Joyce Ritz
Is Baltimore Home After Leaving Loyola?

            When I was a junior in high school and in the process of choosing college to apply to, most of my schools were in the city of Baltimore. I have come to Baltimore with my family at least once a year since I can remember. We did most of the typical tourist activities, visiting the aquarium, touring the Constellation, eating seafood, etc, but I always had this connection to the city and knew I wanted to spend a good deal of my life and influential years there. Until I came to Loyola I didn’t know half of what Baltimore really was; its essence, its foundations were lost to me in the haze of tourist attraction after tourist attraction.

            I can only blame myself for not really learning and experiencing the bulk of the city, mostly because I came from a place that was not as diverse and had never witnessed the level and poverty and need that Baltimore has. I kept myself in the “bubble” of Loyola. I didn’t venture passed that one block of Coldspring, at least not at night or by foot and I didn’t dare go beyond the safe, commercial walls of the Inner Harbor. I continually fell back on the comforts and safeties that the campus offered me.

            I think because this year happens to be “The Year of the City” is going to really catapult me into opportunities to finally contribute and really become part of Baltimore. I can’t completely blame Loyola for me not taking part in life outside of Loyola, but there are some aspects of life at Loyola since I have been here that do suggest to students to stay inside the bubble and live our four  years on the campus, never really knowing what lies beyond it.  Father Linnane writes in his message on the Year of the City website that reaching out to the city “is [a] characteristic of a university that aspires to be fully immersed in human society and responsive to its concerns.”       I think the key word in this statement is aspires, as I have witnessed Loyola trying to reach out to the city but often times failing to do so completely. I think with the opportunities this initiative opens up to me and other students will finally allow us to leave a mark on Baltimore itself, not the campus, and leave here knowing that we are really part of this city.

            As someone who wants to live in Baltimore upon graduation I really do want to feel like I have created a home in the city, since the walls of Loyola will not always be the type of fixture in my life as it has been. I have been saying for the past few years that Baltimore is my home, since I have been staying here for the past few years, but what I really mean is my college in the city of Baltimore is my home, but Loyola could be in Denver and that city could be my home as well. Currently to me Baltimore is a synonym for Loyola and as anyone that has gone beyond its borders knows, Baltimore doesn’t come close to what Loyola is. My main goal this year is to really submerse myself into Baltimore culture and truly become part of this city, so I can safely say that Baltimore is my home and mean it.

Works Cited
What’s YOTC? Loyola College in Maryland. 6/9/2006. <http://www.loyola.edu/yotc/whats_yotc.html>.