Beginning Again: New City, New Century, New Loyola
Convocation remarks by
Loyola University New Orleans
President
Kevin Wm. Wildes, S.J., Ph.D.
January 6, 2006
Alfred North Whitehead, a renowned philosopher and mathematician of the 20th century, often said that questioning the “obvious” is a difficult undertaking. He said this because we take the “obvious” for granted and we don’t question it because it is obvious. Whitehead also thought that the purpose of philosophy, as a discipline, was to ask obvious questions. The Socrates of Plato spent his life wandering Athens asking obvious questions about truth, beauty, love, goodness, and right conduct.
So today, as a philosopher, I want to ask an obvious question: What are we doing here? The obvious answer is that we are here at the beginning of a new semester to start classes. But that answer won’t do because normally, when we start a semester, we do not gather as a university. And, we know from last fall that we can go to classes in lots of places. Our students attended more than 400 colleges and universities in fall 2005. And, we can have classes over the Internet. So why are we here? What do we come to celebrate this day? Let me try to answer the question with another question.
Since we left this campus on August 28 people have often asked me: “How is Loyola?” Responding to that question has led me to think about the nature of the university. When many people asked that question, they asked about the physical campus in the wake of Katrina. The place is very important. This place, this space helps to define Loyola University New Orleans. So you can understand why, in the wake of Katrina’s destruction, the question would be so important to people.
But the more I thought about the question, it became clear to me that the physical place is not the full story. The full answer to the question of “how is Loyola” is about the people who make up the university—the faculty, staff, and students. They are integral to one another.
Last fall there were many stories of Loyola’s students, faculty, and staff doing heroic things for others. These stories were both gratifying and not surprising. The Loyola community acted out of its deepest character in serving one another and in serving strangers in need. These stories told me that Loyola was doing just fine.
A few weeks ago on December 18 people gathered in this church to celebrate the holidays with a wonderful concert by the College of Music. This concert, Christmas at Loyola, is a long tradition here. But there was something noticeable this year. In the midst of the wonderful music, there was an absence. There were no students. And that absence, that silence, was deafening.
It is clear to me that the university is a constellation of communities: faculty, students, staff, alums, parents, and benefactors. Loyola is both place and people. It is this place, on St. Charles Avenue in New Orleans, where this community—past, present, and future—converges. It is a community that belongs to no one group, but it is a constellation of communities, which we call Loyola University. I think we are here today to celebrate our coming together again as a community, as a university in this place. Collectively we make up the intellectual and spiritual community that is this university. We are what we are, as a community, because of all the parts that make up the community.
So today, as we gather, we are celebrating our coming together as a community. We are back where we belong. But, I think we celebrate even more.
We gather here, in this place, because we are tied, as a university, to the city of New Orleans and this region. Jesuits were among the earliest explorers and settlers in this city and territory. They arrived early in the 18th century. The history of the work of the Jesuits in the city and territory is tied to events in the area. The histories are old and inseparable. The Jesuits helped to explore and establish this city. The different Jesuit enterprises, schools, parishes, and other ministries have dealt with the natural threats that have come to the region.
For example, in the 19th century there were several outbreaks of yellow fever, which threatened the Jesuits and their schools and other works. (Indeed, in 1905, when Loyola was operating essentially as a high school, there was an outbreak of yellow fever in September. Students and their families had to leave the city. So we are not the first evacuation in Loyola’s history. Classes resumed four weeks later in October.) Jesuits and their schools were also threatened by human threats as well, such as the Civil War. Nevertheless, in spite of these threats the Jesuits remained and kept their commitment to serve the city, particularly through education. Today we renew that commitment yet again. In gathering here we renew the Jesuit commitment to the city of New Orleans.
