Loyola College - Review Yearbook (Montreal, Quebec Canada)

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If his demands are not met, he will naturally opt for speeches, demonstration s, sit-ins, and eventual occupation of the College. Over a period of years, Loyola students actually managed to work themselves up to the longest and most persistent siege and occupation of any university in the Montreal area. UNTIL: It is early January 1970, and the campus has been paralyzed for days by a sit-in which eventually becomes an occupation by hundreds of students. But the administration is not up against the wall. It serves soup to the protesters. Then Montreal riot police show up for the party. Crusading students and faculty must now choose between confrontation and violence or a peaceful exit. Deciding that they have sufficiently made their point, the dissidents march out to sub-zero weather, enveloped by the frosty strains of “We Shall Overcome”, and gather in front of the Administration Building to receive a little pep talk before journeying home. This is revolution ? Our activist has now discovered the progress of history according to Loyola. His own urgent sense of immediate issues has been neutralized by the conceptions of eternity and a mystical Higher Order which mark the early education of so many Loyola students. Innate belief in a universal order seems to leave politics and flowers — trees, the sun, society — all on about the same level. Few feel the need to become politically conscious or involved. “I’m all right, Jack ! ” can be said with little fear of reproach because it is assumed that the person lives according to values deemed equally as important as social involvement. It is hard to say whether Loyola students truly have an increased awareness of things other than the work ethic or political consciousness, but as far as Loyola’s morality goes, the prerogative is wide open to them. It may be that the availability of this prerogative has blunted political animosities and inhibited violent disrup- tions by reducing the issues to a personal level, thus disintegrating both the power of mob force and the cohesiveness of a besieged establishment. Symbolic objectives, expecially property, lose their offensive identities and are less likely to incur the wrath of demonstrators. Moreover, since Loyola is small and con- siderably charming, most students regard the campus as belonging to themselves as well as to the administration. In retrospect, Loyola’s student movement took up some important issues and effectively pursued them with remarkable obstinacy, but the good-naturedness and cour- tesy of the participants left many thinking of it as a Mickey Mouse exercise. It is inescapably true that the “local” revolution was a pop phenomena. Things have been dead for a long time. By now it is camp and Loyola may once again be behind the times or, for a change, onto something new. What is it ? I don’t know. We’ll have to wait and see — in case it’s fun.

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Loyola and the Revolution On the way to revolution, Loyola is generally designated as a backwater port. Untroubled, middle-class, English- Catholic and Canadian, it is typically discovered in the eddies of social and intellectual advance. The student activist at Loyola is not likely to be pounced upon and smothered by a group of fearful reactionaries. Most everybody simply considers him to be a manifestation of the times — and times change. Loyola, at least, is content to change — eventually, but sees little point in initiating reform. The collective psyche at Loyola seems to consider particular incidents and up- heavals in their relationship to the scope of history and is usually willing to accom- modate the activist as one whose role is merely an historical function. There is a conscience at Loyola that allows for the necessity of change, and, accidentally, makes some preparation for it. Most people call it apathy. || a That is: 4% “they better not’; 6% “oh yes we will”; and 90% “‘huh ? ”. This gives the progressives a handy 50% edge. Although it may well be the case, such a blanket designation could be un- fair because, so far as apathy is consid- ered wrong, it implies that 90% are being immoral. Rather than being wrong, perhaps their position is indicative of a morality basic to Loyola. Take the case of the activist on campus. (Not the revolutionary. Loyola has never appeared to offer any issues worthy of his fiery attention). The acti- vist soon realizes that he is not exactly storming the ramparts of an entrenched establishment. He learns that the rhetoric of his political and philosophical stances pro- duces little in the way of confrontation and virtually nothing that amounts to change. He turns his attention to practical issues like the renewal of teaching con- tracts or student-faculty representation on College committees and the Board of Trustees.

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Along with the section on Old Loyola, the idea behind this yearbook was to present more than the campus and its events. It was meant to register on a more personal level. This year’s graduates, then, were asked to contribute their thoughts and arrange for an “‘informal’’ photo of themselves which would retain their individuality (compared to a rogues gallery of official gowned shots), as well as show something of Loyola. We only hope that the following pages are successful in that respect.