International Education Month
"The World is our Home"
November 2022
The famous phrase, "the world is our home," originally attributed to Jerónimo Nadal, S.J., is imbued with an ethos of global interconnectedness—interconnectedness of our world and all in it. As pioneers in establishing educational institutions throughout the world, our Jesuit heritage calls us to see each one of us as connected to all others, to the world, and to our environment. These interconnections call us to see God in all things and care for each other and our planet. As a Jesuit, Catholic institution, Loyola University Maryland sees inherent value in the world as an inclusive home that celebrates a rich diversity of people, cultures, customs, and identities.
Loyola's International Education Month (IEM) calls us to live our mission in developing and preparing our students to lead, serve, and care for our diverse and changing world. Through an exciting array of in-person and virtual events and activities, Loyola’s IEM celebrates the more broadly recognized International Education Week (IEW), initiated in 2000 by the U.S. Departments of State and Education. IEM offers opportunities for all community members—students, faculty, staff, administrators, Baltimore and world community members—to engage in conversations, learn about, and celebrate our rich tapestry of diversity in and around our common home, as we prepare our graduates as future leaders, for and with others, charged with stewardship in caring for our common home for generations to come.
As a Laudato Si' University, Loyola strives to advance each of the seven Laudato Si' calls to action:
- Respond to the cry of the Earth, a call to equitably address climate change, biodiversity loss, and ecological sustainability;
- Respond to the cry of the poor, a call for global solidarity with special attention given to vulnerable groups, such as indigenous communities, refugees, migrants, and children;
- Foster ecological economics, acknowledging the economy is a sub-system of human society embedded within the biosphere;
- Adopt a sustainable lifestyle, with the idea of sufficiency—living with just enough and not excess—to ensure a good life for all;
- Offer ecological education, through curricular and institutional reform in the spirit of integral ecology to foster ecological awareness and action;
- Develop ecological spirituality through greater contact and connections with the natural world in the spirit of wonder, praise, joy, happiness, and gratitude; and
- Support local communities, with community engagement and participatory action to care for creation.