Choosing Our Future

Planning has been a part of the life of Loyola University New Orleans for a number of years. In the academic year of 2004-05, I appointed a University Strategic Task Force and charged it with developing an integrated plan for the university. We were moving forward and had scheduled presenting the plan to the Board of Trustees at its first meeting of the 2005-06 academic year.

Now, in the aftermath of Katrina, we need to complete our planning in a way that positions the university to meet the challenges of the present and future. As the city faces its challenges, Loyola will be challenged to recruit new classes of high caliber students. So we need to make choices about how we will best use our resources and carry out the mission of the university. We live in a world of limited resources, and we must make choices about how we will use our resources to strengthen the university.

After consultation and evaluation, we are making basic and important recommendations about how the university is structured and what programs we will offer to meet the demands the future presents. In so doing, we are charting a proper course to best serve students as Loyola looks forward to beginning our second century in 2012.

In a world of limited resources we need to decide how to use them wisely since we cannot do everything or be everything. And so, we have looked for the best way to structure ourselves to provide academic programs that are important to the university’s mission, history and location.

We live in an exciting age in terms of knowledge. There is a continuing knowledge explosion. More and more people accept the “new” economy as knowledge based. Knowledge is increasingly more interdisciplinary. We must be certain that education reflects this fundamental change so that our graduates are successful leaders and contributors. Learning is not merely a passive process whereby students absorb knowledge. It is an active process that involves the creation of new knowledge. Teaching and research are inseparable. And we must look for ways to facilitate, more than ever, interdisciplinary teaching and research.

The proposals in “Pathways” look to the past and the future. It looks to the past by incorporating our heritage as well as recognizing key points in the planning work that has gone on at Loyola for many years. But in looking to our past, we realize that the environment around us has changed and simply because we have done something in the past does not mean we should continue to do it in the future. It also looks to the future as we move into our second century. This plan will carry us to that anniversary. “Pathways” focuses on improving the quality and enhancing the experience of students and faculty, staff and administrators. Simply put, the plan identifies efforts that will further nurture institutional excellence.

This plan will guide our work over the next five years, and we hope it is with your support and God’s blessings as we move toward our second century.

The Rev. Kevin Wildes, S.J., is the university president.