UNIVERSITY NEWS | Rev. Robert B. Lawton, S.J., LMU’s 14th president, returned to campus Thursday, Jan. 24, 2019, to much appreciation and acclaim. Lawton, who presided over a dynamic period of growth and change at LMU, received the university’s highest honor, a Doctor of Humane Letters degree, before a packed audience in the Life Sciences Building Auditorium.
“Through his guidance, his love, and his devotion to LMU, he created a destination for learning and discovery, inclusivity and imagination, community and connection. He created today’s LMU,” said President Timothy Law Snyder, Ph.D., who conferred the degree. Snyder also welcomed guests, including trustees, regents, former President David W. Burcham, as well as Provost Shane Martin of Seattle University, who was dean of the School of Education during Father Lawton’s tenure. Paul Viviano, chair of the Board of Trustees, called Lawton “an eloquent, inspiring visionary” in his introductory remarks.
Following a stirring tribute video, Snyder recounted Father Lawton’s legacy, including the many changes in the physical campus and academic advancements, and what he termed the former president’s majesty – Father Lawton’s generous and encouraging nature. In a telling moment, Snyder asked those in the audience to raise their hands if they had received a handwritten note of thanks or appreciation from Father Lawton. More than a third raised their hands, an impressive visual tribute to the guest of honor.
Father Lawton thanked the assembled crowd of students, faculty, staff, administration and governance. “I’m honored, I’m touched, and indeed I’m moved,” he said. “At last, after many years, I have become like many of you, an LMU alum.”
For his remarks, he said that he was going to read a portion of his inaugural speech from 1999. “I’m a dreamer in the original sense. My inaugural address set forth my dreams for LMU. But I have not been making them a reality; you have.” Father Lawton then dedicated his remarks in “memory of the person perhaps most important in making my vision a reality, Chad Dreier,” the former chair of the Board of Trustees who passed away in December 2018.
Father Lawton came to LMU from Georgetown University, where he was dean of Georgetown College, the liberal arts and sciences college. During his tenure, LMU built new student apartments; doubled its academic space with the opening of University Hall, an acquisition that was years in the making; established the LMU Children’s Center, among the first such care centers at a university; and constructed the William H. Hannon Library, a world-class research facility and the academic heart of LMU’s Westchester campus. Lawton Plaza, in front of the library, was dedicated in 2010 in his honor.
He also prioritized diversity and inclusion by instituting a diversity scorecard project to monitor the university’s progress for equity for historically underrepresented students in access, retention, institutional receptivity and excellence. Along with the hiring of a high-ranking administrator, Abbie Robinson-Armstrong, who was charged with advancing diversity, Father Lawton put LMU at the forefront of the diversity and inclusion movement in higher education.
The university flourished academically during Father Lawton’s tenure by adding nearly 100 full-time tenure and tenure-track professors, and LMU became a top producer of Fulbright Scholars. Father Lawton also shaped the student academic experience; under his leadership LMU opened the Bioethics Institute; established the now top-ranked School of Film and Television; and welcomed its first doctoral program – the Ed.D. in Leadership for Social Justice within the School of Education. Additionally, Loyola Law School added the Center for the Study of Law and Genocide, the Center for Juvenile Law and Policy, the Civil Justice Program, the Journalist Law School and the Sports Law Institute.
A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Fordham University (summa cum laude) with a major in classics in 1971, he went on to earn his Ph.D. in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations from Harvard University in 1977, where he was a Danforth and a Woodrow Wilson Fellow. He was ordained a Roman Catholic priest on June 13, 1981.
Lawton taught Hebrew and Aramaic at the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome from 1982 to 1984. He also served as the dean of Georgetown College, the liberal arts and sciences college of Georgetown University.
Lawton closed his remarks with three themes that were the source of his vision for the university and the inspiration for his dreams: city, church and university. “The university is committed to educating young people to be contemplatives in action, reflective practitioners, practical dreamers…. In short, we want to give our students those skills that will enable them to turn their dreams into reality.”
“Together we can create a holy spot, here by the Pacific shore, where men and women diverse in talents and interests and cultural backgrounds can become fully alive for God’s glory and the world’s good.”
