A Word from the Principal

Dear Friends of Rockhurst,

The word competent is a cousin of the word competitive. Some of their synonyms are ability, savoir-faire, knack, aptitude, and skill.

At Rockhurst High School — indeed at all of the Jesuit high schools in our country and throughout the world — we aim to educate and to form young “men and women for others”, who after four years, can demonstrate that they are “Intellectually Competent.”

That short phrase — Intellectually Competent — is one of the five pillars of the Grad at Grad, or, the Profile of the Graduate at Graduation. The accompanying four pillars are: Religious, Loving, Open to Growth, and Committed to Doing Justice.

The higher-echelon colleges and universities to which Rockhurst routinely sends her graduates are recruiting and retaining young men and women who have that skill, that aptitude, that knack, that savoir-faire, that ability, that competitiveness — intellectually speaking — whereby the student will not only succeed but will also flourish as well as contribute to the Common Good of all people, particularly the Common Good of the most vulnerable in our society, a central principle of Catholic Social Teaching.

In the best traditions of the nearly 500-year-old Jesuit Order, the Society of Jesus is aiming toward that end in all of our secondary educational institutions, including at Rockhurst.

With seven Jesuits working full-time at Rockhurst each day of this 2022–23 school year, we partner with our lay collaborators in one common mission, which includes the hiring and retaining of talented, student-centered educators who are steeped in the Jesuit tradition and who look beyond the perpetuation of personal success toward the ultimate goal of human existence, namely: to praise, reverence, and serve God and by these means to one day enter into perfect and eternal union with God in the life to come.