From the time of its foundation in 1896, Loyola College did not have a university charter and graduates of the parent institution, Collège Ste-Marie, and Loyola College received their Bachelor's degrees from Université Laval and, from 1920 onward, from the newly established Université de Montréal. The canonical relationship between Laval and Collège Ste-Marie was laid out in the 1889 papal decree Jamdudum, whose terms were extended to Loyola in 1899, the same year An Act to Incorporate Loyola College was passed by the Quebec legislature. Under Jamdudum, Loyola was granted the same autonomy as Collège Ste-Marie over curriculum, methodology, and graduation requirements. The series provides information on Loyola's struggle to maintain academic autonomy and its efforts to obtain recognition by the Government of Quebec as a university. There are also documents on a proposed federation of Canadian Jesuit colleges.
The series contains correspondence, news releases, clippings, minutes, publications, the Act of Incorporation, enrollment statistics, petitions, memoranda of agreement, legal fees, addresses, by-laws, an excerpt from Jamdudum, and other records.