My How They’ve Grown!

Written by Paul Donovan

My how they’ve grown! The journey of a student from applicant to graduate is, to say the least, an interesting one.   In the last few years, working in the main office has given me the opportunity to see our students from a much broader perspective.  What strikes me most is that, from the grade six kids who are applying to the school to the many graduates who drop by to visit, what characterizes them as Loyola students has more to do with character than it does with pure academic achievement.

Loyola’s mission states that our graduates should be men who are not only Intellectually Competent but also Religious, Loving, Open to Growth and Committed to doing Justice.  It’s easy to think of these things as mere platitudes in the midst of the “real business” of grades and exams, but what I see more clearly now than ever is that grades and exams are really only the context for helping young men to develop these characteristics.

The other night a number of alumni were working with our robotics students and several of these mentors decided to stay late to finish working on a project.  Having worked with these young men when they were students and knowing the nature of robotics work, when I walked in to the robotics room the next day I quite expected to see the room in a horrible state.  When I saw how immaculate the room was, I immediately said to the teacher who was with me, “my how they’ve grown.”  The room for me symbolized so much of the growth that had occurred in them. While these young men were wonderful boys when they were students, what struck me was how much the values, ideals and characteristics of Loyola had truly become their own and how willing they were to share that with the current students – they were now Loyola men.

So I guess what I wanted to do in this issue was to remind us about what we’re doing here.  In the midst of report cards and prerequisites and CEGEP applications, we need to ask ourselves the bigger question – how are we doing in helping our students and sons to become true Men for Others? May God bless us all.