Members of Loyola’s design department have submitted a petition to administration with the goal of naming a section of campus Kendall Court after Kendall Daigle, a student who passed away in 2014 at 19.
Daniela Marx along with her two interns, Mimi Ryall and Kristen Goodley, launched the petition to designate the green space around the Chapel of St. Ignatius and the Gayle and Tom Benson Jesuit Center.
A memorial for Daigle was built behind the chapel in 2024. The memorial is a metal tree sculpture.
Marx, associate professor of graphic design and associate director of the school of communication and design, selects interns every semester to work on the Kendall Collective, an organization that works to highlight the works of Daigle and promote the creative endeavors of other students.
“The Kendall Collective is about fostering creativity as well as keeping in mind mental health and seeing how that all intertwined in making sure that students feel connected with that,” Ryall said. “That’s our mission; to bring that to Loyola.”
The area of campus currently has no name, but Ryall and Goodley, two senior graphic design majors, along with Marx, thought it’d be better to advocate for the space to be named before an outside donor names it.
“We’re trying to get in there before anything happens, we’re trying to get it locked down,” Ryall said. “We feel it would be strange for Kendall’s family and also for Kendall to have that [space] not named after her.”
Bloom Fest is also hosted annually behind the chapel and in front of Monroe Hall. The festival is intended to celebrate creativity in memory of Daigle through film, theatre, design, and music students sharing their creative works.
Naming the greenspace was an initiative started by last year’s interns. Ryall and Goodley want to keep their project going while adding their own touches to the area such as pavers and benches. They want to make it a “peaceful environment.”
“We’re looking at getting benches there that are fun but also you want to sit there, you want to chat, you want to eat your lunch. It’s in a very nice area, the sun hits there, the grass is nice,” Ryall said.
According to Goodley, their goal is to make the location a place where students can hang out in between classes, even if it takes a year or two.
Loyola President Xavier Cole received the petition. The pair have yet to hear back from him.
“We have to show that students want this. We do want it, the students want it. We think it’s right,” Ryall said. “We want to share more about Kendall’s story and the mission.”
According to Goodley, naming the space would have the added benefit of helping students identify where certain events are held, like Bloom Fest, but it holds a deeper meaning.
“It is a memorial for a student that went here… It’s not some outside donor, it’s not named after Loyola. It has a specific reasoning behind it,” Goodley said. “I think that’s the special and important part of it.”
