Loyola Startled as President Loughran Resigns
Father James N. Loughran, president of Loyola Marymount University, unexpectly submitted his resignation this week after seven years at the helm of the 77-year-old Westchester university.
The resignation, effective at the end of the summer term in August, was announced in an address to the board of trustees on Monday night and in an open letter to the community distributed on campus the following day. Loughran said he would continue on next academic year if more time is needed to find his replacement.
In his letter, Loughran said he had a personal “need to stop and regroup” as the university pursues ambitious campus expansion plans and a new fund-raising drive. A 128-acre campus located on the Del Rey hills, Loyola Marymount serves 3,900 undergraduates and has become nationally known in recent years as a basketball powerhouse.
“One side of me would love to stay and be in charge of this, but I sense that it is time for new leadership, a fresh surge of energy,” Loughran said. “. . . Now I want to slow down for a while, read and think, have time for friends, and prepare for my next Jesuit assignment, whatever that may be.”
Loyola officials credited Loughran with bringing solid financial and administrative management to the university. Loyola Marymount’s endowment rose from $21 million to $106 million during Loughran’s tenure, university officials said.
Loughran also established summer research grants for faculty, created faculty sabbaticals and “wanted the university to be known for its academic program,” said Leah Chester-Davis, Loyola’s director of media relations. Loyola’s ascension in athletics was one sticking point with Loughran, who once said in an interview that his goal was never to promote the school as a potential “Georgetown of the West.”
News of Loughran’s resignation was a “complete surprise” and sent student editors scurrying to get information in this week’s edition of the campus paper, the Loyolan, said Managing Editor Phil Clark, a senior. Clark speculated that the school’s growth in athletics was one area that led Loughran to move on.
“He’s very anti-athletics and just about everyone else at the school is very pro-athletics,” Clark said. “The general opinion of him among students is that he’s a nice guy but he’s not a good administrator.”
A small group of students took over Loughran’s office in 1989, charging that university administrators and others were insensitive to racial minorities. Last year, another group demonstrated outside his office when Loughran refused to grant full recognition to a club for gay and lesbian students.
Loughran, a Brooklyn native who turns 51 later this month, served as a professor of philosophy and dean at Fordham University in New York City before becoming the 12th president at Loyola in 1984.