ABOUT

James Edward Cleland entered Loyola University Chicago and in June, 1977 received the Bachelor of Arts degree in Fine Arts with a concentration in Studio Art. His senior project was a Proposed Plan For Expansion and Renovation of Loyola University Fine Arts Facilities. With assistance from Loyola Academy's Sister Institution Program, Mr. Cleland was able to complete coursework leading to the Master of Arts degree in Curriculum and Instruction with a thesis centered on The Illinois Studies in Inquiry Training in the Graduate School of Loyola University Chicago in January, 1993.

Teaching has been the occupation of Mr. Cleland since 1981, while architectural history has been a special interest--ever since he scaled the eighty-story Standard Oil Building in Chicago (then uncompleted) as a student accompanied by his father, Laurence Cleland and architect Edward Durrell Stone. As Assistant Principal of Notre Dame de Chicago Academy, a Roman Catholic elementary school located in Chicago near the West Side Medical Center Complex, Mr. Cleland saw firsthand a major architectural restoration. This restoration was for the historic church of Notre Dame de Chicago, a French Catholic church destroyed by lightning a few years previously. It was wonderfully restored by William L. Lavika. Notre Dame de Chicago Church is a masterpiece of Romanesque architecture.

Mr. Cleland completes thirty-eight years of teaching at Loyola Academy, a Jesuit College-Preparatory school in north suburban Chicago. Mr. Cleland moderated the American Institute of Architecture Students chapter at Loyola Academy, gives tours of Chicago area masterpieces to area high school students and maintains membership in the Society of Architectural Historians. He is married to wife, Natividad, whose childhood parish was St. Paul the Apostle in San Pablo, Philippines. He has two sons, Scott and Craig, two daughters-in-law, Nicole and Becca, and one grandson, Mason. The family resides in Lincolnwood, Illinois.