long history of student community service here, so we had always been involved in the community before the storm,” said Kevin Wildes, SJ, president. “But there has been an increase in our involvement because of the nature of the storm. It became more conscious for everybody, and there are more opportunities to get involved now.”

In its current form, Loyola was founded in 1912. However, the history goes back much further, as Jesuit education has a long tradition in New Orleans dating back to the region’s time as a French colony. There were two small Jesuit schools in the city founded in the early 1700s, which were fused together to create Loyola 96 years ago.

Called to action
With such a long history in New Orleans, it is not surprising the school took it upon itself to act after the waters receded, even though its own facilities were mostly spared the damage suffered by much of the city. Loyola had about $8 million in wind damage, but was spared the flooding as Wildes said the waters practically stopped at the school’s back door.

All of its five colleges have been involved in community activism in an unprecedented fashion in the last few years. The school’s college of business has been counseling and doing support work for several thousand small and mid-size local businesses, much more than it was doing before the storm. Nursing students are working with city health agencies, and the law school has helped citizens with criminal defense services and with recovering financial damages.

Also, with the importance of music to the city’s culture and economy, the school’s college of music and fine arts has been instrumental in reestablishing damaged performance spaces. Wildes himself has also been involved with the city’s recovery as the chair of the first ethics review board in the city’s history.

“This was the first time I’ve ever been involved in building something from the ground up. We built this from scratch, initially running it out of my office,” he said. “We hired an inspector general for the city, so we hope this will bring significant change to New Orleans.”

Internally, Katrina took a toll on the school’s enrollment levels. Prior to the storm, the school’s average freshman class was made up of 850 students, 75% of which were from out of state. That is the population Wildes said the school had difficulty retaining after the storm. Convincing students and parents that the city is safe from post-Katrina crime hasn’t been easy, but by bringing prospective students and parents for campus visits and using the parents of current students as school ambassadors, Wildes said the situation is stabilizing.

“Application numbers for next year are close to pre-Katrina levels, so we are cautiously optimistic about the incoming class,” he said. “We’ve upgraded our Web and print materials because those are a key first step in the process, but the person-to-person contact has been very helpful.”

This means the school will also need to make sure its faculty levels are appropriate as enrollment begins to grow. The school took deliberate and aggressive steps after the storm, shrinking faculty partially by eliminating some programs, but mostly through phased retirements. Now the school is developing an integrated faculty hiring plan to coincide with needs of the academic departments.

Preparing a bright future
In fact, planning is one of the biggest concerns for Wildes at this point. Between himself, the board, four VPs, and the various college deans, the school is working to match up its academic, financial, and facility needs. Although the school did invest in upgrades to emergency power, security, and improved communication systems in the wake of Katrina, as well as the Virginia Tech shootings, the buildings and grounds were mostly left intact after the storm. As Katrina now gets farther in the rear view mirror, the challenge is developing that long-term plan while sticking to Loyola’s Jesuit mission.

“Right after the storm, we took planning work we had done prior to it and made a short-term strategic plan,” said Wildes. “Now we are in the process of evolving and developing it into a new long-term master plan tied to academic affairs and facility needs. It could take a few months to a year to finish the plan.”

Keeping to the Jesuit mission is probably the easiest part of the equation. Despite an explosion in areas of knowledge, the long Jesuit tradition in education helps the school stay focused on providing a professional education grounded in liberal arts and ethical questions. In fact, the network of 28 US Jesuit colleges serves as a resource for Loyola and was especially helpful after Katrina hit.

“We were about to start our fall semester, and the other schools opened doors for our students. Other non-Jesuit universities followed that example,” Wildes said. “We were fortunate all of our students who could, even graduates and law students, wound up at other universities if they needed to.”

As the city continues on its long road of recovery, Loyola University New Orleans will play an important role in helping people from the area and bringing new people in from other parts of the country. With part of its focus on that recovery effort, the school will be able to continue its own recovery efforts as well. Together, Loyola and the city of New Orleans can lean on each other until full stability and normalcy return to this historic corner of the US.

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