It is a common and accepted practice for institutions of higher education in the United States to date their founding to the day and year when the first instruction was offered. LMU began when the Society of Jesus opened the high school division of their newly founded Los Angeles College on September 11, 1911 with 80 boys of high school age. It changed names three times by the time it became Loyola University of Los Angeles in 1930 on a third site (our present Westchester campus). With the merger of Loyola University and Marymount College in 1973 the name changed again. Loyola Marymount University’s centennial will begin with commencement in 2011 and conclude with Commencement in 2012, naming graduates of both classes as “Centennial Classes.” To express the theme more definitively in various promotional forms, extended theme usage is: “LMU at 100: Learn. Lead. Serve.” The theme resonates across the university’s stakeholders and constituents as it encompasses the breadth and diversity of the university’s past, present and future. As the university honors its remarkable history and recognizes itself as a leader in higher education, the theme seeks to celebrate LMU’s commitment to its areas of distinction through emphases on the following centennial messages:
Academic Excellence
LMU is recognized nationally as an outstanding higher education institution. The university takes pride in its rich intellectual heritage, its first-rate programs, and the vibrant academic community that it serves. The university fosters a student-centered environment in which scholarly pursuits, intellectual curiosity, creative passions, and lively discourse come fully alive. LMU is a preeminent Catholic university, not only because of the opportunities it affords for worship and spiritual enrichment but especially because of the Catholic intellectual tradition that it nurtures. It is a tradition that encourages students, faculty and community members of all religions or none to speak freely about values, ethics, and God. It is a tradition that sees a mutually fertile relationship between faith and reason--between culture and religion--and thus promotes a deeper understanding of the issues and dilemmas of our complex modern society.
Jesuit and Marymount Traditions: Education of the Whole Person
The distinctive character of the university is enhanced by the educational heritage of its founding and sponsoring religious orders: the Society of Jesus (Jesuits), the Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary (Marymount Sisters), the Sisters of St. Joseph of Orange and by many dedicated lay men and women. Within this Catholic, Jesuit and Marymount tradition, the university leads by example as it strives to educate the whole person. This commitment interweaves a broad range of ideals forming a tapestry that includes a passion for intellectual acumen, a diverse and pluralistic learning community, a genuine Christian inspiration and interreligious and intercultural dialogue. The education of the whole person is achieved in a learning environment that integrates rigorous inquiry, creative imagination, reflective engagement with society and a commitment to fashioning a more humane and just world.
Diversity and Interculturalism
The University understands diversity and interculturalism as a fundamental aspect of its mission and identity where people of all backgrounds come together to speak, listen, learn, debate and flourish. It is the socioeconomic, cultural, religious, intellectual and other diverse traditions of the community in which the richness and promise of this all-inclusive approach thrives and succeeds.
Social Justice, Providing Opportunities and Community Service
For decades, the university has sought to provide educational opportunities for under-represented groups. The university leads by example through its commitment to human rights and equality, concepts that are pervasive and enrich its curricula and co-curricular programs and initiatives. In the university’s quest for providing opportunities, it looks toward attitudinal change as a prompt for students to understand the causes of injustice and to work for humanizing changes in society.
LMU actively engages and shapes the world through its service to others. This focus comes to fruition not simply on a personal level but in a sense of one’s place in the global village and concern for others in need. Today’s men and women for others are able to see beyond the bounds of culture and class and are eager to work for the common good wherever it is thwarted by economic, political or social injustice.
Crossroads of Place and Time: Los Angeles, the Church and the Global Community
LMU is ideally located in Los Angeles, the great world city of this still-new millennium. It is a place where the promise and problems of the modern world play out most intensely. The university is integrally connected to Los Angeles as it sends its students out into the diverse community to live, to work and to become catalysts for positive change. Los Angeles is the perfect reality classroom, and LMU prepares its students to be citizens and shapers of the world.
LMU is a preeminent Catholic university – one where students, faculty and community members of all religious traditions speak freely about values, ethics and God. The university’s religious background actively encourages a deeper understanding of the issues and dilemmas of a complex modern society. The Catholic intellectual tradition sees a mutually fertile relationship between faith and reason and thus seeks to promote dialogue between culture and religion.
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