Due to an abundance of caution surrounding COVID-19, our remaining March events have been postponed or cancelled. We will continue to update this page with any other changes to our Messina events calendar.
Please note that the information below is subject to change as we receive additional information from our co-sponsoring offices and departments. Thank you!
Messina co-sponsored theme-wide and supported events are open to all Loyola community members and the surrounding Baltimore community unless otherwise noted.
January Theme-Wide Events
February Theme-Wide Events
March Theme-Wide Events
April Theme-Wide Events
Messina Supported Events
Friday, January 17
Movie Night at The Charles Theatre: Just Mercy
A powerful and thought-provoking true story, “Just Mercy” follows young lawyer Bryan Stevenson (Jordan) and his history-making battle for justice. After graduating from Harvard, Bryan might have had his pick of lucrative jobs. Instead, he heads to Alabama to defend those wrongly condemned, with the support of local advocate Eva Ansley (Larson). One of his first, and most incendiary, cases is that of Walter McMillian (Foxx), who, in 1987, was sentenced to die for the notorious murder of an 18-year-old girl, despite a preponderance of evidence proving his innocence and the fact that the only testimony against him came from a criminal with a motive to lie. In the years that follow, Bryan becomes embroiled in a labyrinth of legal and political maneuverings and overt and unabashed racism as he fights for Walter, and others like him, with the odds and the system stacked against them.
Tickets cost $5 and include both transportation and your movie ticket. There are 40 spots available for this trip. Students can register and purchase tickets in the Student Activities Office!
The anticipated movie showtime is 6:45pm. The shuttle will pick-up students that have registered/paid from Boulder at 5:45pm and will return to campus at 9:45pm.
Sponsored by Student Activities and Messina
$5 movie kick-off event
Shuttle Departure at 5:45pm, Shuttle from Boulder
Tuesday, January 21
MLK Convocation – Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II
Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II, pastor and social justice advocate, will discuss current event issues related to social and racial justice during his lecture, "FierceUrgency of Now."
The MLK Convocation, celebrating its 27th year, is an occasion for Loyola and the Baltimore community to launch the spring semester and the New Year by coming together for shared inquiry into legacies of race and racial justice in America. Past speakers have included Octavia Butler, Spike Lee, Ta-Nehisi Coates, and Roxane Gay.
This event is free and open to the public; however, advance registration is encouraged. To reserve your seats, please use the registration form.
Sponsored by Academic Affairs and Messina
A Common Text and Self and Other theme-wide event
7 p.m., Reitz Arena
Saturday, January 25
Explore Baltimore: The Foodie Experience – R. House
This Explore Baltimore trip will give you the opportunity to discover Remington, a diverse neighborhood just ten minutes south of Loyola. R. House is the ultimate “Foodie Experience.” This industrial-chic food hall is located in a building that was formerly a body shop and has roll-up garage doors. It was started by ten chefs who believed that uniting to launch their restaurants was better than going at it alone. The food hall currently houses eight different vendors and a Pop Up kitchen that allows chefs to test new recipes.
For more information including a list of vendors and their menus, please visit https://r.housebaltimore.com/.
Messina is sponsoring a free shuttle service for students to and from R. House. Shuttles will pick-up students from Boulder and will run on a continuous loop starting at 4:00pm. The last bus returning to campus will depart the food hall at 8:00pm.
Sponsored by Messina
An Explore Baltimore event
4 p.m. - 8 p.m., Shuttle from Boulder
Thursday, January 30
Artist Talk for Gallery, Amy Ritter
Amy Ritter is a Brooklyn- based artist. Ritter’s work is an exploration of her relationship to her physical self vis-à-vis mobile homes and their interior landscapes. It stages her memories of her experience of growing up in a mobile home community—a place she’s left but still feels rooted to.
In Amy’s own Words: “My work is an exploration of my relationship to my physical self vis-à-vis mobile homes and their interior landscapes. It stages my memories of my experience of growing up in a mobile home community—a place I’ve left but still feel rooted to. Using Xerox prints, plywood, and cinderblocks—materials that relate back to the makeshift homes of my past—I aim to represent and understand the environment I came from and navigate the place I inhabit now.
Sponsored by The Department of Fine Arts and Messina
A Common Text and Stories We Tell theme-wide event
6 p.m. - 8 p.m., McManus Theatre
Tuesday, February 4
Speak Up! To Microaggressions Workshop Session One
This exciting new program will help students to identify microaggressions, understand their impact, and practice strategies to address them. Working groups will have a chance to sign up their class for one of three workshops in the month of February.
