Jesuit Father McAndrews recalled as ‘brilliant’ educator at Loyola Blakefield

When recalling Jesuit Father James F. “Jerry” McAndrews and his legacy at Loyola Blakefield, John Stewart doesn’t spare the superlatives.

“He was a brilliant writer and a brilliant speaker, but a very humble man,” said Stewart, who worked with Father McAndrews for 19 years as the Towson school’s dean of students. 

Father McAndrews, who died Nov. 23 at age 96, is largely credited with putting the all-boys school on a path during his presidency (1979-98) to where it now is honored routinely as one of the best private educational institutions in Maryland.

During Father McAndrews’ tenure, Loyola added a middle school and changed its name from Loyola High School to Loyola Blakefield.

“Father McAndrews was the right man at the right time for Loyola,” said Stewart, a day after attending Father McAndrew’s funeral in Philadelphia. “Loyola went through a stretch in the 1970s where it had trouble finding its identity. I credit him and Father James Salmon (Father McAndrews’ presidential predecessor and fellow Jesuit) with saving the school. They really turned it around and set it on a path for success.”

Dyer Bell, a 1995 Loyola alum, echoed Stewart’s thoughts on Father McAndrews’ legacy and personality.

“He was engaged, thoughtful and generous,” said Bell, an insurance professional and parishioner of Church of Nativity in Timonium. “He was not a big personality. He was more of a spiritual father figure. He was a steady, quiet guy – even-keeled and devoted. You really got the sense that he enjoyed the time he spent with the students.”

Bell, who has two sons attending Loyola and one who graduated last year, had a unique connection to Father McAndrews since Bell’s father, Dennis, was a student of Father McAndrews’ at what is now Loyola University Maryland.

“I was in the first class of sixth-grade students in 1988; so we always had a kind of connection,” Bell said. “He was the steady hand that planted the seeds for the fruits of what you see at Loyola now. He did so much more than the capital improvements like Burk Hall that you see today. He established the Christian service office and pushed the Ignatian service component.”

Stewart also noted Father McAndrews’ Jesuit influence on the institution.

“He was a generous man who was inspired by the Jesuit spirit and Jesuit pedagogy (teaching method),” said Stewart, who noted that it was unusual for a member of the Jesuit order to stay at a post for as long as Father McAndrews did at Loyola. “He was generous with his time with the students, parents, faculty and any other school constituents. He was always there when anyone needed him for anything.”

Stewart said Father McAndrews had a particular knack for public speaking and for passing along reading suggestions to faculty members.

“If he suggested a book, I think everyone on the faculty read it,” said Stewart, who served one year as the school’s interim president in 2023-24. 

During Father McAndrews’ tenure, Loyola also added new classrooms and improved its athletic facilities.

The Adams, Mass., native took the reins at Loyola in 1979 after a lengthy ministry as an educator.

After earning an economics degree from Georgetown University, he joined the Society of Jesus at the Novitiate of St. Isaac Jogues in Wernersville, Pa., in 1951. During his formation, he taught Latin and English at St. Joseph’s Prep in Philadelphia for three years. 

He studied at the University of Innsbruck in Austria before being ordained to the priesthood in Innsbruck on July 26, 1962.

After completing his Jesuit training at Auriesville, N.Y., in 1964, Father McAndrews traveled to the Gregorian University in Rome to begin his doctoral studies in philosophy, which he completed in 1967. 

He then joined the philosophy department at what is now Loyola University Maryland. After becoming a Jesuit superior at the Evergreen campus, he ministered as the Jesuits’ assistant to the provincial for higher education from 1973 to 1979.

Former Loyola Blakefield headmaster Dr. Donald W. Urbancic, in a 1998 interview with the Catholic Review, credited Father McAndrews with uniting the faculty and staff at Loyola Blakefield in 1979.

“He had a calming effect on us,” Dr. Urbancic told the Catholic Review. “He used his Jesuit skills of discernment to look at what we were doing and help guide us in the right direction. He helped heal a lot of old wounds and redeveloped a sense of community by gently pulling together people with different ideas.”

Among the changes Father McAndrews made were tightening the dress code and returning Latin and Greek to the curriculum.

He also helped raise more than $8 million for the improvement of the 55-acre campus, according to the Catholic Review article.

“As a leader, I tell people what I’d like and get out of the way,” Father McAndrew told the Catholic Review after leaving Loyola in 1998. “It’s been very successful here because we’ve had very competent people who make my job easy.

“I think we’ve done a good job of imbibing the Jesuit spirit here,” he said. 

In 1999, Father McAndrews moved on to minister at St. Therese Catholic Church in Mooresville, N.C., where he was pastor for six years. From  2006 to 2016, he served on the parish staff at Old St. Joseph’s Church in Philadelphia until an injury to his foot forced his retirement from active ministry. He continued to serve pastorally for two more years at the Jesuit Community of St. Isaac Jogues in Wernersville.

In 2018, Father McAndrews moved to the Manresa Hall Jesuit health center in Philadelphia.

A funeral Mass was offered Dec. 5 for Father McAndrews at St. Matthias Church in Bala Cynwyd, Pa.

Email Gerry Jackson at gjackson@CatholicReview.org

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