When we started at Loyola, most of us didn’t know who we were or how much we could experience in just four years’ time. We believe that at Loyola, behind every successful student is a professor who embraced our potential and challenged us. We would like to take this opportunity to thank those professors who have shaped our college careers thus far – the ones that want nothing more than to see us triumph in the world.

We appreciate those professors who are brutally honest and still give us encouragement. We love you for teaching with us and not simply at us. Thank you for finding joy in our grasp of theories and ideas, for letting us believe that we’ve absorbed just a snippet of your intelligence. The following professors have done all of this and more for us,

Jon Altschul, assistant professor of philosophy, thank you for awakening the philosopher within us that we never knew we had.

John Biguenet, distinguished professor of English, thank you for never failing to teach us something new about literature, life and ourselves.

Brad Petitfils, director of campus planning, teaches his students to think independently. Thank you for opening our eyes to the rest of the world.

Lisa Martin, mass communication professor, thank you for having higher expectations of us than anyone has held us to before. You’ve made us strive to be better writers without the fluff. You showed us that we are individuals who make our own success. Thank you, we admire you greatly and still have your words written in our hearts.

Judith Hunt, associate dean of the College of Humanities and Natural Sciences, and Richard Wilson,  senior academic adviser, we thank you for meeting with us when we get ourselves in a rut. Sometimes we really need that extra push.

Michael Giusti, Maroon adviser, thank you for believing in us and our writing and always having an answer. You have never once said no, never once closed your door. You’ve always let us know that the sky’s the limit, that anything is possible, and that our capabilities are endless.

Artemis Preeshl, associate professor of theatre and dance, thank you for taking a chance on us and showing us the good there is in the world. You have challenged us to take the world and flip it on its head just to get a different angle. We cannot thank you enough.

Lewis Lawrence, associate professor of psychology, you have encouraged us to make the most of our love of psychology and French. You’ve always been supportive and available to us, even when you should be resting and we love you for it.

John Clark, philosophy professor, who is retiring at the end of this academic year, we thank you for teaching us how to live and love in communities and that they are as important as we are. We will miss you.

Connie Rodriguez, associate professor of languages, thank you for having such a great sense of humor and for being one of our nicest professors on campus.

Behrooz Moazami, professor of history, we thank you for remembering our names and always stopping to ask how we are doing. We might have only been in one of your classes years ago and you still brighten our day every time we see you.

Roger White, interim dean and professor in the College of Social Sciences, Thank you for letting us believe, even if it’s for 50 minutes, that our arguments, ideas and class banter is equivalent to participation and worthy of a grade.

Laura Murphy, associate professor of English, we are in your debt from helping us go abroad and readily sharing advice to get us where we need to be. Thank you for changing the way we think about the world and how we write about it.

Frank Jordan, biology professor, thank you for showing us how cool fish and science can be. We love your pop culture references and teaching style.

Barbara Ewell, professor of english, thank you for awakening our inner feminists, and expanding our social justice awareness from literature, to pop culture, to real life.

We will never forget the amazing university employees who impact our Loyola experience. Thank you to all of the staff members that empathetically work with students, get to know us and readily improve our college affairs.

Eldon Ahrold, technology coordinator, without you mass communication students would suffer daily heart attacks from server crashes. We thank you for always answering our calls and finding ways to get what we need working again.

Mark Bush, assistant director of the University Sports Complex, thank you for acknowledging that the athletics department would not be able to function properly without your work-study students and other employees.

Joe Deegan, associate chaplain, we are so glad to have you leading our community outreach program, the Loyola University Programing Board. Thank you for making us brave and encouraging us to change the world.

Miss Annette, who works for Sodexo in the Orleans Room, we want to thank you this time “baby”, for making our dining escapades that much better and always smiling regardless of what may be going on in your life.

Kate Adams, professor of English, for hugging us on our birthdays when you’ve only known us for one month. Thank you for encouraging us in writing about our truth in memoir form.

In general, we want to thank WFF Facility Services workers, Sodexo employees, and the Physical Plant for aiding our university in its day to day function and capabilities. Our appreciation of you goes beyond words.

Loyola has exceeded our expectations. It really helps to be recognized as individuals by everyone from the post office workers, to the custodial staff and our advisers who’ve counseled us each time we decided to change our majors, minors and career paths.

By the end of four years, Loyola faculty and staff members have put faith back into our potential and pushed us to evolve into passionate adults. In the face of recent and unfortunate cuts, we want you all to know that we appreciate you and Loyola students need university employees such as yourselves to make our college experience great.

The editorial is the majority opinion of the editorial board.

Give a shout-out to the faculty and staff members who have made your Loyola experience great by posting a tweet or status using #thankloyno