Traditions

Nā Kōlea, LMU’s Hawaii Club, has been bringing Hawaiian culture to the bluff through its annual lu’au for decades.

Every Oct. 23, the anniversary of Sam’s death, LMU’s theater community reconvenes at Sam’s Corner to sing and play Beatles songs — Sam’s favorite music. The annual concert is well known as BTLS4SAM and draws up to 150 people.

Every spring semester for the past five years, members of the Crimson Circle service org pull off a harmless, hilarious prank.

There’s a cup on the line every season when LMU and Occidental College face off in rugby — the Doherty Cup. “The cup doesn’t go to the winning team, or the guy who won match or who played the best,” says Ray Thompson ’77, LMU rugby coach and former Lion rugger.

The letters L, M and U on the bluff, viewable from afar — even on airplanes approaching LAX — are one of the university’s iconic images.

After 30 years, De Colores has reached a point when tradition is too weak a word to describe it. The Campus Ministry weekend social justice immersion experience brings together LMU students and the people of Tijuana, Mexico. In 1985, the late Fernando Moreno asked Chris North ’85 to organize a student trip to a Tijuana orphanage North had visited. Three decades later, the excursions, which include home-building or other construction work in the Tijuana community, take place almost every month during the academic year. The bonds grow deeper every year: The people of Tijuana have named a center Casa Loyola in appreciation of the LMU community’s commitment. Today, when LMU students first step on campus, many of them are told, “Make sure you do a De Colores trip before you graduate. It changed my life.”

The Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary strengthened their 44-year legacy of social justice and gospel values by funding three new programs during LMU’s campaign.

It’s Sunday night, just before 8 p.m. All you can hear as you walk up the steps to Sacred Heart Chapel is the buzz — loud, almost like a roar — of conversations coming from the sanctuary. You see the opened doors, and they seem to whisper to you, “Come in, all are welcome here.” You look for a seat, but it’s tough to find an empty space in the pews because the chapel is full, again.

Big Day, the third of the three days of LMU’s Special Games, is one when the present moment is all that matters. Months of preparation — by service orgs, Greek groups, the Student Veterans Group and others — morph into…