Presented to the entire student body, faculty and staff on May 5, 2026 by jim linhares, retired assistant principal
Good morning, everyone. Good to be back with you and honored to share a few reflections, good wishes and prayers for the departing President of St. Louis U. High, Mr. Alan Carruthers.
To use a maritime analogy I often employed with faculty and staff in my administrative work at SLUH, this is a big ship with a vital mission, a large crew, and many stations that have to function at a high level of excellence to keep it on course and steaming ahead the way it does on calm—or stormy—seas.
Of course, it would be an honor to be the captain of such a vessel and I know it was the honor of a lifetime for Mr. Carruthers to serve all of us for eight years as President.
We’re all used to thinking about leadership and executive authority in a way that highlights the prestige, power, personal success and financial rewards that come with positions like this. But the truth is, for authentic, leaders—particularly those in roles at Catholic and Jesuit institutions in these years of daunting economic, cultural, political and technological challenges—executive leadership is a heavy burden, much more a call to generosity, long hours, humility, love and selfless service than to status and recognition.
Mr. Carruthers has been that kind of authentic, servant leader for our community and it’s really important that we take a moment to offer him our heartfelt appreciation and thanks.
St. Louis U. High has changed, adapted, grown and improved so much in the years Mr. Carruthers has served us as President. That includes remarkable work managing our financial resources. I hope all of you are aware of how seriously we take the mission to form and educate young men here based on their ability to succeed rather than their families’ ability to pay. Every student, every program, every faculty/staff position and our whole campus facility depend upon this work.
In the years Mr. Carruthers served us as President, St. Louis U. High generated over $130 million in funds and increased our endowment from $40 million to $110 million. We will soon eliminate 30 years of debt so that those funds can work even more directly to support our students, our families and our mission.
Add to that the many programs and initiatives President Carruthers has led. This includes efforts to:
- Expand, improve and maintain our 100-year old facilities and grounds, especially by addressing many costly, but essential deferred maintenance issues.
- Aim fundraising toward the endowment of academic programs and faculty/staff development.
- Adapt school life in the wake of the COVID 19 pandemic.
- Restructure how our Board of Trustees functions to support our school.
- Not to mention many other in-the-weeds, tedious and often thankless projects most of us may never know about but that affect us every day.
Gather all of that together and you have an era and a Presidency that will be celebrated as historic and transformational in the long and distinguished story of St. Louis University High School.
But Mr. Carruthers has another title—Director of the Work—and an additional set of responsibilities that are unique to being the leader of a Jesuit Apostolate. When he took this job, he responded to a call from the Society of Jesus to maintain our Ignatian mission and charism. This meant ensuring that as a school community we keep praying, discerning and serving one another and the world with love, generosity and compassion according to the faith and example of St. Ignatius, his early companions, generations of Jesuits and their lay collaborators and indeed, of Jesus himself.
There are more ways Mr. Carruthers served this role than we have time to mention here.
Some were formal and institutional:
- Leading a strategic visioning process;
- Making faith formation program expansion a priority;
- Working tirelessly on the new retreat center—including providing a lot of his own labor!; and
- Making the Chapel renovations—that will soon be concluded with remarkable new murals—possible.
But just as important for all of us was the way he modeled faith as a person. Mr. Carruthers was with us in the quiet of the chapel for morning Mass. He battled cancer during his time with us and worked on our behalf and in service to our mission as he recovered. In his words and actions, we witnessed someone who, though imperfect and struggling like all of us, was most deeply motivated by his love for God, his convictions about the value of Jesuit and Catholic education, his compassion for the poor and marginalized and his care for creation.
So, Alan, President Carruthers, we want to take this moment to say thank you and offer our prayers for you on the next steps in your journey.
Speaking for my colleagues on the Faculty and Staff:
- Thank you for making our jobs possible, for allowing us to do the work we love at this extraordinary school. Thank you for the many projects you labored on that we know about –and the many more we will never know about—that made this remarkable chapter of renewal and change at SLUH possible.
Speaking for myself, thank you, Alan, for your friendship, personal support and for modeling an essential element of culture at a great school: intellectual curiosity and the joy of learning for its own sake.
Your colleagues in the Administrative and Advancement Offices also wanted to share a few of their experiences and good wishes.
One colleague remembered two moments:
- One came in the depths of the chaos and improvisational survival skill required by the pandemic. CASHBAH had been suddenly shut down and a virtual auction was developed and executed basically overnight, from scratch. Your words of congratulations as a school leader—beamed from your kitchen to an exhausted team—were deeply authentic and reassuring.
- The other came at a moving moment in the first centennial celebration when you were near the end of your cancer treatments and an alum created an endowed scholarship in your name.
Your colleagues went on to express their thanks to you for many things:
- For your values-driven leadership, and for living out the Jesuit mission in daily decisions;
- Your can-do attitude that sees opportunity rather than barriers;
- Your down-to-earth approachability to staff, parents and donors and your remarkable capacity for developing rapport through conversation about almost anything: cars, history, weather, healthcare, travel and, of course, education and the Society of Jesus;
- Your unabashed personal enthusiasm for Jesuit education;
- Your dedication to the facilities projects that will be a hallmark of your tenure;
- Your trust, generosity and encouragement and for taking the time to listen and care; and
- And your friendship.
President Carruthers, you were also a SLUH Dad during your years with us and we know that being as deeply involved as you were here made these years very much a family affair. So, your family also wanted to share a few words for you, and with all of us.
Archie says your example was extremely important to him in his years at SLUH. He watched you keep showing up every day and saw the pride you took in your work. Your dedication to the Jesuit mission always came first, even when it came with great personal sacrifice. He knows you will continue to live according to those Jesuit ideals wherever your path leads.
JP says he is very proud of what you accomplished at SLUH, and very happy you get to live out the rest of your life at the cabin in Canada.
And your wife, Lucia, notes how she has watched you transform school communities through collaboration, vision, and deep love FOR and understanding OF Jesuit education time and time again. But SLUH, she says, is a special place, unlike any other school community your family has experienced. Here, you accomplished something truly extraordinary. She called you a “a man hell-bent on shaping the future of Jesuit education!”
Her message for all of us at SLUH was this: “Alan did his best work with you and for you. He is so honored to be a part of this community and the storied legacy of the U-high. Thank you for giving him the keys to the 3rd floor. I hope he made you as proud as he’s made me. Now, we rest!”
Finally, I didn’t have the opportunity to walk the halls and collect words of thanks and appreciation from the student body for President Carruthers to include in these remarks. Guys, if you have a chance to share some of those sentiments with him yourselves in the weeks ahead, please do so.
But one of my favorite, unwritten traditions at SLUH is the way the student body rises to the occasion at times like these to express—with the appropriate level of enthusiasm and volume—their appreciation for someone who deserves it.
So, SLUH Jr. Bills, please join me in expressing our prayers, love, support and gratitude for the President of St. Louis University High School, Mr. Alan Carruthers!
