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Aerial view of Loyola's Lake Shore Campus during the fall.

Mission and Vision

Our Vision

At the School of Education of Loyola University Chicago, future education leaders will have a transformational experience, one that prepares them to use education and research to dismantle social inequalities in both their local and global communities to create a more equitable, just world.

Our Mission

The School of Education at Loyola University Chicago, a Jesuit Catholic urban university, supports the Jesuit ideal of knowledge in the service of humanity. We endeavor to advance equity in education in service of social justice, engaged with Chicago, the nation, and the world. In pursuit of our vision, the School of Education participates in the discovery, development, demonstration, and dissemination of professional knowledge and practice within a context of ethics, service to others, and social justice.

Our mission is social justice, but our responsibility is social action through education and research. We fulfill our responsibility by preparing professionals to serve as teachers, administrators, counselors, psychologists, and policymakers who work across the human developmental continuum, and by conducting research on issues of professional practice in schools, families, and communities.‌ In our immersive learning environment, students gain both second-to-none foundational knowledge and a strategic system-wide vision working alongside some of the top scholars and teachers in the nation. Through our rigorous curriculum, students learn to be comfortable with the uncomfortable, supported by our passionate and dedicated faculty, staff, and administrators. And they leave with lasting relationships with each other and an extensive alumni network of leaders in education across Illinois, the U.S., and the world.

Conceptual Framework

Our mission is social justice, but our responsibility is social action through education. 

Our framework guides the curricula of School of Education programs and serves as the foundation to the School of Education Conceptual Framework standards – standards that are explicitly embedded in major benchmark assessments across all SOE programs.

Conceptual Framework

The School of Education is a community comprised of students, faculty, and staff whose success is dependent upon interdependence, collaboration, and mutual respect, in that we recognize, include and capitalize on our many forms of diversity, and pool these resources in our mission as educators. We seek to build on the assets of diverse faculty and students (including, but not limited to race and ethnicity, culture, language, socioeconomic status, exceptionalities, sexual orientation, gender, and gender identity) and holding high expectations for our educational practices that serve these nested groups.

The SOE uses transformative education as a tool for changing students and to inspire them to improve the world around us. We view transformation on a continuum from a highly personal process (requiring risks, vulnerability, and trust) to the transformation of supports, services, and outcomes for our students, community partners, and those whom they serve. Each point on this continuum requires both reflection and a commitment to interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary collaboration that challenges our perceptions and decision-making. Programs incorporate Ignatian pedagogy and traditions, including the four processes of knowing: attention, reflection, judgment, and action and commitment. Transformative education does not have the narrow learning of a knowledge base as its outcome, but rather it prioritizes the notion of disruptive knowledge, a means or process of questioning knowledge and the valuing of learning more. The SOE prepares our candidates to critique the knowledge base and to question knowledge through a social justice lens, and simultaneously to use and contribute to knowledge for just purposes.

In working to impact both urban and global communities, we recognize that we are members of many larger and overlapping communities. We define urban not only geographically, but also as a sociocultural and sociopolitical construct because the issues facing urban contexts can transcend geography (e.g., lack of resources, educational inequity and inequality, etc.). By providing this more expansive definition, readers will not think that we are limited to geographical contexts, rather we address injustice in any contexts.  We strive to purposefully dismantle traditional boundaries between institution-based and field-based scholarly work and service, to build trust and deep, lasting relationships with our partners in education, to understand that we must work not for communities but to be of those communities, working alongside them, sharing their commitment and responsibility to address their needs, priorities, and goals from a social justice perspective. Faculty, staff, and students are involved in a variety of service-learning activities which influence communities, from service-learning projects, immersion experiences, field-based learning sequences, clinical placements and internships. Reflection occurs in many classes, from observational papers, reflection papers, and group activities. In the SOE, careful attention is given to ethics and moral decision-making, and steps for developing sound judgment is included and assessed in course work. We aim for graduates of the SOE to be prepared to be aware of their work environments and make solid judgments that lead to social justice action.

The SOE embeds social justice principles throughout course work, research, and service oriented activities. “The goal of social justice education is full and equal participation of all groups in a society that is mutually shaped to meet their needs. Social justice includes a vision of society that is equitable and all members are physically and psychologically safe and secure” (Bell, Adams & Griffin, 2013, p. 3). Our efforts are devoted to promoting human rights, reducing inequalities, and increasing the empowerment of society’s most vulnerable groups. Our mission is social justice, but our responsibility is to social action. We work to transcend openness, understanding, tolerance, and acceptance, instead working directly to promote equal representation where there is disproportionality, resilience where there is vulnerability or risk, access where there is isolation, and equality where there is none.

 

Conceptual Framework Standards

Each syllabus is required to have a statement explaining how the SOE’s Conceptual Framework (CF)—Social Action through Educationis exemplified within the context of the particular course. As a part of this statement, faculty need to attend to how the course addresses diversity and the social justice mission of the School of Education.  

If the course(s) you are teaching houses a Core Assessment for one or more of the CF standards for your program area, it is critical that you include the CF standard(s) and describe how it weaves through the course and is assessed.

  • CFS1: Candidates critically evaluate current bodies of knowledge in their field. 
  • CFS2: Candidates apply culturally responsive practices that engage diverse communities.  
  • CFS3: Candidates demonstrate knowledge of ethics and social justice.
  • CFS4: Candidates engage with local and/or global communities in ethical and socially just practices.

Disposition

All courses in the SOE assess student dispositions. As a result, your syllabus is required to have a statement describing which SOE dispositions will be assessed in the course: Professionalism, Inquiry, and Social Justice. Disposition data is reviewed by program faculty on a regular basis. This allows faculty to work with students to develop skills, understandings and competencies throughout their program and address any issues as they arise. Full transparency is critical to ensure that students are able to meet the expectations in this area. Please be sure to state the disposition or dispositions that are assessed in the course and direct students to where they can locate the rubric on DIGICATION. A description of how we use disposition data in the SOE is included in the SOE syllabus addendum.

Our Vision

At the School of Education of Loyola University Chicago, future education leaders will have a transformational experience, one that prepares them to use education and research to dismantle social inequalities in both their local and global communities to create a more equitable, just world.

Our Mission

The School of Education at Loyola University Chicago, a Jesuit Catholic urban university, supports the Jesuit ideal of knowledge in the service of humanity. We endeavor to advance equity in education in service of social justice, engaged with Chicago, the nation, and the world. In pursuit of our vision, the School of Education participates in the discovery, development, demonstration, and dissemination of professional knowledge and practice within a context of ethics, service to others, and social justice.

Our mission is social justice, but our responsibility is social action through education and research. We fulfill our responsibility by preparing professionals to serve as teachers, administrators, counselors, psychologists, and policymakers who work across the human developmental continuum, and by conducting research on issues of professional practice in schools, families, and communities.‌ In our immersive learning environment, students gain both second-to-none foundational knowledge and a strategic system-wide vision working alongside some of the top scholars and teachers in the nation. Through our rigorous curriculum, students learn to be comfortable with the uncomfortable, supported by our passionate and dedicated faculty, staff, and administrators. And they leave with lasting relationships with each other and an extensive alumni network of leaders in education across Illinois, the U.S., and the world.

Conceptual Framework

Our mission is social justice, but our responsibility is social action through education. 

Our framework guides the curricula of School of Education programs and serves as the foundation to the School of Education Conceptual Framework standards – standards that are explicitly embedded in major benchmark assessments across all SOE programs.