Next year, I’m going to be doing a hard-as-hell, prestigious job in New Orleans that focuses on helping those in need in New Orleans by using my intellect. Sadly, Loyola has done remarkably little to help practically train me for the job. I, and other student leaders from Loyola, am going to be teaching in the New Orleans public school system next year through Teach for America. Loyola has not been able to train us for our teaching jobs, because there have been no education classes at Loyola since spring 2006.
In April 2006, the Pathways Plan cut the education department, along with others because of a “fiduciary responsibility to preserve the endowment” emerging out of Hurricane Katrina, according to a quote by the Rev. Kevin Wildes, S.J., university president, in an April ’06 Maroon story. I should disclose that I was Student Government Association vice president when the Pathways Plan was introduced.
Though I have a list of issues with Pathways as a whole, I want to focus on the education department in this space. As a student preparing to teach in New Orleans, I see how Loyola’s lack of an education department hurts its students, New Orleans and the school as a whole.
Students who want to teach after graduation have a large hurdle to overcome (lack of teaching experience.) They have no chance to learn teaching dynamics in a local school through any opportunities at Loyola. Many of my fellow soon-to-be teachers would have benefited from taking some education courses before graduation, so that we could at least begin processing the idea of teaching in a classroom. The only chance a student has to interact with students through education is through service projects. These informal groups lack the resources and staff to accommodate many students.
The absence of a department also hurts New Orleans. The city needs more energetic, intelligent teachers to work in the public school system. The lack of an education department decreases the number of well-trained teachers Loyola produces every year.
Finally, the lack of an education department makes Loyola a weaker institution. Loyola cannot form the forward-thinking, education-based community partnerships that would strengthen its status as a “social justice university.” Some Catholic universities, such as Seton Hall, work with low-enrollment Catholic secondary schools to provide undergraduates as assistant teachers and graduates as teachers. Other universities have begun forming partnerships with new charter or public schools. Loyola has missed out on a chance to further market itself as a New Orleans-based university because of the lack of a department.
Perhaps someone at Loyola will learn this soon enough.
