Summer letter, 2007 to Loyola Families
July 25, 2007
Dear Loyola Students and Families:
I have a good friend who says the two best events of the academic year are matriculation of first year students in the fall and graduation of seniors in the spring. Both events blossom with promise as abundantly as the magnolia trees that I’ve come to love so well. As parents, you know exactly what I mean! Your role as parents has been to glimpse promise in your child’s eyes and do everything you can to help make promise a reality. You’ve entrusted your student to Loyola, and it’s is my job—it’s been my privilege—to partner with you in my first year as your Vice President for Student Affairs and Associate Provost, helping to make sure Loyola does everything it can to fulfil the promise of a Loyola education.
I take time, then, to share with you the promises kept and the promise I see for the future.
I arrived last summer and knew that Loyola deserved my best skills at evaluation, analysis, and program development, and I think the first promise I kept was completing such important work in the professional areas that comprise the division of student affairs. As a team, we made sure we understood the promise of our professional work, that potential each of us had to make your student’s education just about the best it can be. How did we do?
Co-curricular Education and Programming
Thanks to the energy of the staff, students and Board of Trustees, the Danna Center will be refurbished; the Board has approved $2 million for the project and our food service provider, Sodexho, will contribute $1 million. We’ve been working with one of the best collegiate architects in the nation to draw up our plans, who also happens to be a graduate of Loyola, and currently on the Board of Trustees. Those of you who have known Loyola can feel good that the students’ wishes and needs for a better, more functional, more attractive student center will finally be realized.
A renewed space symbolizes the renewed energy in the newly renamed office of co-curricular education and programming. This past year we kept these promises:
- Initiated review of the Center for Student Leadership Development.
- Reorganized New Student Orientation and Co-curricular Programming and Education.
- Reviewed Student Judicial Code and Student Handbook
- Refocused, with a sharper co-curricular lens, attention to our First Year students, sophomores with an emphasis on a capstone experience for Juniors and Seniors.
- Hired two Assistant Directors of Co-curricular Programming and Education in a national search.
- Instituted ‘Goal Quest’ pilot program specifically for FY students and their adjustment to Loyola University.
Counseling and Career Services
One of the first things I did when I arrived is to recognize that the promise in the areas of counseling services and career services could not be met when the two offices functioned as one. Each needed the dedicated leadership now in place with Dr. Alicia Bourque as Director of Counseling Services and Ms. Roberta Kaskal as Director of Career Services. We brought in a consultant to help us see even better the strengths and opportunities in career services; already we’ve begun to work on academic internships and experiential leaning programs, and I hope you’ll watch our progress in this office over the next year—or better yet, ask your student just how dynamic, innovative and responsive the career services office will become.
Student Health Services
Really, now, there might not be anything more important to you, and to us, than keeping the promise of health and well being, so your student can learn quickly, grow, mature, and thrive. We spent a lot of time this year assessing our student health services functions and we are in negotiations with Louisiana State University Health Science Center to service our Student Health needs, and with Tulane University for ambulance/emergency services program and 24/7 physician on-call services. Loyola’s own excellent nursing program will soon play a role in student health services, providing health and wellness programming to our student body.
We may never have to rely on it, but I want you to know that another promise kept this year was the completion of Loyola’s Pandemic Flu Preparedness Plan. Far-fetched? Remember this spring’s incident of the international travel of the man infected with drug-resistant tuberculosis? The unthinkable can happen. Our plans to prevent, treat and care for students, faculty and staff who may be exposed to an infectious disease are plans of the greatest importance, and plans we hope will never become a reality.
