Nine professors from diverse academic backgrounds have been selected for the new Ignatian Faculty Fellows program, aimed at strengthening the presence of Jesuit values within Loyola classrooms.

The Ignatian Faculty Fellows Program requires the nine selected Ignatian Fellows to participate in a bi-weekly seminar starting in the spring semester of 2013. The program is focused on ingraining Ignatian values into teaching methods and to deepen the understanding of the university mission.

“Fellows will have a rich trove of resources to draw on when thinking about how to teach in a way that resonates with the university’s mission,” John Sebastian, English professor and the program’s coordinator, said in an email.

The Ignatian Faculty Fellows Program precludes “that all Loyola faculty, regardless of religious beliefs or academic discipline can be Ignatian and that to connect the mission of the university to the work of the classroom is the responsibility of all Loyola faculty,” Sebastian said.

“I think as the number of Jesuit priests decreases, the university is smart to look at innovative ways of educating faculty to have a greater understanding of Ignatius, Jesuit institutions and the mission and vision for the university,” Gwendolyn George, nursing assistant professor, doctoral program coordinator and one of the new Ignatian fellows, said in an email.

The application of Ignatian values will be done across different schools within the university, as the fellows are professors from diverse academic disciplines.

“It is important that we create time and space on campus for thinking critically about our own vocation as teachers,” Sebastian said.

The University Honors Program director and new Ignatian fellow Naomi Yavneh described making the conscious transition to Loyola University for the values and missions which Jesuit education entails.

“One of my stated goals is to make Honors more explicitly Ignatian,” Yavneh said in an email.

New fellow member Artemis Preeshl, a theater arts and dance professor, believes that Jesuit teachings are valuable simply by the nature of theater.

“By placing one’s self in another’s shoes, as we do in acting, social justice becomes more than ideal; it becomes an action,” Preeshl said in an email.

The Ignatian Faculty Fellows Program hopes to encourage students to learn life lessons and learning skills on par with the Jesuit values described by the university mission.

Jessica DeBold can be reached at [email protected]