Loyola hosts conference for Jesuit honors programs
March 13, 2015
The Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities celebrated a milestone at Loyola last weekend.
This year marked the 10th anniversary of the annual AJCU honors conference, which brought honors students and program directors from Jesuit colleges and universities to Loyola on March 6 and 7.
Naomi Yavneh Klos, director of Loyola’s honors program, planned the conference to focus on the characteristics of Jesuit honors programs.
“We will be focusing on next steps as we contemplate what is specifically ‘Jesuit’ about honors at AJCU institutions,” Yavneh said before the conference.
The conference opened March 6 with remarks from the Rev. Michael Sheeran, S.J., president of AJCU. Sheeran spoke on the state of federal financial aid and its effects on Jesuit colleges and universities.
He stated that, because of limited funding, Jesuit institutions were beginning to combine and share resources as a way to strengthen one another’s programs.
His talk was followed by a speech from the Rev. Fred Kammer, S.J., head of the Jesuit Social Research Institute at Loyola who led a session on the “Pastoral Circle in Honors,” a method of evaluating social injustices and the actions that can be taken to remedy them within an honors curriculum.
Conference events on Saturday included an ethics discussion and a celebratory lunch. The conference closed with a vigil Mass at the Saint Louis Cathedral.
Rachel Dufour, chemistry sophomore, was a student organizer for the conference.
“This is really the perfect occasion to voice the importance of the Jesuit values in our program and how we can implement them in a successful and constructive manner,” Dufour said.
Above all, planners said the goal of the event was to build community among AJCU honors students and faculty.
“I hope participants will feel a greater sense of connectedness as a Jesuit honors community, rather than just consider themselves representative of their individual institutions,” Yavneh said.
Gabe Harper, Regis University junior who attended the conference, said he believes the conference met the planners’ goals.
“At first, I was surprised at learning how different we were from each other, but there is no better city to celebrate difference in than New Orleans. It was particularly easy knowing all the strange faces around me were united under shared values of academics, rigor, service, leadership and compassion. It is very easy to feel trapped in an ‘Honors bubble,’ so seeing just how far this community reaches, to see the heights it can reach, is nothing short of spectacular,” Harper said.
