Loyola High School (Montreal)

History

Founded in 1896, Loyola High School started life as Loyola College (an 8-year classical college or "collège classique") 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, 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 very 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, to relocating the School to Côte Saint-Luc on land owned by Loyola (currently the location of Côte Saint-Luc City Hall). 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

Loyola High School encourages each student to "strive for academic excellence and to pursue his intellectual development to the full measure of his personal talents". Loyola stresses that academic excellence involves much more than receiving satisfactory grades on a challenging curriculum. Loyola's commitment is to promote active, lifelong learning and to challenge its students to "go beyond the mastery of the basic skills, to encourage creativity, to cultivate the faculty of imagination, and to guide students to function as inquiries and problem-solvers through analysis, synthesis and evaluation." Loyola leads students to explore the "harmony and inter-relations among diverse intellectual and academic discipline, and to develop an active concern for, and awareness of, social developments in their lives in Quebec, in Canada and in the world."

Athletics

Loyola boasts a number of athletic teams in competition with other schools, primarily competing in the Greater Montreal Athletics Association. Loyola's traditional rivals in athletics are Lower Canada College and Selwyn House School.

Facilities

Ed Meagher Sports Tournament

One of the largest high school sports tournaments in North America, the Ed Meagher Sports Tournament (est. 1971) 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 (the year of his passing), who 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 (now Juvenile) was the original sport in 1971. In 1974, Senior basketball (now Juvenile) 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 (the arena used for all Loyola hockey home games and tournaments) was named the Ed Meagher Arena.

Community

Christian Service Program (CSP) 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 (before Christmas break and after Christmas break. (Example: Grade 7: 2 hours before Christmas, 2 hours after Christmas; Grade 8: 4 hours before and after; Grade 9: 6 hours before and after; Grade 10: 8 hours before and after). For students in grade 11 the period of service is for 2 hours a week over the course of 12 weeks (total: 24 hours) before or after Christmas.

Experience Week In 2013 Loyola introduced its secondary four Experience Week. The program consists of a deeper community integration than what is achieved at the CSP level. In March of each year, all secondary four students take a week off from school in order to integrate internationally or locally into communities that are different from their own. The Dominican Experience takes place in the Dominican Republic villages of Cerveceria and Consuelo, the Belize Experience takes place in the Belizean village of San Jose Succotz, and the Montreal Experience takes place at a variety of centres and organizations throughout the city.

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 (represented by the two wolves and kettle) and the House of Onaz (represented by the seven red bars on a field of gold) 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

Loyola in Court

In 2008, Quebec's Ministry of Education, Sport and Leisure introduced a mandatory “Ethics and Religious Culture” (ERC) course to all Quebec schools. Loyola had reservations with the courses 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 March 19, 2015, it was ruled that the Quebec Ministry was in violation of Loyola's religious freedom and ordered the Ministry to reconsider the exemption.

Religion

Politics, law and business

Arts, entertainment, writing

Philosophy and academia

Sport