Loyola Academy
Loyola Academy is a private, co-educational college preparatory high school run by the USA Midwest Province of the Society of Jesus in Wilmette, Illinois, a northern suburb of Chicago, and in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago. It is a member of the Jesuit Secondary Education Association and the largest Jesuit high school in America, with over 2,000 students from more than 80 different zip codes throughout the Chicago area. It was founded by the Jesuits in 1909.
For other places with the same name, see Loyola Academy (disambiguation).Loyola Academy
Private, Catholic, Non-profit Coeducational secondary (Grades 9-12) education institution
Men and Women for Others
1909
Rev. Gregory J. Ostdiek, SJ[1]
James Walsh '79
Timothy Devine '88 [2]
Suburban
- Main
Wilmette Campus
(Administration & Class room buildings - Satellite
Theodore G.Munz,SJ Campus
1901 Johns Drive
60 acres (240,000 m2)
(Athletic fields)
Maroon and gold[3]
34 different sports and over 80 athletic teams[3]
Rowdy the Ramble
Ramblers
The Prep[4]
The Year
History[edit]
Loyola Academy was founded as a Roman Catholic, Jesuit, college preparatory school for young men in 1909. The school was originally located in the Rogers Park neighborhood of Chicago, on the campus of Loyola University Chicago's Dumbach Hall; it moved to the current Wilmette campus in 1957. Both Loyola University and its prep school adjunct, Loyola Academy, grew out of St. Ignatius College Prep, a Roman Catholic, Jesuit college preparatory school in Chicago that was founded in 1870 as St. Ignatius College, with both university and preparatory programs for young men. While St. Ignatius transitioned to being solely a preparatory school and remained in the same location, Loyola Academy and University were established in Rogers Park. All three institutions were named after the Basque intellectual and a military officer in the army of a Duke, St. Ignatius of Loyola, who founded the Jesuits.
As a precondition to granting approval to move to the suburbs, the Archdiocese of Chicago required the Jesuits to stipulate that they would continue to serve the young Roman Catholic men of the city of Chicago. Consequently, Loyola Academy has had a significant representation of Chicago residents of various financial means, giving the school an economic diversity fairly unique in the Chicago area. This was achieved through the use of various scholarships and forms of financial aid.
Loyola Academy maintained the strict disciplinary and academic regimen seen in most of the exclusive American prep schools during the bulk of its history. Students were required to wear blazers and ties, maintain silence when moving between classes, attend weekly Mass on campus, address their teachers as either "sir" or "Father", and also maintain a demeanor befitting the Jesuit educational ideal of "Men for others."
One of Loyola's "sister schools" was Regina Dominican High School, an all-girls Academy located less than a mile away in Wilmette. Beginning in 1970, small groups of select Regina students began commuting to Loyola to take selected advanced science and computer science classes, as these classes were unavailable on their campus at the time.
The Jesuit presence has fallen off from what it once was, with some 40 priests teaching and working at the school in 1961, down to 11 out of roughly 200 staff members in 2007.[6] The priests left for a variety of reasons. Some left due to the child abuse cases surrounding the Catholic church.[7]
Loyola Academy affiliated with Saint Louise de Marillac High School, an all-girls high school from Northfield, Illinois and became co-educational in 1994. The affiliation was done for financial reasons. The President of Marillac was approached by Loyola to consider a co-ed option on the North Shore as requested by the Archdiocese.[8] About that same time, Loyola added on to their existing building. In 2003, Loyola Academy opened a new 60-acre (240,000 m2) campus in Glenview, Illinois. The property, near the decommissioned Glenview Naval Air Station (NAS Glenview), was purchased by Loyola in 2001[9] and now houses several athletic fields for lacrosse, baseball, softball, and soccer, a cross country path, and a wetland preserve area that has been used as a natural laboratory for science classes.
While Loyola Academy is a Jesuit, Catholic school, it has always admitted non-Catholics seeking a Loyola education.