DEAR ROCKHURST COMMUNITY,

Greetings from State Line Road!

I invite you to read through this Vision Document for Rockhurst High School. It shares our priorities, as well as the Strategic Pillars that guide the next chapter of our school. From our Strategic Pillars, working groups will emerge later this year. These groups will begin looking at all the elements that make up Rockhurst, to outline a Strategic Plan for our future.

Pillar One, given the great strength of our recent decades of history, prioritizes the human component of Rockhurst—our mission and identity, our affordability, and our retention of tremendous faculty.

Along with all other Pillars, we will build upon our foundation

Toward a Hope-Filled Future.

Since the founding of the Society of Jesus and for 500 years since, structured innovation has been the history of the development of the Jesuits. And, that same structured innovation has been evident in the 110year history of Rockhurst High School, the Jesuit High School of Kansas City.

The history of structured innovation at Rockhurst has many chapters.

For example:

• We celebrate the 60th year on the Greenlease Memorial Campus this year; earlier we were in a different location.

• Students here used to be required to take Latin; now they can take Mandarin if they chose.

• Formation programs including required retreats and community service haven’t always been a part of what’s expected of a Rockhurst man. Even a great tradition like Senior Service Projects has existed for only about half of our history.

• The addition of academic departments in STEAM like Computers, Robotics, and Engineering, or the amazing growth of a Choral Department – these are all examples of how Rockhurst has taken a plateau of excellence, and aspired to do even greater things for God and our students.

In fact, when one reviews the past 25-year history at Rockhurst, there’s a pretty terrific story of momemtum which includes:

• New curriculum – department additions in Computer Science, Robotics, Engineering, and Ignatian Service.

• Many amazing new facilities, including: The Hawklets Center, the Dining Commons, the Barry

Commons, The Learning Commons, The Goppert Rock Plex, Active Learning classrooms, Robotics Lab, Maker Spaces, Pesci Atrium and offices, and the Jack Nestor ̓34 Outdoor Lab & Classroom.

• Tremendous growth in the Fine and Performing Arts.

• The establishment of the Hurtado Scholars Program and its partnership with Bright Futures Schools of the Diocese of Kansas City/St. Joseph.

• A STEAM curriculum which established Rockhurst as the first STEAM accredited school in Kansas or Missouri, among the first 100 in the United States and the first west of the Mississippi River.

The Magis. That’s the Jesuit buzzword. For St. Ignatius, reflection comes down to three questions:

• What have done for Christ?

• What am doing for Christ?

• What ought I do for Christ?

What I’ve listed above is only a fraction of the continuous structured innovation that has taken place makes Rockhurst a leader in education in the greater Kansas City community.

Even as we were working our way through the pandemic, our faculty, staff, administration, Board, and interested community members have been engaging in conversations that consider that third question: What (more) ought we do for Christ?

Beginning with our faculty engaging in conversations in the Fall of 2021, and working through our Board of Trustees, and an ad hoc President’s Advisory Committee, we have engaged in conversations that are meaningful for advancing structured innovation in our time. These conversations have been rooted in the Universal Apostolic Preferences of the Society of Jesus. They are grounded in the priorities of the United Central and Southern Province in which Rockhurst serves.

We invite you to read, reflect upon, pray about, and share in this vision for Rockhurst’s future.

Toward the end of this academic year, I will be communicating with you about the progress Rockhurst toward these aspirations for our future, and I’ll also be sharing with you some specific working groups that are being established in order to look comprehensively at our school for the consideration of our structured innovation for our next chapter.

I’m grateful for the great variety of input that has helped us to shape our Vision, and look forward to keeping our community informed as we work to develop a comprehensive Strategic Plan for our future.

St. Ignatius Loyola, pray for us.

God bless,

David J. Laughlin President, Rockhurst High School

Rockhurst High School has been a vessel for good in the Kansas City community for more than 100 years. By becoming more intentional about the key strategic priorities facing the school and developing a long-term plan to live them out in a deeper way, there is an enormous opportunity to improve the school’s impact. Still, it’s going to take the help of the entire community to succeed. The time is now.

— Mike Trigg ’96 Laguna Beach, CA

Board of Trustees, President's Advisory Committee

Board of Trustees

Mr. Frank C. Allen ’05

Mr. Gregory J. Fendler ’94

Mr. Michael L. Garrett

Mrs. Amy D. Holewinski

Rev. Jeffrey C. Johnson, SJ

Mr. Gerald A. Kelly, Jr. ’73

Mr. Gregory M. Kratofil, Jr. ’92

Mrs. Shannon M. Lillis

Mr. David J. Laughlin

Rev. Gerard E. Menard, SJ

Dr. Gregory F. Muehlebach ’80

Mr. Ivan L. Nugent ’99

Rev. Ronald R. O’Dwyer, SJ

Mrs. Courtney A. O’Farrell

Mrs. Anita P. Paredes

Mr. Stephen D. Penn, Treasurer

Mrs. Anne P. Riggs

Mr. Jeffrey J. Simon

Mr. Michael B. Trigg ’96

Rev. Derrick Weingartner, SJ (ex officio)