March 3, 2019: Open House

Spring open houses have been a Loyola ritual for me for more than twenty years. And this is also the third year that I will go 'on the road' for receptions for admitted students and their parents in Massachusetts, Connecticut and New Jersey. For me, the open houses are a chance to meet accepted students and their parents, answer their questions, and offer them some lessons and advice. The day starts with a plenary session (see photo), followed by smaller, more personal sessions. And I have found myself closing my remarks with parting words for parents, having just gone through a similar process in the last six years. I prefer to be on the stage, not in the audience, but having been in the audience at more than a dozen schools, from San Diego to Scotland, I can empathize fully with a parent considering a $250,000 investment in a college education.

Setting aside humility and listening to feedback, I must acknowledge three things: One, between the open houses and the road shows, I loved every minute I was given to perform. Two, I was damn good at this task, one that many shunned, several screwed up, and many failed. And three, I know that I had a positive impact on the minds and decisions of parents and prospects, culminating with praise at one of my last open houses, from a young man with no interest in business who, on stage before 1,200 people, acknowledged that my presentation convinced him that Loyola was right for him.

On the other hand, by that time I had become quite distanced from the Loyola message: the exclusive importance of the liberal arts, the decline in merit as an admissions criteria and in the classroom performance by students, and the early signals of Loyola's going woke, something that they did not fully embrace until after I left, when a small number of feisty minority students, shamed Loyola about their history of institutional racism and slavery ownership, not to mention their role in colonialism. At least vert few could accuse the Jesuits of being free market capitalists.

Loyola Accepted Students Open House, February 2019