THE LORAS COLLEGE MAGAZINE | VOL. 59 | NO. 1 | WINTER 2010

Today as a high school assistant principal,
I credit my Loras College education as a
major factor for my success and I owe the
faculty, staff and fellow classmates a huge
debt of thanks for my personal and
professional development. My Loras
College experience has been the foundation
of my educational and professional
success and I wouldn’t change a thing
about my time there.
GO DUHAWKS!!!
Kathy (Stuermer) Jirak (’81)
When I entered Loras College in 1977,
I was relatively certain I would graduate
with a degree in English and go on to write
children’s books. I recall entertaining football
players in Beckman Hall on Friday
nights with my readings of Dr. Seuss classics,
as the players stayed in before the big
games on Saturdays. On a whim, I took a
marketing class with Barry Rudin and I
was hooked. I was fascinated by management
and human resources, not so thrilled
with finance and stats, but ended up a
business administration major.
Upon graduation, I worked for 20 years
in sales and management for Banner
Personnel in Chicago. In 2001, I retired to
raise our two children and relocated to
Maryland, then North Carolina. Yesterday,
I pulled out my Loras College Student
Record of classes. Little did I know 30some
years ago, the creative drawing,
painting and calligraphy classes I took
would help me to convert our new houses
into homes. And the bible classes at Loras
whetted my appetite for more in-depth and
deeply satisfying studies in the last eight
years.
As my youngest ventures off to college
this fall and I return to the workforce,
I am confident the well-rounded education
Loras provided will serve me well.
The liberal arts curriculum at Loras
taught me to explore all of my talents and
interests and prepared me for a full life.
For that I am exceedingly grateful.
Wendy Schrunk (’07)
Associate, Goldman Sachs Asset
Management
POINTS of PRIDE
A liberal arts education requires students
to actively engage in multiple disciplines
and draw connections from the course
work for their major to the coursework in
other disciplines. Time spent in the liberal
arts environment allows students to
focus on developing their current
Feature | Spring 2011
strengths while exploring other interests
and discovering skills they didn’t know
they had.
While at Loras I studied economics
and finance, which provided a solid foundation
and the targeted skill set I would
need in order to enter the workforce in
my chosen field. In addition to the more
analytical and mathematical thought
processes my finance and economics
courses required, the English, psychology
and history classes I took allowed me to
adopt a multi-dimensional approach to
my coursework and helped sharpen my
critical thinking and writing skills.
These important aspects of a liberal arts
education have undoubtedly translated
into my current profession. One of the
things I enjoy most about my role is
every day is different. This type of
environment requires me to think on
my feet and be able to assess a situation
from all possible viewpoints. I often have
to bounce from one subject to another
and correlate things happening in the
marketplace to the changing needs of my
clients. One minute I may be responding
to an inquiry about an account; the next
providing recommendations on policy
changes and the next analyzing performance
data. I thrive in this type of work
environment because of my liberal arts
education and the Loras experience that
prepared me to succeed. �
Sanjit Pradhananga, (’09) (Kathmandu, Nepal) an English literature major at Loras College, earned a second place
finish in the essay/non-fiction division and a $250 prize in the Delta Epsilon Sigma (DES) 2010-2011 National Writing
Competition. Pradhananga won for his prose piece “Birth of a Naturalist.” Bridget Yanes (’11) (Dubuque, Iowa) earned
honorable mention status in the poetry category for her poem “Shards.”