A spotlight on the Class of ’25: Ramblers reflect and prepare for new horizons

With the Loyola University Chicago 2025 commencement ceremonies just weeks away, graduating students and their families stand at the cusp of a historic rite of passage. We spoke with several outstanding graduates, who reflected on their most vivid college memories and offered a glimpse of what lies ahead. 

Mia Rogalski (BS ’25)

School of Environmental Sustainability 
Major: Environmental Science 
Hometown: Geneva, Illinois 

Standing at the base of the Parthenon in Athens, Greece, Mia Rogalski (BS ’25) was struck by the historical scope and immensity of the moment.  

“You look out and you can see the whole city of Athens from up there and it makes your mind wander,” she says, recalling a junior-year trip hosted by Loyola’s John Felice Rome Center. “You can see what the temple looks like today, but what did it look like when they were building it? Just to build those structures,” is almost unfathomable, she says.

Rogalski, an environmental studies major, will also look back fondly on a hands-on aquatic research project for Reuben Keller, a professor and graduate program director in the School of Environmental Sustainability. Working alongside graduate student Tava Oosterbaan (MS ’25) in the Keller Lab, she investigated the biological effects of microplastics in red swamp crayfish, a cambarid species invasive to the Chicago River. 

“I really appreciated how Dr. Keller was so encouraging, and excited for me to explore this project and have something that’s my own, even as an undergraduate—which I didn’t ever picture myself doing earlier in my time at Loyola.”  

Next year, Rogalski plans to study wetland ecology at California State University in Long Beach, where she will pursue a master’s degree in biology. “Being so interested in aquatic ecosystems, I love being close to the lake, obviously. And I really wanted to extend my interest into marine ecosystems and live by the ocean.” 

Sheldon Edwards Jr. (BA ’25)

College of Arts and Sciences 
Major: Sociology 
Hometown: West Palm Beach, Florida 

It was an electric moment Loyola Ramblers guard Sheldon Edwards Jr. (BA ’25) says he won’t forget. On March 5, just after the 15-minute mark in the Ramblers 82-72 win against Davidson College, the 6’4” shooting guard drained his 86th three-pointer of the season, breaking the men’s basketball team’s single-season record previously held by Geoff McCammon (BBA ‘12) and going on to make 106 for the season. 

After a difficult junior year in which surgery, an eye infection, and off-the-court issues left him in and out of the rotation and struggling to find his footing, the transfer student from Valparaiso came back strong his senior year, a transformation he credits to his faith in God and the support of Head Coach Drew Valentine and the entire Loyola community.  

“Drew [Valentine] stuck by me, believed in me, and instilled confidence in my dream,” he says. “Conversely, I kept the same faith and loyalty to him, not to give up on basketball and stick with it, and that makes my three-point journey mean so much more.” 

“I’ve had very good support from the athletic system, fans, alumni, and professors,” adds Edwards, a sociology major. “They’ve all done a really good job assisting me, helping me academically, and on the court welcoming me and allowing me to feel at home.”  

Edwards plans to declare for the NBA draft ahead of the April 26 deadline. He says he is excited about the prospect of taking his shooting skills and work ethic to the next level in the NBA’s premier league or G League.  

Kyla Santos (BSN ’25)

Marcella Niehoff School of Nursing
Major: Nursing
Hometown: Orland Park, Illinois 

Nursing student Kyla Santos (BSN ’25) still remembers filing into Gentile Arena her freshman year for Build-a-Bler, an annual Welcome Week event that gives incoming students an opportunity to get acquainted as they dress up stuffed animals, including LU Wolf, the Rambler’s mascot.   

In the west quad outside the Damen Student Center, Santos and her friends met several transfer students and exchanged stories that energized her about the years ahead. “I just remember it so vividly because I felt so free. It was so ‘college-core,’ you might say, because in high school, of course, you introduce yourself to people in your class, but in college you have the ability to meet people wherever you go,” Santos says. 

In her four years at Loyola, Santos has not just continued to meet people—as a student, as a nurse intern at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, as a president of the Inclusive Excellence Nursing Student Council and Undergraduate Nursing Research Council—she has inspired them through her research and advocacy for nursing students of color. 