Our commitment to the city should surprise no one who is familiar with Loyola or Jesuit education. Jesuit education celebrates the full range of intellectual power and achievements. Jesuit education also assumes that while knowledge is good, it is not an end in itself. Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, Superior General of the Society of Jesus, has distinguished Jesuit education from Cardinal Newman’s idea of a university where knowledge is an end it itself. Kolvenbach has written that while higher education surely has intrinsic value, Jesuit higher education must always ask: “For whom? For what? The answer to these questions will always be related to the common good and the progress of human society.” 1 In a Jesuit university the exploration of any area of knowledge is always done with an eye for making us better and more fully human, and our world a place where humanity can flourish.2 The very purpose of Jesuit education is for service and not only direct service, but service through the mind, the spirit, the intellect, the professions, the arts, music, and the sciences. It is service that is ethically grounded and driven.
Our community service programs, under the umbrella of LUCAP, have been in existence for more than 25 years. They are well known in the city and nationally. This morning Stephen Goldsmith, chair of the Corporation for National and Community Service, was on campus to speak to the Government Effectiveness Committee of the Mayor’s Bring New Orleans Back Commission. He noted that Loyola, and all Jesuit higher education, is noted for its commitment to service and the integration of service, learning, and research. These programs and student participation in them will continue, will grow and flourish in our current environment. Our service to the city also involves the work of many individuals such as Mike Cowan, Director of Boggs Literacy Center, who has served on the Education and Government Committees of the Mayor’s Bring New Orleans Back Commission. Other members of the Loyola community have served on other committees such as Richard McCarthy’s service on the Cultural Committee along with Loyola trustee, Mrs. Pam Ryan.
Along with other Jesuit universities in the United States and throughout the world, Loyola has been at the forefront of service learning programs. These too will certainly continue, thrive, and develop this year and into the future. The connection between the intellectual enterprise and service has always been at the heart of Jesuit education. This connection is not new to us; rather it is integral to what we are as a university, not something new.
I also want to take a moment to say thank you. We are able to gather here today because countless members of the Loyola community have worked tirelessly in the last four months to make this day possible. Every day, when I would find some quiet time for prayer, I would give thanks for the people who worked so hard, in the midst of their own losses and tragedies, to keep this university together. The people in our remote offices in Houston and Alexandria answered phone calls and questions, addressed students and parents, and made sure we made payroll, while their own homes had been damaged or lost. I think of faculty members and deans and our provost, who worked tirelessly with students around the country to advise them, and helped develop courses for this semester and online courses as well. I was thankful for the advancement staff that worked with me and our alumni leaders to visit the alumni chapters and raise resources that would help us. I am thankful to my own staff (particularly Gail Howard and Sr. Annie Ramagos) and the vice presidents, who put up with my ill-tempered nature. Without all these people, and many more, we would not be here today. “Thank you” seems inadequate, but it will have to do.
Yesterday I spoke with the faculty and staff and spoke about the challenges we face. I also spoke of the opportunities and the promise before us. Today, I began by questioning the obvious. I would like to end by pointing out the obvious. We do not gather just to be together. We gather to work. We gather to do the intellectual work of the university that is service. We gather to renew the university in its work—its intellectual and spiritual commitment to the city, the region, and the nation. We gather not to stay huddled or tell stories but to move into the world and change it for the better. We seek not only to do our work, but to do it better than before. The quest for excellence and quality is the work of a university. We are not what we were before. Indeed, I believe we will be stronger.
I have borrowed from the poet Tennyson before, and his words from “Ulysses” never seemed more appropriate than they do today. We are…
“One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”
“Come, my friends,
’Tis not too late to seek a newer world…”
________
1. Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, S.J., “The Jesuit University in the Light of the Ignatian Charism.” Address to the International Meeting of Jesuit Higher Education, Rome, May 27, 2001, #26.
2. M. Cathleen Kaveny, “Autonomy, Solidarity, and Law’s Pedagogy,” The University and the Human in a Pluralistic Age, pp. 25 - 41. Loyola University New Orleans, 2006. This essay provides an excellent example of how knowledge can be used to shape society.
