Hispanic Studies Master’s Program Discontinued Following Program Array Review

After a university-wide review of all academic programs, the Hispanic Studies Master of Arts Program will sunset in accordance with the Loyola Program Array Review.

Established 80 years ago, the Hispanic Studies Master’s Program has been the highest degree students learning Spanish could pursue at Loyola. Hispanic culture and history have been incorporated into multiple majors at Loyola, like film, literature, linguistics and teaching methods, according to Program Director Ana B. Rodríguez Navas.

The closure follows Loyola’s Program Array Review, a university-wide review aimed at ensuring all academic programs align with its mission and are sustainable long-term. New students will no longer be able to apply and enroll in the master’s program, but those currently enrolled will still be able to finish it out. 

“It feels like a step backward,” 2026 graduate from the Hispanic Studies program Gautami Contla said. “I know firsthand what this program can offer to its students because I was one of them. Future students deserve the chance to experience that too.”

Contla graduated from the program in May 2026 alongside Gus Boyer, Anhoi Zori Alonso and Gloria Anfossi. 

Zori Alonso, an international student from Spain, is now pursuing her Ph.D. in Spanish studies at University of California Irvine, which, including her, has only three students enrolled. To her, the small class size in Loyola’s masters program added value.

“Right now, in the humanities, sadly, enrollments are more limited, it’s a nationwide thing,” Zori Alonso said. 

The student body of Irvine totals at 29,085, the graduate school at 5,546. Loyola’s undergraduate student body for the 2026-2027 academic year is 12,538. The graduate school for the 2025-2026 academic year had 4,889 students enrolled, according to the common data set.

Although the program will be sunset, Provost Douglas Woods said in a statement to The Phoenix students can be served through “several adjacent programs.” He said the decision to discontinue the program followed a holistic approach of all programs, considering factors like student success and market demand. Reassessing resources, he said, will ultimately help further the university’s mission. 

Woods said an average of two students graduated each year from the program. Rodríguez Navas said it’s been an average of four since 2013. All six 2026 graduates are employed and have continued their work in a wide variety of fields.

Boyer, one of last year’s six graduates, said he remembered when he learned of the program’s designation in the spring. His first thought was that the decision must be a mistake.

Before attending Loyola for his masters, Boyer graduated from the University of Michigan in Spanish and linguistics. There, he had courses heavy in literature, and wanted that in his graduate education as well, which is why he chose Loyola. 

No one in the program understood the designation, Boyer said. In their view, the program was growing, and its graduates were successful.

Father David Inczauskis, S.J. is a 2019 graduate of the Hispanic Studies master’s program.

Inczauskis credited the program as a major contributor to his ability to keep up with the Spanish language and allowed him to give communion to Spanish-speaking individuals detained at Broadview ICE facility..

The Jesuit priest also credits one of his biggest projects to the program — his book, “La Fragua,” named for Loyola’s Jesuit Theatre in Honduras, The Forge. Inczauskis worked on the book during his time in the program and was suggested to do so by his superiors.

One of last semester’s graduates, Anfossi, an international student from Chile, now teaches Spanish at a public elementary school in Chicago and another course at the middle school level. Prior to beginning the masters program, Anfossi studied law in Chile. 

After learning of the program’s sunset designation, Anfossi recalled a conversation her and her classmates  had, specifically, about one of her classmate’s experiences as an immigrant.

“One of them said something — it was a very emotional situation because she said, ‘I came here to this country when I was 13, and I always felt that Spanish was a language that had less value,’” Anfossi said. “And she felt that in this program, Spanish had a value.”

Anfossi said she didn’t think lower enrollment should mean the program be designated for sunset. She recalled about 12 students being in each of her classes at any given time, and that the prevalence of teaching assistants in the program possibly made it so the university didn’t have to hire more adjuncts.

The Latin American Student Association wrote to the Provost and Vice Provost expressing their concern on the decision. In their letter, they highlighted how the program’s commitment to serving the public good and striving toward academic excellence embodies the university’s Jesuit values. They also emphasized the need to grow and invest in programs like it, rather than shutting them down completely.

The association didn’t respond to request for comment.

Despite being small in numbers, Rodríguez Navas said the program was continuing to grow. Before the program was designated to be sunset last academic year, it had nine students enrolled. Six graduated in May, the leftover three are now in their second and final year of the program. Three new students are enrolled in their first year of the program, slated to graduate in May 2028, according to Rodríguez Navas.

Rodríguez Navas also said the demand for bilingual teachers is rapidly increasing. Whether the students use their knowledge in teaching, translating or another career path, they’ve been able to regularly give back to the community by interacting with and learning from Chicago’s Hispanic population.

“Chicago is a one-third Hispanic city, so you just can’t really understand how the city works without understanding Hispanic culture and history,” Rodriguez Navas said. “That is exactly what we do.” 

Anfossi said one of her favorite facets of the program was the two courses offered to teach its students how to teach the Spanish language.

“So it’s not just, ‘Oh, you speak Spanish, so go and teach,’” Anfossi said. “It’s also the way you teach, the strategies, the resources.”

The program’s particulars also attracted Zori Alonso, who, when applying for her masters, sought out small universities in big cities including Chicago and New York City. Zori Alonso, Anfossi and Boyer commended the program’s interweaving of literature.

“Critical thinking was one of the skills that really improved for me,” Zori Alonso said. “In Spain, the kind of education I had, I didn’t have to think as much in the sense that it was all based on facts. But at Loyola, I got to engage in interesting conversations, out-of-the-box conversations about things I’d never questioned before.”

Even if the professors disagreed with a student’s interpretation of a certain text, they were still encouraged to elaborate and use their thinking.

After graduating with a degree in journalism and media from university in Madrid, Zori Alonso interned at Colgate University in their Spanish department. Colgate encouraged her to apply to a masters in the United States. She said the Loyola program “felt like a family.” Professors invited students to gatherings that not only served to bring her and her peers together, but encouraged their professional careers.

Due to its discontinuation, undergraduate students will no longer be able to participate in the 4+1 program that allows them to earn their masters at an accelerated rate.  They’re still able to major in Spanish but will not be able to pursue it at a graduate level.

Though Inczauskis couldn’t speak to changes on the administrative level, as a priest in the Society of Jesus, seminarians have a longstanding tradition of formation in the liberal arts — a tradition that the Hispanic Studies master’s program observes.

“It’s very important that seminarians read literature,” he said. “We have to be formed in the imagination, and I think that is what many of these programs offer — a window into a different world.”