Magis Moment: February 2022
A Message from the Vice President of University Advancement
At this time of year—especially at this time of year in 2022, when a closer-to-normal Carnival season returns to New Orleans for the first time since 2020—it’s easy at Loyola to look at a lot of things through the peculiar lens of Mardi Gras. Forward-looking Loyola students (yes, there are a good number of them) plan their research paper writing around the parade schedule. Faculty and staff carefully execute costume-making and shoe-decorating in between lecture, course, and meeting preparations.Ìý
I even find benefit from looking at Black History Month, which we celebrate in February, from the standpoint of a Mardi Gras reveler. In Carnival traditions, one sees so muchÌýof the historical richnessÌýof Black Americans and the challenges Black Americans have faced and still face. The sound of parades on the streets of New Orleans is the sound and feel of Afro-Caribbean rhythms. The segregated krewe structure, still present in many ways but evolving toward something new, reflects the legacy of racism and the entrenched privilege of European Americans in 19th- and 20th-century New Orleans. This city has laughed, poked fun, and danced its way through Carnival during and after wars, pandemics, hurricanes, and levee failures—mirroring the way the culture of Black Americans has triumphedÌýeven under cruel and suffocating conditions.
If you make your way back to campus during the academic year, I think you will be struck by how much Loyola students look like New Orleans and look like America--all of America--more than ever before. We think this is the best environment for preparing all of our students for a vocation, a career, and life—and for establishing the krewes and parades and marching groups of the future.ÌýÌýÌý
Happy Carnival Season!
AMDG,
Chris Wiseman ’88
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