Somehow tomorrow I turn 50. (Students, please pretend to be surprised that I’m so old.) I’ve been spending time contemplating life and how much of it I may have frittered away reading nonsense on my phone. But I’ve also been thinking about how lucky I am to have found a purpose and to be part of an extraordinary community.
Like many of you, I exist because of Loyola – my grandparents met here and fell in love in 1928. I grew up on campus, riding the elevators up and down in Monroe Hall near my dad’s faculty office and waiting for my mom to finish her law school classes. Almost every member of my extended family went to Loyola or worked here, from Uncle Joe (a Jesuit priest) who served as Dean of Arts and Sciences to Uncle John who served on LUPD. Despite years spent working elsewhere, I’ve finally come home.
I love to walk across campus and think about the lives forever changed by this place, even in the ancient times before my birth. The teaching and mentoring that launched brilliant careers and inspired vocations. The couples who met and married here, like Dean Landrieu’s parents. The deep and abiding friendships.
Prayers and blessings,
Tania Tetlow
President
