Earlier this semester, it came to the attention of several faculty members that the Sullivan Center is to be demolished. This building houses numerous administrative offices, including Admissions, the Bursar, Career Services, Financial Aid, First and Second Year Advising, International Programs, Military Veteran Student Services, the Student Accessibility Center, the Tutoring Center, and more. Sullivan also houses the auditorium used for the mandatory first year seminar for the Interdisciplinary Honors Program. All of these services will be moved. Where? To Cudahy Library.

The Sullivan Center for Student Services was transformed from the library for Mundelein College into a facility under Loyola University intended to serve as a hub for all of the student services listed above. In addition, Sullivan Center houses the Library Storage Facility in its basement, which is now closed to student and faculty access. Requests for those materials are processed on a case-by-case basis. A library employee has provided an exact number when asked via email: ‘there are roughly 320,574 books in the space.’ This includes Loyola dissertations and collections that have been labeled as “lesser used” by the Library systems. A Loyola professor is skeptical about the metrics used to determine this labeling, because there is a large amount of reference items in Cudahy that are not able to be checked out from the Library and must be used on the premises. Additionally, Loyola has been cutting down on subscriptions to digital databases using faulty metrics, proven by the same professor in his examination of how databases were deemed “lesser used.” The database in question was reinstated, but the same cannot be said of any books that would be destroyed or lost in this purge.

Cudahy Library has 4 floors with dedicated locations for students to study individually and in groups. Students rely on Cudahy for a free space to study outside of the dorms or their homes. With Sullivan gone, and the Student Academic Services being moved into Cudahy, at least one floor, if not two, will be carved out for these offices. Cudahy houses the vast majority of Loyola’s humanities, social sciences, and science-based reference materials, the university archives including dissertations from former students, and donated collections from university donors and contributors. This reduces a massive amount of dedicated study space for graduates, and free study spaces for graduates and undergraduates alike. Loyola already has an extreme lack of study space on campus. Yet, despite this, they plan to take away the some of the limited study space we already have, while also raising tuition 3.9% for the upcoming 2024-25 academic year.

The current plan for Sullivan Center is to replace the Student Services Center with a new sciences building. This is not to say that Loyola doesn’t desperately need updated facilities for the sciences. The plan is for Loyola to become a more credible research facility for the sciences, especially as academia is becoming more competitive. But, does this really need to come at the cost of Loyola’s library resources? Why are students being forced to accept that we can either be a leading STEM research facility or a humanities-based institution? And why is this decision being made for us, behind our backs and without our knowledge? Why has no clear plan been put forward for what will be done with the books?

The fact that the Administration is reportedly planning on forcing this vote through without informing students or faculty is both disappointing and disheartening. The fact that this decision is being made so quickly and behind our backs shows that the administration knows that what they are doing is wrong. Loyola prides itself on academic pursuits and being a research-based institution in accordance with its Ignatian heritage and Jesuit values. All of our programs, humanities, social sciences, and the sciences, depend on the library. Donors have invested millions into making our library what it is, and Loyola just received a state grant to update the IC and provide support for the libraries. However, Loyola currently does not list the libraries on their list of giving priorities for donors despite the sheer amount of student and faculty traffic the library sees every day. Our libraries desperately need more support, not less.

The administration is directly attacking Loyola’s student and faculty opportunities for research, which goes against our Jesuit values. If we are not careful, we will follow the paths of Marquette University, who reduced their core requirements against the will of their students, or Wheeling University, which cut their entire humanities program in 2019 and lost its accreditation as a Jesuit institution. Students and faculty should have a say in this decision, but it has been deliberately kept quiet from us. Loyola has also removed all student representation from the Board of Trustees in the past year, and faculty members have lacked representation on the Board for a number of years. The University administration is telling us that our voices don’t matter in the decisions they make on our behalf.

It is our responsibility as members of the Loyola community to make our voices heard. We must demand representation in the making of University decisions for ourselves and our faculty members. We must demand that Loyola maintain committed to its Jesuit values and Ignatian heritage, which are a point of pride for those who chose to pursue careers or education here. Loyola cannot promote itself as an institution dedicated to well rounded, humanities-based education without ensuring that students have access to the research materials they need to become successful in any academic discipline they may choose. Loyola students deserve to have all disciplines treated equally. Loyola’s Administration must reconsider the decision to remove of such a large part of our academic history, or risk tarnishing the trust that donors and alumni have in Loyola’s mission.