About Us
About Us
In 2021, University leadership wondered how to harness the best of Loyola in a unified effort for racial justice and equity. IRJ was the answer — an interdisciplinary hub for research, education and community engagement.
Mission, Vision & Core Values
We are the interdisciplinary hub for racial justice work across Loyola University Chicago and beyond. We build deep relationships, accelerate transformational research and education, and catalyze social impact toward racial justice and equity.
Our Strategic Goals
[1] Operational Excellence
We aim to ensure organizational capacity, effectiveness and sustainability to deliver on our mission.
We don't want to just make big promises, we're going to deliver. By hiring the right people, providing necessary support, creating solid organizational structure, and scaling up with intentionality, we are ensuring we can live out our mission for many years to come.
[2] A Trusted Voice
We aim to become a trusted advocate, partner and resource on intersectional racial justice issues at Loyola, in Chicago, and beyond.
While all American Jesuit Catholic Universities have solid social justice missions, Loyola is the first to take a targeted, comprehensive approach to the fight for racial justice via a large-scale, well-resourced academic hub. We aim to leverage the University's longstanding relationships and international reputation to bring a collective focus to this work.
[3] Change-Making Research
We aim to build pathways for generations of scholars who advance intersectional, interdisciplinary research that centers racial justice and drives structural change.
Our work will produce solutions that will address a national and global imperative. It will engage faculty, staff, and students across Loyola, creating partnerships that wouldn't have existed otherwise. We're collaborating with our partners to develop our own research projects and supporting other projects that are already underway.
[4] Transformative Education
We aim to expand the reach of education that centers racial justice and equity and results in demonstrable systemic changes within and beyond Loyola.
We'll incubate new undergraduate, graduate, and professional courses and programming centered on racial justice. We're partnerning with schools across Loyola to ensure that Asian, Black, Indigenous, Hispanic and Latinx students find academic experiences that respond to and reflect their backgrounds and histories, enabling Loyola to create a stronger sense of belonging among them.
[5] Relational Community Building
We aim to build mutually beneficial campus-based and community-based relationships that advance collective impact.
We're partnering with research organizations, community organizations, health care providers, schools, and other institutions to work together to combat disparities created by racism. We're drawing upon policymakers for their strong connections in the Chicagoland area, and other communities in pursuit of justice and equity.
Read Our Strategic Plan
IRJ News
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Read MoreNew Interdisciplinary Minor in Race and Ethnicity
IRJ May 2023
Loyola University Chicago will debut an interdisciplinary minor in race and ethnicity this fall through a partnership between the College of Arts and Sciences (CAS) and the Institute for Racial Justice (IRJ).
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May 19, 2021
A Black boy from Brooklyn flew under the radar in American schools. Now he’s a professor and researcher of underrepresentation in gifted education. How many others are left behind?
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