As the youngest presenter at the Marcella Niehoff School of Nursing’s 2025 Ruth K. Palmer Research Symposium, Santos shared a grant-funded qualitative analysis revealing the impact of racism and racial discrimination on undergraduate nursing students, including its correlation to anxiety and depression. 

Many attendees commended her afterward, giving her confidence in her long-term ambition to pursue a doctorate in nursing. “Dr. Thao Griffith [an associate professor] actually reached out to me after I stepped off the stage and said ‘I see so much potential in you. I want to be your PhD mentor. I want to know when you’re applying,” Santos recalls. 

After graduation, Santos plans to pursue nursing in an emergency department with a Level 1 Trauma Center, such as Loyola University Medical Center or St. Francis Hospital in Evanston. “I understand how important and vulnerable these moments are for the people, regardless of how critical or non-urgent their emergency may be,” she says. 

A.J. Dan (BS ’25)

College of Arts and Sciences 
Majors: Criminal Justice and Criminology
Hometown: Saint Paul, Minnesota 

Two memories jump out to A.J. Dan (BS ’25), a criminal justice and criminology major, when reflecting on his time as a student at Loyola.  

His first is serving meals to the hungry at the St. Thomas of Canterbury Soup Kitchen in Uptown on Friday nights through Loyola’s Community Service in Action program. 

“One of my favorite parts is the connections you make with some of the guests that come in,” Dan says. Many “just want to just converse and be able to make a connection because they don’t really have a lot of connections they can go back to when they leave.” 

The second is working on an English paper in the Damen Student Center when a student rushed over to his table and asked Dan—the first person in sight—if he could assist Sister Jean in setting up her ESPN account. Sister Jean wanted to watch a basketball game between Loyola and George Washington University, but her iPad wasn’t charging. Dan gave her his charger and spent the next half hour getting her ESPN+ subscription squared away. “People know she’s kind of Loyola’s number one fan, but it’s no joke,” Dan says.  

During his time at Loyola, Dan, who earned a Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps scholarship, took naval science classes with his cross-town midshipman unit at Northwestern University. He spent much of the summer before his junior year on a U.S. Navy destroyer as part of a surface warfare unit conducting exercises in the South China Sea. After graduation he will travel to Charleston, South Carolina, to continue his training to become a nuclear submarine officer.  

“I have my commissioning ceremony on May 11th at Loyola,” he says. “My history professor, Dr. Robert Bucholz, will be there. He taught the First World War … and was probably one of the best professors I’ve ever had, and his advice and interest in my Navy career meant a lot to me. 

Mercedes Torres (MSW ’25)

School of Social Work 
Degree: Master of Social Work
Hometown: Wauseon, Ohio 

For graduate student Mercedes Torres (MSW ’25), visiting Mexico City on a spring break immersion trip as part of a social work course called, “North American Migration Dynamics and U.S. Immigration Policy,” offered a window into her family’s past and solidified her vision of a future career assisting migrants and refugees.  

“It definitely has given me insight into the complexity of migration and the different roles that social workers can play in it,” Torres says.  

During the trip, students learned about Mexican immigration policy and social work efforts led by Iberoamericana Universidad, a Jesuit university in Mexico City, and UNAM, a large public university with campuses across Mexico. Through partnerships with refugee shelters, social work students help connect migrants with services—legal assistance, housing support, employment, therapy, child care—to help ease the resettlement process.  

Many decades ago, Torres’s grandparents immigrated to a farming community in Ohio from Michoacan, Mexico, and their dream of attaining a better life for their children and grandchildren has, in some ways, come full circle. Torres is the first person in her family to attend college, and by working as a social worker in interdisciplinary legal aid setting after graduation, she hopes to “help other migrant families be successful.”’ 

She appears to be well on her way. Through a graduate research assistantship with Maria Vidal de Haymes, a professor and director of the Center for Immigrant & Refugee Accompaniment, Torres also contributed to a comparative case study focused on the educational experience of recently arrived children and youth—primarily Venezuelan—in three different destination communities: Chicago, Illinois; Santiago, Chile; and Bogota, Colombia.  

“Chicago is a huge place of resettlement and where people want to make their home,” she says. “I want to make my home here so I can help improve the community and protect people’s rights.”