Cardoner (kar-dun-air)

As a member of the Cardoner Leadership Program (CLP), I feel that my transition to the University of Loyola New Orleans has differed greatly compared to that of my peers. The program affected many aspects of my freshman year which greatly influenced my experience as a first-year college student.

From the beginning I was very intrigued by the living-learning aspect that the cardoner program offered to its participants. Since it was the first time that I would be living on my own, I felt that living in a communal environment would give off the coziness of a "home away from home" which I found appealing. As anticipated, the living situation certainly lived up to the communal title. We ate meals together, did homework in the hallways, hours listening to music in each others rooms and spent plenty of time in the infamous "10a lounge." It seemed that we worked well as a community. The next obvious aspect of the living-learning community was the learning element.

By the time we had our first class we had already been living together for almost 2 weeks. The class that we were taking was called "Rebuilding New Orleans" which seemed appropriate considering that our living-learning seemed to be based out of service. Our class instructor was Peter Burns who was rumored to be one of the top professors at the university by the previous Cardoner class. The class revolved first around a book called Zeitoun which gave a true-life account a man who stayed behind in Katrina and became a hero through his acts of bravery. Next, the class was divided into groups and given a current policy project in the city in New Orleans.

In addition to the class and the living community, we attended programs put on buy the university such as 'Movies that make you go hmmm", jesuit speaker series and various seminars. Many times the Cardoners were the only ones present at these events.

As one can see, those involved in the freshman Cardoner experience were active in a lot of aspects of campus life. As sophomores returning to Cardoner many questions have been raised regarding the purpose of our participation in these different activities. The purpose of the program on campus is not clear. This year, hopefully we can greater serve the Loyola community by designating a clear purpose of the program.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlsBObg-1BQ&feature=fvwp&NR=1