Loyola Marymount University is celebrating a momentous milestone in its history: the inauguration of its 15th president, David W. Burcham. The university community will come together on March 8, 2011 to commemorate the installation of our new leader as we approach the university's second century. You can learn more about the inauguration here.
On October 4, the LMU Board of Trustees unanimously elected David W. Burcham as the 15th president of the university after a nationwide search. Burcham, who currently serves as the university’s interim president and is a 1984 graduate of Loyola Law School, will be the first lay president in the university’s 99-year history.
Burcham’s association with LMU began in 1981. He graduated first in his class from Loyola
Law School and, after seven years in public and private practice, he returned to the law school and teaching. He was appointed senior vice president and dean of the law school in
2000, and served in that capacity until 2008 when he was named LMU’s executive vice president and provost. In 2010, Burcham took over leadership of the university when
Robert B. Lawton, S.J. resigned for health reasons.
In his first Convocation as President (October 14, 2010) in the Chapel of the Sacred Heart, President Burcham spoke of the next steps the university will take to honor its Catholic heritage. Here are some excerpts:
This may come as a surprise to some of you, but I am not a Jesuit. In fact, for the first time in our history, someone who is not a Jesuit is leading LMU. We're not alone. Nine out of the current 28 Jesuit universities have non‐Jesuits as their presidents, so we're not the only institution that is adjusting to this change. But adjust we will. I want to pause right here and from my heart acknowledge my gratitude to our Jesuit community and to our women religious for their courage and their willingness to embrace this change and to partner with me, and with you, as we all work together to advance our mission.
In his Mission Day address here, in this place, a year and a half ago, Father Adolfo Nicolás, the superior general of the Society of Jesus, said that “Jesuits have found their long history of involvement in many cultures, traditions, and religions to be something which profoundly enhances and clarifies and, indeed, shapes their identity.” In this same light, I hope to work with each of you to enhance and clarify the Jesuit and Marymount traditions that make us so special. That is my goal because first and foremost I love LMU.
At the same time, in order to advance our mission as a Catholic and Jesuit‐Marymount university, I believe we simply have to increase the number of religious on our campus, and especially in our classrooms. In this respect, I will be working with others in a concerted effort to recruit and hire more Jesuits and more women religious who can all contribute to our educational mission.
LMU can never be greater than the sum of its parts, and its parts are each of us. So more fully realizing our potential as a university has to begin with each of us as individuals. We must regularly recommit ourselves to our university values, to our mission . . .
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