A Messina Event
6 p.m. - 7:30 p.m., McGuire Hall West
Sunday, February 9
Explore Baltimore: The Foodie Experience – Mount Vernon Marketplace
Mount Vernon Marketplace, situated in the historic Mount Vernon district, is known for its freshly prepared, global, artisanal foods. With a choice of 16 vendors, you are sure to find something you like! This food hall is located just outside of Downtown Baltimore and when you visit, you will have access to other local favorite spots including The Walters Art Museum, Maryland Historical Society, and George Peabody Library.
For more information including a list of vendors and their menus, please visit http://mtvernonmarketplace.com/.
Messina is sponsoring a free shuttle service for students to and from Mount Vernon Marketplace. Shuttles will pick-up students from Boulder and will leave campus on the hour starting at 11:00am. The last bus returning to campus will depart the food market at 3:00pm.
Sponsored by Messina
An Explore Baltimore event
11 a.m. - 3 p.m., Shuttle from Boulder
Monday, February 10
Speak Up! To Microaggressions Workshop Session Two
This exciting new program will help students to identify microaggressions, understand their impact, and practice strategies to address them. Working groups will have a chance to sign up their class for one of three workshops in the month of February.
A Messina event
6 p.m. - 7:30 p.m., McGuire Hall West
Monday, February 17
How to Retire a Millionaire, and Other Financial Life Lessons
Learn how taxes work, how to make debt less painful, and why now is the best time to start planning for retirement.
Sponsored by The Accounting Department and Messina
A Messina event
6 p.m. - 7:30 p.m., McGuire Hall East
Tuesday, February 18
Ready for Anything Panel
This event will bring a panel of young Loyola alumni to campus from various careers to illuminate the ways Loyola alumni have leveraged the Humanities-based core curriculum in defining their own professional and personal journeys since graduating. Participants will learn more about becoming well rounded graduates with the breadth of the liberal arts and depth in a chose focus area to prepare themselves for the professional world. A light dinner will be served.
Featured Panelists:
- Jackie Albright, ‘12, MBA 2018 – Operations Lead, LYFT
- Kellyanne Bondulich, ’15, Associate Manager, Global Campaign, Under Armour
- Emma Moynihan, ’12 – PhD. Student, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School
- Valerie Crosby, ’08 – Bilingual Housing Specialist, Ardent Technologies Contract with Department of Housing and Urban Development
- Tyler Joyner, ‘16, MBA ‘17 - Wealth Management Operations Associate, Morgan Stanley
Registration is required for this event. To register, please visit READY FOR ANYTHING 2020: Explore Your Path.
Sponsored by The Career Center and Messina
A Messina event
4:30 p.m. - 6:30 p.m., McGuire Hall West
Sunday, February 23
Speak Up! To Microaggressions Workshop Session Three & Session Four
This exciting new program will help students to identify microaggressions, understand their impact, and practice strategies to address them. Working groups will have a chance to sign up their class for one of three workshops in the month of February.
A Messina event
Session Three: 5 p.m. - 6:30 p.m., McGuire Hall West
Session Four: 7 p.m. - 8:30 p.m., McGuire Hall West
Tuesday, February 25
The Subtleties of Overt Racism - A Panel Discussion
Cast members from the movie Charm City will participate in a discussion about the systemic and root causes of improper jailing and housing discrimination in Baltimore City. Panelists include:
- Alex Long has long been a product of the Baltimore streets. His father was in prison by the time Alex was six, and he was shuttled into foster care by the time he was eight. Alex found a home at Rose Street, and helps Mr. “C”, the founder of the Rose Street Community Center, with his homegrown programs including neighborhood trash collection, gang mediation and his own brand of de-escalation training. And though Alex formalizes his role as a neighborhood peacekeeper by joining Safe Streets, the Baltimore equivalent of the better-known Chicago Interrupters, we learn this cannot protect him from the violence engulfing Baltimore.
- Brandon M. Scott was unanimously elected President of the City Council by members of the City Council in May of 2019. Previously, President Scott served as the City Council member representing Baltimore City’s 2nd District. He is a community leader, public servant and lifelong resident of Baltimore City. President Scott was first elected in 2011 at the age of 27 and is one of the youngest persons ever elected to Baltimore’s City Council. His political awareness has steadily grown and become more focused as he has lived in Baltimore’s neighborhoods and worked with Baltimore’s citizens throughout his career in public service.
Sponsored by Messina and the Student Government Association
A Self and Other theme-wide event
7:00 p.m. - 8:30 p.m., 4th Floor Program Room
Tuesday, March 10
Movie Screening: Baltimore’s Strange Fruit
Baltimore's Strange Fruit is a documentary film produced by Black Yield Institute, directed by Eric Jackson and Maddie Hardy, exploring the intersections of food, land, and race and class politics through personal narrative and social commentary. For more information, visit https://www.bmorestrangefruit.com/trailer.
