What is Graduate Student Service Initiative?

This Initiative has taken shape as part of Loyola College’s desire to continuously incorporate the Jesuit mission into graduate programs on a deeper level. 

Loyola College’s Jesuit identity is what largely sets it apart from other institutions.  Perhaps as you researched graduate programs found this to be of value and may be partly why you chose to attend Loyola.  The mission of the College, as well as the mission for the Center for Community Service and Justice, can be found below and clearly outline the Loyola difference of living as men and women for and with others.

Loyola College:

“Loyola College in Maryland is a Jesuit Catholic university committed to the educational and spiritual traditions of the Society of Jesus and to the ideals of liberal education and the development of the whole person. Accordingly, the College will inspire students to learn, lead and serve in a diverse and changing world.”

Center for Community Service & Justice:

“The Center for Community Service and Justice engages students and the broader Loyola College community in education through service for a just and equitable world. We are committed to collaboration with community partners and to involvement with people who are marginalized, especially those who are materially poor. Our work is inspired by, and flows from, the Jesuit Catholic educational mission at Loyola College that calls for a dynamic integration of academic excellence, social responsibility and faith that serves justice.”

As mentioned above, you have carefully chosen this institution, maybe in part for its commitment to service and justice.  This Initiative will hopefully allow you to pursue your hopes of further developing yourselves as men and women for and with others. 

The primary GOALS are as follows:

1. To continuously extend the Jesuit mission of service and justice to all members of the  Loyola community
2. Make more information regarding Loyola service opportunities available to graduate students
3. A website that offers information on opportunities; and to way to personally prepare for your service, reflect on your experience, and provide an evaluation (also known as the P.A.R.E. model)
4. Provide opportunities for graduate students to work together outside the formal classroom to foster more of a connection to the greater Loyola community
5. Become a pioneer among Jesuit schools in engaging the graduate community in service

Loyola recognizes that graduate students’ time is limited by family and work.  Your life experiences and needs are unique.  Therefore, an online survey was developed and completed by roughly 250 graduate students about what they were looking for in a service experience. 

“Why service?”

Better question:  

Why hunger? 
       Why homelessness? 
              Why illiteracy? 
                     Why unemployment?

Because we need to...

• Reconcile our differences.
• Attempt to understand different political viewpoints.
• Believe that our city can be safer.
• Live not as individuals but as members of a community.
• Break the cycle of poverty
• Transcend and broaden our viewpoints
• Respond to the environmental dangers which threaten our planet.
• Seek world peace in a world fractured by division.
• Connect to one another.
• Live in solidarity with those most in need.
• See the faces of our sisters and brothers as the face of God.

~ Father Timothy Brown, S.J.
September 2003, Opening,"Why Service" lecture series

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