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Shining a light on service

 By Anna Gaynor

Loyola recently received two national honors for its commitment to social justice—and it only took about 5,700 students and 593,000 hours of community service in a single year to get there.

“The mission and vision of Loyola University Chicago have a common statement,” said Patrick Green, director for the Center for Experiential Learning. “It’s to ‘expand knowledge in the service of humanity through learning, justice, and faith.’ We don’t just say that or provide lip service to that, but here at Loyola, we actually bring that to life.”

The first award Loyola received, announced in December, is the President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll. The annual list recognizes colleges and universities that reach out to the surrounding community and direct their students toward a life of civic engagement.

The program divides schools into four categories. While Loyola received an honorable mention in General Service, Interfaith Community Service, and Economic Opportunity, it was named one of four Honor Roll Finalists in the Education category.

Green points to Loyola’s work with Nicholas Senn High School on Chicago’s North Side as an example of the University’s working to improve community schools. More than 40 faculty members and nearly 200 students—from the Schools of Education and Communication, plus other departments on campus—volunteered at Senn during the 2012-13 school year. The volunteers helped with a variety of efforts, from improving affordable housing to encouraging organic family farming.

“Students understand that the community is not a laboratory for learning but rather that they’ll be able to work there in solidarity—and through that work enhance their learning and understand real-life issues,” Green said.

This type of engagement has placed the university within the top 20 of the 766 schools that applied, and Green notes it’s a commitment Loyola strives to keep woven through programs inside and outside the classroom.

“Students by the very nature of attending here and graduating from here understand community engagement, not as a box to check, but as a lifestyle, as something that they will continue to do whether they become a financial leader in the banking world or whether they are a social worker or a teacher,” Green said.

On top of the President’s Honor Roll designation, Loyola also received the Carnegie Community Engagement Classification in early January. This title is given to universities and colleges working to exchange knowledge and resources with their communities. Today, only 361 campuses in the country have earned the distinction.

The Carnegie Classification began in 2006 and has only named honorees in 2008 and 2010 since then. Loyola last received the Carnegie Classification in 2008, and after receiving this latest honor, it will not have to reapply until 2025.

For 2015, however, Green and the others who worked on the application had to show how the University has continued its work in the community, and how it has improved that commitment over the past several years.

Green said it took more than 100 people at Loyola to build both applications—and to highlight the diverse programs on campus committed to making a difference in the world.

“I would frame this as an invitation,” Green said. “I think the strength of an education at Loyola University Chicago is an invitation to lifelong community engagement. Our graduates have the potential to be scholars, critical thinkers, as well as activists and agents for change in society.”

• See how you can get involved at the Center for Experiential Learning.