Delivering Loyola Stories Through Tours
By Briana Ciccarino
Celebrating the end of the semester and the holiday season, members of Loyola’s Ignatian Society gathered on December 8 in the Sellinger VIP Lounge for a holiday party.
The Ignatian Society is Loyola’s student ambassador program. The program trains students to be tour guides or Iggies. All semester, new Iggies have been shadowing tours and experienced Iggies have been leading tours. Tours are at 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. Monday through Friday, on designated Saturdays, and during open houses.
This year, Undergraduate Admissions altered their open house schedule. Admissions held only one open house this fall instead of two. Anna Follensbee, a Senior Assistant Director of Admissions, works with prospective students and current students who are a part of the Ignatian Society. According to Follensbee, the year has been going well so far. The one open house this fall, she said, “had a great turn out, definitely,” but “I don’t know what we will do in the future.” The main reason there was only one open house in the fall this year, she said, was because “We weren’t seeing huge, huge, huge attendance at both of the [open houses] so we thought let’s try one program and see if that is better for prospective students and parents. It was kind of an experiment.” Follensbee added that “I think definitely for all of you guys, for Iggies, faculty, staff, for everyone to have to come in for one Saturday instead of two Saturdays, is nice.”
In addition, student panels have been incorporated into the smaller Saturday programs. Follensbee said that, “So far we have gotten great feedback about [the student panel]. I think people really like to hear from you all as current students because you know for one of us to be up there for 45 minutes straight, is a little dry.”
Iggies take part in these student panels; however, a few years ago, the Ignatian Society did not exist. The Ignatian Society was transformed from the “Student Ambassador” program in the summer of 2010. Before then, student workers in the Office of Undergraduate Admissions doubled as student tour guides. However, Follensbee said that students “would get burnt out” because they did office work and gave tours. In addition, she said office work and giving tours are very different jobs and they do not fit everyone’s personality. The Ignatian Society, she said, has allowed more students “to tell their Loyola story.” It also now includes a stronger training program than before, and a more extensive shadowing program in which students follow more experienced tour guides for the first semester.
Click here for a video featuring tour guides and a student worker:
Before David Brooks, a first year student, began giving his own tours, he shadowed tours. Brooks said shadowing “definitely helped because when I spoke to a couple of people who became tour guides last year, they didn’t have a real long shadow program. They had shadowed once, but we had a couple weeks, months, of shadowing.” He said this was beneficial and prepared him for leading his own tours. Brooks also enjoys giving tours. “I kind of came to this school because when I had my first tour,” he said, “I had a really great sense of community, and my tour guide was awesome so that was the one of the reasons for coming to this schooL." Brooks expressed that he "wanted to be that promoter of the school and to come here and to give back to the community that brought me here."
Follensbee agreed saying that “I do think that tour guides have such a huge impact. We hear it all the time from students ‘Well, I came and I had my tour with “Briana” or “Kelly” and I really felt like Loyola was the right place’.” Follensbee added that it is different for prospective students to hear from admission counselors, or “paid staff” as she referred to them, “and so to really hear from current students, people think of you guys as sharing the real info, so I think it has a huge, huge impact.”
Admissions will be hosting four open houses in the spring for prospective students, and seniors. Iggies who shadowed this fall semester will being leading their own tours full-time next semester.
