Loyola High School (Montreal)


Loyola High School is a private Catholic school for boys in grades 7-11 located in Montreal. It was established in 1896 by the Society of Jesus as part of Loyola College, at the request of the English Catholic community in Montreal. It is named after St.Ignatius of Loyola, who founded the Jesuit Order in 1534.

History

Founded in 1896, Loyola High School began as Loyola College which assumed responsibility for the English section of Collège Sainte-Marie de Montréal, a French Jesuit school which existed from 1848 to 1969. In 1916, Loyola College moved from its downtown location to the west end location on Sherbrooke St. West. In 1964, the Loyola High School Corporation was established to run the school separately from the college. When Loyola College merged with Sir George Williams University in 1974 to form Concordia University, the title to the land that the school occupied on the north-east corner of the campus was transferred from the college.
To this day, Loyola has remained true to its Jesuit apostolate, educating "Men for Others" who are intellectually competent, open to growth, religious, loving, and committed to doing justice.

School campus

Loyola was originally located in an abandoned Sacred Heart Convent on Bleury and St. Catherine Street. A fire broke out at this location in 1898, provoking the college to move into the former Tucker School on Drummond Street. That summer, a wing was added, but space soon became inadequate. In 1900, the Jesuits purchased the Decary Farm in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce located in the west end of Montreal, where the school remains to this day on what is commonly referred to as the Loyola Campus of Concordia University.
In 1916, Loyola College officially moved to the new campus. The high school was located in the Junior Building and, until 1961, shared the Administration Building and then the north half of the Central Building. It was the Junior Building, which was designed in the Collegiate Gothic architectural style and covered in gargoyles, leaded and stained-glass windows and oak moulding, where young men began their journey to become "Eight-Year Men". After four years of high school and four years of college, they graduated with university degrees in Arts or Sciences.
In 1961, the era of boarders ended and the high school moved exclusively to the Junior Building. An extension was added in 1968 and a gymnasium was built south of Sherbrooke Street in 1978. In 1988 a decision was reached to erect a new building in order to properly accommodate the student body and to enable the school to offer the curriculum outlined by the Ministry of Education.
Loyola considered a number of possible options for the future building, including adding an extension onto the Junior Building, and relocating the school to Côte Saint-Luc on land owned by Loyola. The school eventually made arrangements with Concordia University to swap the Junior Building for a site on the south-west end of Loyola campus beside the school gymnasium. The new building was completed in 1992. The Bishops Atrium and a three-story wing was constructed in 2004, along with an auditorium the following year.

Academic

In the school’s Mission Statement, Loyola is described as a “university-preparatory school.” Students are also expected to complete the requirements for a Secondary School Diploma to be admitted to C.E.G.E.P. Core and optional subjects offered in the high school curriculum are broken down according to cycle - Cycle 1 and Cycle 2. The high school performs competitively locally and provincially in examinations results.

Religious and spiritual formation

As a Catholic and Jesuit school, all of Loyola's activities are meant to be inspired by Catholic teachings in the tradition of St. Ignatius of Loyola. In 2015 Loyola's Board of Governors put forward a five-year strategic plan which identified five "foundational pillars" in order to pursue the school's mission. The plan proposed, among other things, to "infuse all programmes with a truly Catholic and Ignatian pedagogy" and to "foster the maintenance of an Ignatian environment that engages the broader Loyola community"
While the school's president is ultimately responsible for ensuring the school's spiritual mission, the Loyola Ignatian Formation director oversees its particular activities in the entire Loyola community. The Campus Ministry is tasked with overseeing students' spiritual formation.

Campus ministry

The Christian Service Program is both an academic course and considered part of spiritual formation. In the course of their high school years, students participate in some form of supervised program known as "CSP" involving service to others.
CSP is a compulsory program for all students. CSP project opportunities are already approved by the school. Alternatively, the students may find their own project around their area, subject to approval by the school deacon. CSP is broken down into two categories. For grades 7 – 10 students must complete a certain amount of community service hours twice a year. For students in grade 11 the period of service is for 2 hours a week over the course of 12 weeks before or after Christmas.

Jesuit affiliation

Loyola is a member of the American Jesuit Schools Network, and is administered by the Jesuits of English Canada. The two Jesuit provinces, English and French, are currently in the process of merging into one Canadian Jesuit province.

Athletics

Loyola fields a number of athletic teams in competition with other schools in Canada and the United States, primarily competing in the Greater Montreal Athletics Association and Réseau du sport étudiant du Québec. Loyola's traditional rivals in athletics are Lower Canada College and Selwyn House School.

Facilities

One of the largest high school sports tournaments in North America, the Ed Meagher Sports Tournament boasts 40 teams and over 700 student-athletes, participating in hockey, basketball, and wrestling. Originally named the "Invitational Winter Sports Tournament", the tournament was renamed after its co-founder Ed Meagher in 1996. Meagher was a former student, teacher, and sports coach at Loyola High School.
The annual week-long tournament takes place each January and has grown considerably since its inception. Senior hockey was the original sport in 1971. In 1974, Senior basketball was added to the tournament, followed by Bantam hockey in 1981. Midget basketball was added in 1982, wrestling in 1995, Bantam basketball in 1998, and Pee-Wee hockey in 2003. In 2000, the Concordia University Arena was named the Ed Meagher Arena.

Coat of arms

The name "Loyola" is derived from the Spanish Lobo-y-olla, meaning "wolf" and "kettle". The school's coat of arms is a variation of St. Ignatius of Loyola's coat of arms, which depicts the union of the House of Loyola and the House of Onaz in 1261. The phrase "Loyola y Onaz" typically appears at the bottom, though another variation of the school's coat of arms includes the Jesuit motto "Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam", meaning "for the greater glory of God".

Loyola in print

In 2008, Quebec's Ministry of Education, Sport and Leisure introduced a mandatory "Ethics and Religious Culture" course to all Quebec schools. Loyola had reservations about the course's ability to meet its objectives from a relativistic perspective, and applied for an exemption to teach an ERC equivalency course. Loyola's equivalency course had similar goals as the government's ERC but was structured on a methodology that was more in keeping with its Catholic, Jesuit identity. The government denied the request for exemption and, as a result, Loyola took the matter to the Superior Court of Quebec where in 2010 the Superior Court ruled in Loyola's favour. The Ministry appealed and in 2012 the appellate court overturned the Superior Court's decision.
Loyola then took the case to the Supreme Court of Canada where, on 19 March 2015, it was ruled that the Quebec Ministry was in violation of Loyola's religious freedom and ordered the Ministry to reconsider the exemption.

Notable alumni

Religion and philanthropy