ROGERS PARK — Sister Jean, Loyola College Chicago’s beloved figurehead, has retired from campus duties, the college stated.
In a message to the Loyola group on Sister Jean’s 106th birthday final month, college President Mark Reed confirmed she’s now not taking part in campus exercise.
“Whereas Sister Jean is now not in a position to be bodily current on campus, she stays a beloved good friend, trusted advisor, and constant Rambler — cheering for our groups and praying for us all day by day,” Reed wrote.
Sister Jean, a mainstay on Loyola’s campuses, wrote to college students on her Aug. 21 birthday, saying she had a “dangerous summer time chilly and different well being points.” These points meant she wouldn’t be celebrating her birthday on campus, although college students got a Sister Jean pen to commemorate her milestone.
“It has been fantastic for me to be with you these years and to observe you develop spiritually, intellectually, and socially, and to see the buddies you’ve made,” the sister wrote. “And to see the progress you’ve made in your tutorial life. I’ve at all times been joyful to share my time with you.”
Sister Jean was born Dolores Bertha Schmidt on Aug. 21, 1919 in San Francisco, in response to Loyola. From a younger age, she knew she needed to dedicate her life to faith.
In 1938, she grew to become a member of the Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary and took on the identify Sister Jean Dolores. She joined Mundelein Faculty, Loyola’s now-defunct sister college, in 1961 to show and remained there when the college was purchased by Loyola College.
She grew to become the Loyola males’s basketball crew chaplain in 1996. As chaplain, she supported the athletes via prayer and recommendation each on and off the courtroom, and have become a beloved determine to your complete college group.
Sister Jean’s worldwide fame got here throughout the Loyola males’s basketball crew’s historic run within the 2018 NCAA March Insanity match, which ended with a loss within the Last 4. She was regularly featured on nationally televised protection of the Ramblers’ video games, getting shout-outs from luminaries like Chicago native and former President Barack Obama.
Within the years since, she’s been immortalized in a bobblehead, had the Loyola Crimson Line plaza named in her honor and guided the group via the pandemic — the second she has lived via. She has additionally written a memoir and obtained a presidential proclamation on her 105 birthday from former President Joe Biden.
Take heed to the Block Membership Chicago podcast:
