LOYOLA HIGH SCHOOL OF LOS ANGELES PRESIDENT FR. GREGORY M. GOETHALS, SJ '73 TO STEP DOWN JULY 2025

Jesuit Priest Leaves Behind Storied 20-Year Legacy

LOS ANGELES, Sept. 17, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Loyola High School of Los Angeles, the oldest continually operated educational institution in Southern California, announced that Fr. Gregory M. Goethals, SJ '73 will step down as president at the end of the 2024-2025 academic year. Arriving at his alma mater in 2005, Fr. Goethals was the Jesuit Superior and founded the Office of Adult Spirituality before being named president in 2006.

"For the last 19 years I have had the privilege of being the President of Loyola High School. My hope is that, in that role, I have helped this institution continue the formation of young men in the same way that my own time as a student at Loyola formed me," said Fr. Goethals. "I have been the luckiest man in the world to have had a job at an institution that I care about so deeply, that has been such an important part of my and my family's life, and that is such an essential part of our great and good Los Angeles community."

Among the many accomplishments realized during Fr. Goethals' tenure are:

• The increase of faculty and staff from 149 to nearly 200, while maintaining a strong Jesuit presence with 12 resident priests, six of whom work at Loyola, more than any other Jesuit high school in the country
• The Campaign for Loyola which shepherded the completion of the William H. Hannon Science Hall and the Frank J. Ardolf & Frances R. Ardolf Academic Hall
• The 2014-2015 Sesquicentennial that celebrated Loyola's rich history with Los Angeles and the nation
• The building of Caruso Hall, a state-of-the-art liturgical, educational and special events space
• The modernization of the historic Ruppert and Loyola Halls
• The acquisition of 11 land parcels, expanding the footprint of the campus to 22 acres
• The near tripling of the endowment to $80 million-plus

"As long as there's a Los Angeles to serve, Loyola will be here to serve it. But, the only way we can achieve that is by maintaining the long-term sustainability of our 160-year-old institution," said Fr. Goethals. "That is why it's crucial to grow our endowment to $100 million, during this, my final year, so as to ensure the affordability of Loyola for our students and fulfill our Jesuit mission."

About Loyola High School
Celebrating its 160th anniversary as the oldest continually operated educational institution in Southern California, Loyola High School of Los Angeles is an academically rigorous Jesuit college preparatory, located just west of downtown Los Angeles and counts with more than 17,000 alumni. Loyola's student body of over 1,300 young men represents a remarkable geographic diversity, drawing on over 190 zip codes from throughout and beyond Los Angeles County. The school is also ethnically diverse with more than 45 percent of the student body of Latino, Asian-Pacific or African American descent. To enable students to achieve the goal of being "Men for and With Others," Loyola students must complete at least 140 hours of community service work before graduation, with many contributing nearly 200 hours. Over the past two-and-a-half decades, Loyola students have donated more than 3 million hours of community service, primarily to inner-city schools, neighborhoods and agencies. Please visit us at http://www.loyolahs.edu.

Contact: Maite Berry
213.381.5121, X1313

SOURCE Loyola High School of Los Angeles