If you want to talk philosophy, Dr. Ernestine Riggs has a lot to say about why Loyola faculty members are such great professors.

“Loyola faculty members have a genuine love of the profession, are dedicated to our students, and strive to exemplify what we teach,” she says. “At Loyola, our students expect a top-notch education, and they receive it because we have a top-notch faculty.”

Loyola professors bring years of experience and studied insights that contribute to their excellence as educators. For her part, Dr. Riggs has been teaching in Loyola’s School of Education since 1988. Among other places, she spent 28 years in the Chicago Public Schools, and even taught in Japan for the Department of Defense Overseas Schools, where she earned an Outstanding Elementary Teacher of America award. She’s taught Head Start, primary, intermediate, middle school, special education, and high school. That’s a pretty impressive resume.

At Loyola, our faculty’s outstanding experience merges with a commitment to research that matters. The results? Great benefits for students. “Our research has reason and meaning, and that’s to give students the foundation to apply it in practical situations,” says Riggs. Faculty members also guide undergraduate students in performing purposeful research: “As students perform research and reflect on it, they see ways to solve problems they’ve encountered. Students graduate Loyola with a renewed spirit and faith in their ability to make a difference.”

Loyola professors are dedicated role models for student success. “We help our students develop a real-life approach. We want them to carry with them what we’ve modeled—caring, concern, demand for high-quality knowledge, and the idea that people are as alike as they are different.”

Riggs has a philosophy, too, about what makes Loyola students so great: their immense enthusiasm, enormous pride in becoming skillful, and their great expectations for their careers. Talk about top-notch.