There aren’t many staff here at Loyola who remember the 90s. But I have spoken to a few who were here, and who have not forgotten. During the 1990s, Loyola went through an extreme period of what was essentially fiscal conservatism. The deficit in 1993 was extremely high when President Rev. John Piderit, S.J. took office. The budget was about $26 million short. The difficulties only worsened when the Loyola Medical Center separated financially from the University, causing Loyola to lose as much as $40 million a year in income. The Medical Center had essentially been carrying the university budget, but they separated when Clinton began discussing his healthcare plan, which intended to nationalize healthcare. The separation in 1995 was beneficial for the Medical School in the long run, despite national hospital budget cuts occurring at the time. But this came at an extreme loss for the university.
After President Piderit took office, there was a cut in salary increases by roughly half. While he did increase freshman admission 37%, the University’s endowment shrunk 31% to roughly $308 million. Endowment is currently over $1 billion, according to the 2023 FY Annual Report. Under Piderit, between 1993 and 1997, tuition increased by 46.5% to about $15,654 per student. Today, tuition and fees are roughly $26,695 not including room and board (for the 2024-25 Academic Year, posted on the Bursar’s website). Tuition hikes, hiring freezes, reductions in salary increases, shrinking endowment, but a huge amount spent on campus beautification and recruitment efforts… what could go wrong?
Apparently, a lot. During this same period, Chicago Public Schools (CPS) were in extreme debt and cutting costs everywhere they could. According to a professor who worked at Loyola in the 1990s, Loyola had no interest in recruiting from failing CPS schools because they saw the district moving towards bankruptcy. Piderit had come to the University in 1993 and sought to make Loyola a national competitor. However, there was no decent infrastructure for national recruitment until about 1999. This likely contributed to the falling enrollment rates. But Piderit had a plan. And he presented it at the end of 1998 and expanded on it in spring of 1999. The plan was called “Loyola 2000: Academic Enhancement and Restructuring.”
Piderit sprang the plan on unsuspecting faculty at a 1999 Faculty Council Meeting. The plan was already set in motion, being run by senior administration and without the input of faculty and staff. He planned to stem first year attrition, which sat at 17.5%, and increase the growth of first year classes by 3% a year. They anticipated balancing the budget through reducing hiring on the staff and faculty level and the expansion of Vice Presidential administration. This meant that financial decisions would be made outside of the purview of faculty, who had their representation on the Board of Trustees stripped in 1996. The president and his administration admitted that this project had been in the works for some time, and faculty and staff had no idea. The senior administration announced that the budget would need to be balanced in three months via departmental restructuring.
At this point in the discussion, it should be mentioned, the notes cover questions from confused and frustrated faculty. The integrity of the new Board of Trustees appointments was brought up, “The administration was asked whether the Board of Trustees was chosen on the basis of how much money they are able to bring in to the university. Our present board was not recruited on the basis of money. The old board members were chosen for expertise, the new however, at least non-Jesuit members are being told fund raising is part of their responsibility” (p 3). No concrete answers were provided. The Loyola 2000 plan was non-negotiable, and faculty and staff would simply have to deal with it. The plan was to cut expenditure by 12% and raise revenue by 14% in one year.
At this point, faculty had lacked representation on the Board of Trustees. Student representation maintained, but they had limited input. In fact, in 2022, following calls for divestment from war profiteering companies, student representation was removed all together. So who was making the decisions? Vice Presidential Administration, of course. Which remains the way Loyola makes decisions to this day. Loyola has become a business, not an institution of learning. And it backfired on them in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
Staff weren’t going to keep quiet about this. When news of the Loyola 2000 plan was leaked to the Sun Times, faculty realized that bad press was their best weapon. Throughout 1999 and 2000, negative coverage about Loyola’s budget cuts continued to come out in local press, including statements from faculty, students, and other academics. A few more examples can be found here, here, and here.
