About the department

We offer a 24-credit Minor in Diversity and the Contemporary World, a 27-credit Minor in Sustainability Studies, a 15-credit Sustainability Studies Elective Group, and a 9-credit Membership Program. These programs can be paired with most undergraduate Major, Specialization, and Honours programs offered in the Faculty of Arts and Science, the Faculty of Fine Arts, and the John Molson School of Business. Contact a College Advisor to find out if you can fit one of these programs into your undergraduate degree.

As of September 2025, we will also be offering a 15-credit stand-alone Microprogram in Sustainability Principles. This program cannot be taken as part of an undegraduate or graduate program. That said, students who begin in the Microprogram and decide to appply for a Bachelor's degree before completing the Microprogram can have courses taken towards the latter count towards their Bachelor's, including towards the Minor or Elective Group in Sustainability Studies.

Our students delve into some of the most complex and challenging issues facing humankind in the 21st Century. In our programs, student investigate their area of study from global, multicultural perspectives. Our courses may be taken either as stand-alone electives, or as part of our offered programs. With just three LOYC courses, a student is granted membership to the College.

The College's academic program offers an integrative, interdisciplinary education. The educational philosophy of the College incorporates the needs to

• integrate international and global perspectives into higher education;
• foster understanding of how the individual and one's society can operate more effectively in a global context of increased inter-cultural interaction;
• balance discipline-based instruction with interdisciplinary inquiry and cross-disciplinary communication;
• prepare students to excel in further education, professional training, and employment, through the development of communication skills and, interpersonal skills and critical thinking;
• develop oneself both as a person and for responsible citizenship and leadership in the 21st Century.

Loyola College for Diversity and Sustainability (formerly known as Loyola International College) opened in 2002. It was founded by an inter-disciplinary group of professors drawn from science, social science and humanities departments in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. From the outset the College’s main purpose was to provide a coherent program of interdisciplinary courses on the Loyola campus on a central issue of our time, specifically the challenges and opportunities of diversity. 

Towards this purpose, the College was designed to maintain the traditional Loyola emphasis on the Ignatian themes of

• understanding problems from multiple perspectives,
  
• teaching so as to create the states of openness, balance and freedom from prejudice that facilitate an approach to issues without preconceived ideas, and
  
• educating the whole person by developing critical skills in the areas of analysis, oral and written communication, dialogue with others, and civic awareness. 
  

The College’s courses were designed to complement and supplement existing offerings in all of the University’s faculties, especially the Faculty of Arts and Science.  They were intended to be a “value added” component of the Faculty’s offerings that would bring new students into the Faculty and the University.

Loyola Sustainability Research Centre

Since 2012, the College has served as the administrative home for the Loyola Sustainability Research Centre. The Centre groups researchers from across Concordia University, and endeavours to integrate the scholarly study of science, policy, and values in the pursuit of environmental and community sustainability. More information about the Centre is available here.