Residential Life
Many new faces and new ideas in residential life this year brought new energy to the team! We have two assistant directors and a new associate director, all professionals hired from national searches for the best candidates. The pilot program for the First-Year Experience: the Faculty In Residence program, and with the new Faculty/Staff “Opening Doors” program for first-year students were energizing for faculty, staff and students. I promise, next year you’ll see a big leap forward in our residential education programs, with an increased number of living/learning communities and affinity housing, a strengthened Honors Living/Learning community, development of residential education programming and refurbishment of all residential lounges
Athletics and Wellness
As I have come to know Loyola, I admire and support our unique,intercollegiate athletic program—the only program in the nation completely created and funded by students. (In 2004, Loyola launched a pilot program to give scholarships to three men's basketball players and three women's basketball players during each of the next three years. The pilot program has exceded expectations and expanded to accommodate 19 scholarships. We hope to see an incremental increase to our other sports.) Our Wellness and Fitness program is an enhancement to our historically strong recreation and intramural program. Student-centeredness—making sure that we keep students at the heart of our decisions and empowering students to seek and to accept responsibility—are two tenets of my educational philsophy, so I was thrilled to work with the students, professional staff and coaches in athletics and wellness. This first year was a learning year for me, and next year I anticipate—no, I promise! that we’ll have thorough discussions about expanding our programs to include community-wide comprehensive wellness and personal training programs.
Resources and Information
Loyola has a detailed, comprehensive emergency prepardeness plan, and as hurricane season approaches, I call your attention to our Emergency and Safety Preparedness Website at www.loyno.edu/emergency/ . I urge you to read the Web page as soon as you finish this letter and then talk as a family about your student’s personal evacuation plan. All resident students are required to have such a plan on file with us.
Another reminder that all students entering the university for the first time and those residing in campus housing must be immunized against meningoccal disease. Those who fail to comply will have their registration cancelled. Please go to the Student Health Center, Danna Center, and fill out the proper paperwork and receive the immunization. Our Immunization policy can be located at www.loyno.edu/studenthealth/immunizations.html
Wolfpack Welcome
The summer months are flying by and before you know it we will welcome about 640 new students to Loyola, a new first year class of 540, transfers of at least 100. We are looking forward to welcoming this bright and talented group of students.
New students attending the August “preview” report for move-in on Aug. 22 at 9:00 am; all returning students (including new students who came to the June “previews”) report for move-in on Aug. 24 at 9:00 am.
Wolfpack Welcome will begin on Aug. 24 and run through Labor Day, September 3. Events to acquaint students with Loyola and New Orleans will be on-going! During the week, you’ll have the chance to learn more about our theme for the the year: “Purpose Beyond Self.” We’ve asked all first-years students to read Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder, and we’ll have a book discussion group during orientation. Tracy Kidder will speak on campus Oct. 18, at 7:00 p.m. I’m also looking forward to the Wolfpack Welcome city tour of various community service and social justice projects sponsored by the Loyola University Community Action program (LUCAP) and the riverboat cruise down the Mississippi!Fall Highlights
Mark your calendars and watch for more information about this fall events:
Family Weekend September 28-30
Loyola Week Oct. 1- 7 highlighting University mission and identity
Wolves on the Prowl- (Loyola’s national day of service for all students, alums and friends of Loyola) – Nov. 3
Doing Well by Doing Good
Loyola University blossoms with promise, for sure, promises that I remember every day as I work with my colleagues, with the faculty, and with the students. I need to ask you for a few more minutes as I talk about the most important promise of all: the promise your young adults represent for a better world. Loyola students are energized about making a difference, and too, they are excited about seeing things happen to make Loyola a better place to live. Let me tell you a little about one of the students who helped fulfill the promise of my first year, Sheree Tarver. Sheree is a junior psychology major, an Orientation leader, a member of the Black Student Union, the Genesis Gospel Choir, and student government. She works in the Co-curricular Education office, so I see her a lot, and she always welcomes me with a hug. When I consider Loyola’s mission “to develop students into a new generation of leaders who possess a love for truth, the critical intelligence to pursue it, and the courage to articulate it” and I think of Sheree, I know we’re doing good by doing well with each and every one of our students. And here’s my hope for Sheree. When she graduates next May, I hope she’ll begin her own graduate student for a career in student life. She’s exactly the kind of good, smart, generous person who will help our next generation of college students find their promise.
All my best. See you soon!
Sincerely,
M. L. Petty, Ph.D
Vice President for Student Affairs and
Associate Provost
mlpetty@loyno.edu
(Feel free to sign up for “DP’s Dailies”- a daily thought for the student body and a good way for me to communicate with students who I haven’t met yet!)
http://www.loyno.edu/studentaffairs/dpdailies.php