Faculty forced a vote of no confidence after a month long delay. [The vote was 36% no confidence, 33% confidence, and 31% abstaining](https://www.chicagotribune.com/1999/03/09/facultys-vote-on-loyola-chief-inconclusive/#:~:text=Thirty-six percent of Loyola,Piderit a vote of confidence.), marking it inconclusive. Even with the full support of the Trustee Board behind him, this was the nail in the coffin for President Piderit. He announced that he would resign June of 2001, or earlier if a successor was found. President Piderit was forced to resign.
Of course, on his way out, he took one last sweeping cut. In March of 2001, it was announced that the Department of Classics would be cut, and tenured faculty would be moved into other departments. All other staff would be let go. Of course, this plan was heralded by the senior administration as a positive; Larry Braskamp, then senior vice president for academic affairs, claimed that **ABOLISHING THE CLASSICS DEPARTMENT** would “re-emphasize the Jesuit Catholic tradition” to “focus on excellence and on students being engaged and connected to the city.” Note how excellence comes before students. Funnily enough, Loyola students were ranked 4th on the list of unhappiest students (p. 34) according to a 1999 Princeton Review “The Best 331 Colleges” publication (which is where President Piderit got his Ph.D in Economics. Who knew?). The happiest students, by the way? DePaul University students. How about that?
(Screenshots taken from the archived copy of “The Best 331 Colleges” on archive dot org, accessible here. In case you were curious)
Back to Classics. Of course, Loyola still has a Classics Department, thanks to the endless advocacy of students, faculty, and outside advocates. The number one criticism was “tantamount to abandoning the Jesuit mission,” and that cutting Classics is simply not done. In June, it was announced that the program would not be cut after all, but it would **no longer be accepting Graduate students.** This decision drastically reduced the options for Classics students in the Chicago area, as Northwestern was also not accepting graduate students in Classics until they could hire more faculty. Loyola now boasts a Post-Baccalaureate Certificate in Classical Studies geared towards ancient Greek and/or Latin fluency.
That very same June of 2001 saw the advent of Fr. Michael Garanzini, S.J., as President. A faculty member I spoke to said that President Garanzini was one of the best things to happen to the library. By 2002, Garanzini had proposed a plan to address the deficit. There was a $17 million deficit, down about $9 million from when Piderit took office. The new budget plan was made, and the university budget was stabilized by dipping into the principle funds of the endowment rather than just the interest. Most found the changes to be positive, though there were still some cuts in departments here and there. Despite this, by 2003, there was a $2.2 million budget surplus. Full-time faculty employment dropped, but incoming first-year enrollment was at an all time high for two successive years. The next plan on the table was leveling faculty salaries to a competitive level. There would be no across the board raises, but salaries would be addressed as the school admitted more and more students. After just two years, it seemed that Loyola was on the up-and-up.
Please note that the 2003 Faculty Council meeting I have referenced above occurred in September of 2003. If you’ll remember, in October of that same year, a massive purge was undertaken in the library under the purview of the Provost. Things had gotten better, sure, but the issue wasn’t fixed entirely. But, in December of 2003, pay raises were now once again on the table.
Michael Garanzini did increase funding to the library, setting aside about half a million dollars for the library. He made sure the library would be stable during his tenure. But this meant strict limits on how many books could be added. The library catalogue was 1 million in 1990. Now, in 2024, it is 1.2 million. With stringent policies and care, only 200 thousand books have been added over the course of the last 34 years. This has not kept pace with the amount of admitted students, nor the increase in faculty numbers. The library needs to be expanded, not culled.
Most of the faculty who were here 30 years ago are no longer at Loyola. Those that are still here remember the “Troubles.” Loyola is in a much better place financially, with an endowment of over $1 billion. For reference, in 2002, endowment was $282 million. Loyola has the capacity to re-examine its budget and make smarter decisions about the allocation of resources. It is important that we do not let a repeat of the 1990s occur. Our library is the central piece on our Lakeshore campus. It should be protected, not destroyed.
If you have read this far, thank you. Thank you from myself, a student here, and the faculty who are supporting this endeavor. Thank you to all of those who have shared the petition and spread the word. Time is running out quickly. Please check back regularly for updates and new ways to help us out. You are all appreciated.