Tim Devine, a beloved member of the Loyola community, has made the jump from history teacher to principal. Though this isn’t his first time in the administrative seat; he served as principal at Walter Payton High School for nine years. During his time there, Walter Payton rose through the rankings of Chicago Public Schools and became one of the best high schools in the country. Mr. Devine expressed that this change in rankings was never the goal, merely the outcome of their process.
By actively listening to and incorporating student and faculty feedback, Mr. Devine’s administration built a school culture that worked in the favor of both students and teachers. “We blended all those faculty and student perspectives together and spent years building towards those goals.”
He hopes to follow a similar trajectory with Loyola starting with the central question of Jesuit education: How do we instill the values of RIPLOC in our students?
Mr. Devine believes that leadership is about striking the intimate balance between patience and urgency. On one hand, high school is only four years, and it would be a disservice to the students currently at Loyola to not be urgent about getting them the best possible education, but on the other, building strong “systems and culture” is a process that takes time.
Mr. Devine used the Jesuit idea of “one foot raised” to express his leadership ideology. The “one foot firmly planted” in this metaphor speaks to the responsibility to current Loyola students and the “one foot raised” is looking to the future. One of these future goals is to develop “competencies: specific things our students should be able to know and do to demonstrate their religious and spirituality selves, their intellectual competence, etc.”
He hopes to combat the vagueness of the standing Loyola values.
One of the key characteristics of Mr. Devine is his love of Loyola. He was a high school student here himself and found that his years here were hugely formative for him. He said one of the defining moments of his Loyola experience was learning the ability to “ask big questions.” He learned to question the things around him, the choices of authors, the way chemicals bond, etc. This vigorous wonder was something deeply instilled in him at Loyola and defined who he was as an adult. He hopes to bring this same energy into his work as principal.
Devine also noted the impact of Kairos on him as a young adult. He believes it was one of the “fundamentally life altering moments of my [his] life” and urges “anyone reading this to go on Kairos!”
Most of all, Principal Devine hopes to use his love of Jesuit values in combination with his vast experience as an educator to make Loyola the best institution it can be.
