Strategic Context
We must be more
entrepreneurial, nimble, and forever open to change. We also must remain lean and efficient to reduce costs for our students.
We bring together an extraordinary faculty and staff, whose loyalty to Loyola’s students has inspired them to work ever harder for static, or at times, decreasing amounts of compensation during the last decade.
Loyola must also diversify its revenue to avoid overreliance on undergraduate tuition at a time of disruption in that market.
We build on key advantages as we work to attract more students and ask those who can afford it to pay more for excellence. This generation of students prefers urban institutions, in authentic and exciting cities. We know that we can do more to capture the zeitgeist of New Orleans. Students also prefer diverse campuses that look like the world, as Loyola proudly does.
Loyola must grow
its revenue to meet its needs, to compensate its people as they deserve, and to maintain the kind of steady revenue growth necessary for cost-of-living increases and merit-based pay.
Students increasingly also prefer pragmatic and professional fields of study over the traditional liberal arts, and larger schools over small. We are a medium-sized liberal arts college with historic strengths in business, law, and the sciences. As we look ahead, we will need to capitalize on our most popular programs while continuing to make a case for the study of the humanities.
Finally, we seek to preserve and strengthen our core Jesuit identity with a declining number of Jesuit priests. For students, nothing can replace the transformative nature of engaging directly with the Jesuits, whose wisdom and skills are honed through decades of training. If we are to sustain our core mission, we must spread those skills throughout our faculty and staff. We cannot ask the remaining priests among us to carry that mission for us alone. St. Ignatius designed his Spiritual Exercises as a layperson, for all people, and we must carry on the work of formation. Our Jesuit identity stands as our calling card; it establishes our credibility as educators who change lives; and it is the entire point of our institution.