Maryland Secretary of Service and Civic Innovation Paul Monteiro named Loyola’s 2024 Commencement Speaker

Maryland's first Secretary of Service and Civic Innovation Paul Monteiro will deliver the address at Loyola University Maryland’s 171st Commencement Exercises. The ceremony will be held Saturday, May 18, 2024, at 11 a.m., at CFG Bank Arena in Baltimore.

“At Loyola, we encourage our students to think not just about the success they can achieve, but also about their significance—the mark they can leave on the world. One of the ways they can achieve significance is through service,” said Terrence M. Sawyer, J.D., president of Loyola. “The Class of 2024 has overcome great challenges already, and we are so proud of them. In addressing the Class of 2024, Secretary Paul Monteiro will be able to draw on his compelling life story and offer an inspiring, compelling message to our graduating students—students who are poised to have a transformational impact.”

Monteiro, who was raised in Hyattsville, Maryland, was the first of his family to graduate high school and attend college. He holds a B.A. in History from the University of Maryland and a J.D. from the Howard University School of Law. While in law school, he served as a fellow in the Marshall-Brennan Constitutional Literacy Project, where he spent a year instructing middle and high school students on the tenets and everyday relevance of the U.S. Constitution.

Maryland Governor Wes Moore nominated Monteiro to serve as Maryland's first Secretary of Service and Civic Innovation, and he was confirmed by the State Senate on April 7, 2023. Monteiro leads the newly created Department of Service and Civic Innovation, which promotes service and volunteerism in the state of Maryland and recently launched the Maryland Corps/Service Year Option. The program, targeted at high school graduates, offers a yearlong paid opportunity for professional growth and career exploration while serving the community.

In December 2021, Monteiro was nominated by U.S. President Joe Biden as director of the United States Department of Justice Community Relations Service (CRS), and his nomination was confirmed by the U.S. Senate in May 2022. CRS serves as “America’s Peacemaker” for communities facing conflict based on actual or perceived race, color, national origin, religion, or other protected classifications. Monteiro previously worked as chief of staff to the president and assistant vice president of external affairs at Howard University from 2017 until 2022. 

President Obama appointed Monteiro as the national director of AmeriCorps VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America) in 2014. Monteiro led the effort to mark VISTA’s 50th anniversary and reform the program to be more accessible to those from low-income communities. Organized in 1965, VISTA is the federal anti-poverty program established as the domestic counterpart to the Peace Corps.

Between 2009 and 2013, Monteiro served on the White House staff as an associate director in the Office of Public Engagement after working on the Obama/Biden 2008 presidential campaign as the deputy director for religious affairs. While at the White House, he coordinated President Obama’s My Brother’s Keeper mentorship program for young men, and as a liaison to religious and secular belief communities as well as ethnic groups, including Arab American and Afghan American groups. In 2013, he was awarded a citation from the National Security Council for his work on a range of international administration priorities, including the Global Entrepreneurship Summit, refugee resettlement, and other humanitarian interventions.

Monteiro has served with the Prince George’s County Public Schools Board of Education, Madison House Autism Foundation, Wesley Theological Seminary, and on several other boards. He is a member of Leadership Greater Washington’s Class of 2021.

Loyola will present Monteiro with a doctor of humane letters, honoris causa, during the ceremony.

Also honored at the Commencement Exercises will be:

• Jasmine S. Jenkins, ’06. receiving the Carroll Medal;
• Trustee Walter B. Doggett III, receiving the Newman Medal; and
• CASH Campaign of Maryland, receiving the Milch Community Partnership Award.
  For more information about Commencement, visit Loyola's Commencement website.