If you are an off-campus community member interested in attending the screening, please register using the following link: Eventbrite Registration Link.
Sponsored by The York Road Institute, CCSJ, The Environmental and Sustainability Studies Program, and Messina
A The Good Life theme-wide event
6:30 p.m. - 8:30 p.m., McGuire Hall West
Wednesday, March 11- EVENT CANCELED
An Evening with R. Eric Thomas
R. Eric Thomas will share stories connected to his debut memoir-in-essays, entitled Here For It, or How to Save Your Soul in America published by Ballantine Books in February 2020. In essays both hysterical and heartfelt, Eric redefines what it means to be an “other” through the lens of his own life experience. He explores the two worlds of his childhood: the barren urban landscape where his parents’ house was an anomalous bright spot, and the verdant school they sent him to in white suburbia.
He is a playwright, the long-running host of The Moth in Philadelphia and D.C., and he is a Senior Staff Writer for Elle.com where he writes “Eric Reads the News,” a daily current events and culture column. He won the 2016 Barrymore Award for Best New Play and the 2018 Dramatists Guild Lanford Wilson Award and received a 2017/2018 National New Play Network Commission.
Sponsored by Spectrum, The LGBTQ+ Experience, and Messina
A Stories We Tell theme-wide event
Thursday, March 19- EVENT POSTPONED TO FALL 2020
Messina Welcomes Sarah Smarsh, Author of Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth
Sarah Smarsh is the author of Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth, which became an instant New York Times bestseller and was a finalist for the 2018 National Book Award. She has covered socioeconomic class, politics, and public policy for the Guardian, the New York Times, the Texas Observer, Pacific Standard, the Economic Hardship Reporting Project, and many other publications. A 2018 Joan Shorenstein Fellow at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government and a former professor of nonfiction writing, Smarsh is a frequent speaker and media commentator on economic inequality. She lives in Kansas.
Sponsored by Messina
A Common Text event
Sunday, March 22- EVENT CANCELED
Explore Baltimore: The Foodie Experience – Broadway Market (Fells Point)
Broadway Market was one of the first public markets in Baltimore, opening its doors in 1786. Historically the market served as a major source of food for the city including stalls, barns, and weighing stations for livestock brought by farmers to sell. The food hall now features ten vendors offering a variety of different foods. Broadway Market is in the heart of Fells Point and is a quick walk to other attractions including a view of the Patapsco River, Broadway Square, and numerous boutique shops.
For more information including a list of vendors and their menus, please visit https://broadwaymarketbaltimore.com/.
Messina is sponsoring a free shuttle service for students to and from Broadway Market. Shuttles will pick-up students from Newman and will leave campus on the hour starting at 11:00am. The last bus returning to campus will depart the food market at 3:00pm.
Sponsored by Messina
An Explore Baltimore event
Tuesday, March 24- EVENT CANCELED
Building a Better World Through Business Keynote Speaker: Kavita Shukla on "Changing the World, One Piece of Paper at a Time"
Kavita Shukla is the Founder and CEO of The FRESHGLOW Co. and the inventor of FreshPaper. What started as a middle-school science project—inspired by an Indian home remedy—soon developed into a world-changing innovation taking on the massive challenge of global food waste. Made from organic spices, FreshPaper is a disposable, recyclable, and biodegradable sheet that naturally keeps produce fresh for longer—thereby reducing food spoilage. Today, it’s used by farmers and families around the globe, and The FRESHGLOW Co. has partnered with some of the largest retailers in the world. The young entrepreneur holds four patents (and several international honors) for her innovation, and was the youngest woman ever to receive the INDEX Design to Improve Life Award—the world’s largest prize for design, presented by the Crown Princess of Denmark.
Shukla’s story of simple beginnings, belief, and empowerment has inspired millions worldwide—even becoming the subject of a short film by Hollywood actress and director Bryce Dallas Howard. Shukla has spoken about the power of simple ideas at the White House, the United Nations, SXSW, the Global Entrepreneurship Congress, TEDxManhattan, Harvard University, MIT, and Johns Hopkins University. She was also a featured speaker at the Women in the World Summit, along with Hillary Clinton, Angelina Jolie, Meryl Streep, and Oprah Winfrey. Shukla was honored at Variety’s annual “Power of Women” alongside March for Our Lives’ Emma Gonzalez, Emmy Award winner Tiffany Haddish, and Oscar-winning actress Natalie Portman. Recently, she was invited to testify before the United States Congress about how her simple innovation went global.
