As a Jesuit university, Loyola strives to shape its students into "men and women for others" and outspoken citizens active in the community. Leaders and local activists in the Rogers Park neighborhood, however, feel that the school could do more to fulfill its role as a pillar of the community.
Loyola students make up a large portion of volunteers at organizations such as the Howard Area Community Center (HACC), the Good News Community Kitchen and elementary schools throughout the neighborhood.
The most common complaint is not a shortage of students willing to volunteer their time and energy to the community, but an absence of programs in particular special-needs areas of Rogers Park. Craig Gernhardt, who writes about community issues in his "Morse Hellhole" blog, feels that the university could reach out more to high school students in the neighborhood.
"Sullivan High School has a terrible dropout rate," Gernhardt said. "If Loyola offered professors to mentor [local] students and provided scholarship money, it would give them an opportunity to attend a world-class university right in their backyard."
Aldermanic candidates also expressed a desire to see Loyola reach out to high school students and help walk them through the process of getting accepted into college "to make the process less intimidating," as Jim Ginderske put it. The university has day-long college visits for students at the HACC Alternative High School and Field Elementary School, but critics say it should be doing more for local students.
Admissions counselor Amanda Dipman said Loyola tries to fulfill this role through its College Bridge Program, which helps students at local high schools improve their studying habits and prepares them to apply to colleges, as well as a number of recruitment programs to reach out to students who might be "disengaged from the college search process."
A major problem lies with underperforming public schools, which turn out students with low standardized test scores and little preparation for collegiate-level academics. The university's Conditional Admission and College Bridge Programs combat this by preparing the students early, around sophomore year.
"[The program] develops students to be admitted to Loyola so that they can see the rigor of college and also what they need to do for themselves in preparing for their college career," Dipman said.
Although the actual School of Education is located downtown at Loyola's Water Tower campus, a number of educational programs cater to people in Rogers Park, including service projects at the Stephen J. Hayt Elementary School, Swift Elementary School and Senn High School. Professor at Loyola's School of Education, Dorothy Giroux, said there are not enough education students to reach out to every struggling school in the community.
"We could always do more," Giroux said. "[We are somewhat] limited by the number of pre-service teachers to actually go into these schools and do the work."
Giroux also stated that Loyola students have begun working with students at Sullivan High School and are looking to expand the program.
"It has to be beneficial to both Sullivan High School and our students, and we're looking to create that," Giroux said.
Cary Steinbuck, the Executive Director of the Rogers Park Community Council, believes that with the wide range of students attending the university, Loyola could be contributing much more than volunteer aid workers.
"Loyola has a tremendous amount of skills and resources available," Steinbeck said. "I would like to see their journalism students volunteering for our newspaper and working with our teens to develop skills in writing. I would like to see math students teaching math skills to teens … Criminal justice students working with our CAPS programs … law school students opening a free legal clinic for our residents. The list goes on."
Part of the misunderstanding between the school and the community may be because Loyola's students and resources are spread between its two campuses: Lake Shore campus in Rogers Park and Water Tower campus in downtown Chicago. The School of Law, for example, has numerous community outreach programs, but it is located downtown. Although it has programs in Rogers Park (such as a legal clinic at Howard), students and resources are split between the two districts where they operate. The Schools of Education and Communication are in a similar situation.
John Ftizgerald, director of the HACC, said Loyola has done "an A-plus job," as far as community service. Loyola has numerous programs with HACC, including tutoring, volunteers and work study students, research and legal assistance.
"I suppose they can't please everybody all the time," Fitzgerald said. "But they've pleased us all of the time."
Dan Romero of Northside POWER said that while the university was very good at providing community organizations with volunteer manpower, he would like to see more from the school in terms of local advocacy.
Lately, the single biggest advocacy issue locally has been the TIF, which diverts public funds normally dedicated to renovating taxed properties in order to generate revenue for the neighborhood, to renovate tax-exempt property on Loyola's Lake Shore Campus. Residents who were unhappy with what they felt was dishonesty in the university's process in proposing the plan to the neighborhood believe Loyola could repair damaged relations between itself and the community by expanding its outreach programs.
"There certainly have been times where Loyola is perceived as the 800-pound gorilla that gets to sit wherever it wants," Romero said. "But I think there are also opportunities to repair some of that damage by reaching out to the neighborhood in a more intentional way."
Given the fact that resources and students are split between campuses, it would be difficult for Loyola to reach out to Rogers Park in more ways than it does already. The lack of interest in issues unique to Rogers Park could be explained in part by the fact that most students will only spend four years there. There is also a gap between the positions of students and the administration on many issues, as anyone who reads the editorial section of the Phoenix knows. As long as the school is still standing, however, Rogers Park will have a slew of student volunteers and tutors doing their part to make the neighborhood a better place.
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