Loyola Marymount University’s global engagement faculty and staff attended the 2025 International Association of Jesuit Universities (IAJU) International Education Conference, held at Sophia University in Tokyo, Japan. The conference is designed to promote Jesuit global education partnerships, share approaches to common challenges, and connect professionals across the international Jesuit university network. LMU representatives included Associate Provost Dr. Roberta Espinoza, Campus Minister for International Immersion Allie Holmquist, Director of Education Abroad Brian Pirttima, and Director of Global Learning Dr. Jennifer Ramos.
The Yotsuya Campus of Sophia University hosted this year’s conference, the third of its kind, after having been previously hosted by Universidad Loyola Andalucía in Seville, Spain (2022), and by Universidad Iberoamericana in Puebla, Mexico (2019). Each conference aims to connect higher education international relations and global engagement administrators from various countries. Through discussions and collaboration, attendees hope to promote global citizenship and diversity while fostering the Jesuit ideals of service and social justice surrounding student life and academics.
The conference featured various keynote speakers, workshops, and panel discussions over the three days. One panel moderator was Dr. Scott Hendrickson, SJ, a member of Loyola Marymount University’s Board of Trustees.
“The various panels and break-out sessions gave participants the opportunity to explore in more depth the important place international education, global engagement, and institutional partnerships hold in Jesuit education around the world,” Dr. Hendrickson said. “The gathering at Sophia University allowed us to build on previous initiatives and to think strategically about new possibilities for engagement, partnership, and mission alignment.”
The conference’s program focused on topics combining education and Jesuit values, including internationalizing higher education, Catholic identity and education, social justice and service, and global civilization. Allie Holmquist, LMU Campus Minister for International Immersion, also noticed an overarching theme of global cultural competency as they discussed how to respect cultures that are different from one’s own and help students prepare for intercultural interactions.
“Now, more than ever, we’re in the global world, and there’s access to all of these things,” Holmquist said. “Students who are in my program [Ignacio Companions] need to have some level of global competency and interculturality, and those are things that are taught and learned. Thus, this coming year, I want to implement reflections and content around what global cultural competency looks like. How do we act when we’re approaching and encountering different cultures? How do we do it with graciousness and openness?”
Dr. Roberta Espinoza, LMU’s Associate Provost for International Programs and Partnerships, attended the conference and also noted these themes as she spoke with other international educators.
“Attending the IAJU International Education Conference at Sophia University was both inspiring and reaffirming,” Espinoza said. “It was a privilege to engage with global colleagues dedicated to advancing Jesuit higher education through internationalization, equity, and collaboration. These shared dialogues renewed our collective purpose as educators and highlighted the importance of centering mission in the development of meaningful global partnerships and student experiences.”
A specific dialogue woven throughout the conference and its discussions was each institution’s commitment to the Jesuits’ Universal Apostolic Preferences, which are their four articulated priorities: showing the way to God, care for the common home, standing with the marginalized, and journeying with the youth. Holmquist has integrated these priorities into her personal and professional life, and recognized how the conference highlighted the significance of the values in Jesuit universities.
“Every panel, people were talking about the UAPs,” Holmquist said. “In every presentation that was given, they were coming up… It really was one of the centralized themes of what we were talking about and how to implement them at different levels and universities.”
Everyone in attendance had a clear commitment to these values, which sparked open conversations about current political events. Holmquist was pleasantly surprised by people’s willingness to discuss such issues.
“They had a Catholic mass one morning, and they had the Archbishop of Tokyo,” Holmquist said. “He spoke explicitly about USAID and the impacts of the administration pulling back USAID globally… He talked a lot about hope and identifying where we find hope, which is language Pope Francis used—like focusing on hope as an antidote for what’s going on in the world. But what was surprising to me was the explicit naming of these justice issues, and he spoke very eloquently about them but also very passionately… I had been going to church here in the U.S, and there had been a lot of side-stepping, but to have an Archbishop say, ‘these all of the things that are going wrong, and we need to be centered in this theology of hope,’ was really inspiring to me.”
The IAJU International Education Conference explored discourse surrounding global cultural competency, international education, and integrating the Universal Apostolic Preferences into universities and daily lives. Attendees were reminded of the importance of these as they engaged with educators from around the world in a shared pursuit of hope, respect, and reinvigorating their commitment to Jesuit values.