Shukla’s innovations and her quest to take on global food waste have been featured by CNN, Bloomberg, The New York Times, Fortune, The Washington Post, The Economist, Oprah Magazine, Glamour, and The Today Show. She has been inducted into the National Gallery for America’s Young Inventors, and was a First Place Winner at the Intel International Science & Engineering Fair. She holds a BA from Harvard University.
In this talk, Shukla shares the story of how FreshPaper came to be, and the challenges she’s faced—and overcome—in her journey as a young entrepreneur, businesswoman, and activist for global social change.
Sponsored by CCSJ, CI&E, SGA, and Messina
A The Visionary theme-wide event
Sunday, April 5 - EVENT CANCELED
Explore Baltimore: The Foodie Experience – Cross Street Market (Federal Hill)
Cross Street Market dates back to 1845 and was once just an open air shed where vendors sold meat, poultry, seafood, and vegetables. The food hall, after several renovations is now home to 22 independent businesses. This Explore Baltimore trip will give you the opportunity to discover not only Cross Street Market, but also the surrounding Federal Hill neighborhood. Other popular Federal Hill attractions include American Visionary Art Museum, a view of the harbor, and Federal Hill Park.
For more information including a list of vendors and their menus, please visit https://www.crossstmarket.com/.
Messina is sponsoring a free shuttle service for students to and from Cross Street Market. Shuttles will pick-up students from Newman and will leave campus on the hour starting at 11:00am. The last bus returning to campus will depart the food market at 3:00pm.
Sponsored by Messina
An Explore Baltimore event
11 a.m. - 3 p.m., Shuttle from Newman
Monday, April 20 - EVENT CANCELED
One Question
We have one question for you. Just one. But your answer, a short film, and a conversation with a great panel of speakers will make this an event that you'll keep thinking about. Plus, we'll have snacks you won't want to miss.
Sponsored by The Writing Department, CCSJ, and Messina
A The Visionary theme-wide event
7 p.m. - 9 p.m., 4th Floor Program Room
Wednesday, April 22 - EVENT CANCELED
Earth Day Celebration/Climate Change Panel
More information to come!
Sponsored by SGA and Messina
A The Good Life theme-wide event
7 p.m. - 8:30 p.m., 4th Floor Program Room
Tuesday, February 10
Esperanza Hope Snyder: A Life in Poetry
Assistant Director of the Breadloaf Writers’ Conference in Sicily, Esperanza Hope Snyder is the author of three published volumes of poetry, a play, and a novel. Her most recent book, Esperanza and Hope, traces Dr. Snyder’s life in poems, from her girlhood in Bogotá Colombia to her adolescence in Maryland to her young adulthood in Italy. The volume’s three sections, “Colombia,” “Europa,” and “Estados Unidos,” span three marriages (two to the same man), motherhood, and a range of occupations, including a stint at a Fanny Farmer retailer in Maryland, teaching writing at Shepherd University and English in Italy, and selling emeralds. The poems themselves are lucid, musical, searingly honest, and intensely personal; they speak of her family’s abandonment by her father, of visiting the macaw who lived on the roof of the “casa de las citas” next door to her childhood home, of her Italian husband’s work selling doorknobs, and of identity complicated by fluency in multiple languages and by the curiosity of the English name she was given but as a young girl never called by: Hope.
4 p.m. - 5:30 p.m., Fine Arts Dept. Recital Room, College Center, Room W040
Thursday, February 20
Theater of War: Philoctetes
Loyola will host a Theater of War Productions dramatic reading of Philoctetes by Sophocles, followed by a panel discussion of the effects of war on military veterans and their families.
“Theater of War Productions works with leading film, theater, and television actors to present dramatic readings of seminal plays—from classical Greek tragedies to modern and contemporary works—followed by town hall-style discussions designed to confront social issues by drawing out raw and personal reactions to themes highlighted in the plays. The guided discussions underscore how the plays resonate with contemporary audiences and invite audience members to share their perspectives and experiences, and, helping to break down stigmas, foster empathy, compassion, and a deeper understanding of complex issues."
6 p.m., McGuire Hall
Tuesday, March 31- EVENT POSTPONED
2020 Hanway Lecture: Viet Thanh Nguyen
Viet Thanh Nguyen, a Professor of English, American Studies, and Ethnicity at the University of Southern California, author of The Refugees (2017), and winner of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction for his debut novel, The Sympathizer (2015) is coming to Loyola for the 2020 Hanway Lecture. After his talk, Dr. Nguyen will have some time for audience Q&A and will be available for book signing.
Please visit the Hanway Lecture website to learn more and register.
7 p.m., McGuire Hall