Loyola Academy - History

History

Loyola Academy was founded as a Roman Catholic, Jesuit, college preparatory school for young men in 1909. The school was originally located in Rogers Park, Chicago, on the campus of Loyola University Chicago's Dumbach Hall; it moved to the current Wilmette campus in 1957. Both Loyola University and its prep school adjunct, Loyola Academy, grew out of St. Ignatius College Prep, a Roman Catholic, Jesuit college preparatory school in Chicago that was founded in 1870 as St. Ignatius College, with both university and preparatory programs for young men. While St. Ignatius transitioned to being solely a preparatory school while remaining in the same location, Loyola Academy and University were established in Rogers Park. All three institutions were named after the Basque intellectual and Spanish Army General, St. Ignatius of Loyola, who founded the Jesuits.

As a precondition to granting approval to move to the suburbs, the Archdiocese of Chicago required the Jesuits to stipulate that they would continue to serve the young Roman Catholic men of the city of Chicago. Consequently, Loyola Academy has had a significant representation of Chicago residents, of various financial means giving the school an economic diversity fairly unique in the Chicago area.

During the bulk of its history, Loyola Academy maintained the strict disciplinary and academic regimen seen in most exclusive American prep schools. Students were required to wear blazers and ties, maintain silence when moving between classes, attend weekly Mass on campus, address their teachers as either "sir" or "Father," and maintain a demeanor befitting the Jesuit educational ideal of "Men for others."

One of Loyola's "sister schools" was Regina Dominican High School, an all-girls Academy located less than a mile away in Wilmette. Beginning in 1970, small groups of select Regina students began commuting to Loyola to take selected advanced science and computer science classes, as these classes were unavailable on their campus at the time.

The Jesuit presence has not been as large as it used to be in the school's past, with some 40 priests teaching and working at the school in 1961, down to 11 out of roughly 200 staff members in 2007.

In 1994, Loyola Academy merged with Saint Louise de Marillac High School, an all-girls high school from Northfield, Illinois and became a co-educational school. The President of Marillac was approached by Loyola to consider a co-ed option on the North Shore as requested by the Archdiocese. . About that same time, Loyola added on to their existing building. In 2003, Loyola Academy opened a new 60-acre (240,000 m2) campus in Glenview, Illinois. The property, once part of the decommissioned Glenview Naval Air Station (NAS Glenview), was purchased by Loyola in 2001 and now houses several athletic fields for lacrosse, baseball, softball, and soccer, a cross country path, and a wetland preserve area that has been used as a natural laboratory for science classes.

While Loyola Academy is a Jesuit, Catholic school, it has always admitted non-Catholics seeking a Loyola education.