Editor’s Note: On Tuesday, Editor in Chief Carter J. Fortman talked with SLUH President Alan Carruthers over Zoom to discuss the end of the 2020-2021 school year, or what some have dubbed the “Year of Covid.” The following transcription has been edited for length. The unabridged version can be found at our website.

 

Carter Fortman (CF): This has been a year full of uncertainty with everything surrounding the pandemic. What are your feelings as we end this tumultuous year?

 

Alan Carruthers (AC): Three words sum it up. Incredibly hopeful, a healthy pride in what we've achieved as a school, and the third thing is exhaustion. Everything has taken so much more emotional and mental energy, whether it's just dealing with the isolation, having to constantly pivot, or being involved in a presidential election year. 

Overall, I'm just super proud of how our people and our community have responded. I think that our people have been really focused on trying to create as best an experience possible for the boys, and to also achieve the mission goals as best as possible. And I think we did both of those things. 

I think the guys generally had a great learning year, a good social year, and a good formative year despite the fact that it was different. So, I'm very proud. But I can tell you I don't think I've ever had a year I've been as tired at the end. And I know that that is the case with most staff and certainly all the faculty. 

 

CF: I'd like to dig deeper into some of the difficulties and some of the triumphs. What have been some of the lowest points for you going as far back as the fourth quarter of last school year? 

 

AC: The low points were often associated with corresponding high points. I think one was the fear of the unknown. I’m almost at my 30-year mark in Jesuit secondary education, and not a lot of things come across that you haven't at least had something that was close to it.The fear of the unknown and working through last Spring was really hard. 

We didn't know much about the disease.We were making decisions and had to do long-term planning with not a whole lot of scientific data yet. I think that was really a low point. 

The other piece was trying to find a way for the Class of 2020 to feel cared for. We committed early on that we were not going to do a virtual graduation. Having to delay graduation and Jr. Ring weighed heavily on all of us. Those guys had given up a lot in their last semester, but then to not have that moment of closure until, in July when we had it, and this comes with the (positive) flip side. It was spectacular.

The last thing was just the financial piece. We had many benefactors who had made pledges that we rely on for cash flow holding back their payments because they're coming from Donor Advised funds which had taken such a hit in the downturn. That happened at the same time as we're talking about doing lots of spending to accommodate the needs of protocols of the pandemic. We were seeing potential cash flow sources really change. Fortunately, this resolved, the market came back, pledges began to come in, and we had a very good last four quarters with advancement. The bills don't stop coming.

 

CF:  I think you started to touch on this, but what were some of the best moments from this year where you've seen the SLUH brotherhood in action? 

 

AC: We came together last year at the end of June to figure out what we were going to do. We had very serious discussions, but in the end, the energy shifted at one point to being, ‘we've got to come back in person, in some way.’ We decided we're coming back in hybrid. And I just remember this group full of people who were all volunteers, the Covid Task Force, all respectfully working through their own personal fears, their own personal beliefs, their own interpretations of science because there was not a clear pathway. And many schools ended up going a completely different way. We committed ourselves, collectively, even with the fear in the room and some of the unknowns, to make it. People's positivity, creativity, innovation, and belief in each other kind of moves you forward.

 

CF: I think a big part of this whole pandemic has been, like you said, making sure that the experience of the freshmen and especially the experience of the seniors was as special as it is in typical years. 

 

AC: It’s different, right? It’s going to be different. That’s one of the most difficult pieces. A lot of people want it to be the same, and they get quite emotional that it's not going to be the same. 

It's going to be different, but different doesn't mean worse, different means different, and in fact, it can be better. There were many people after we had graduation that were like, 'why don't we do this every year? It was better than the one we usually have.' It's such an Ignatian moment, right? 

The Spiritual Exercises really have someone try to explore their disordered attachments. Tradition never graduates is a beautiful thing, but there is the potential of a disordered attachment in tradition never graduates because sometimes tradition should graduate. Change is good sometimes. It's not to be feared. And I think within the context of the pandemic we had no choice. 

 

CF: How do you think the seniors then, as the leaders of the school, exemplified the grad at grad principle especially during the challenges of this 2020 to 2021 school year?

 

AC: They kept an eye on each other, they supported one other, they tried to find ways to feel connected, and  I think that's loving. Guys showed up to food, faith and fellowship events or StuCo did things that were incredibly positive like the fish fries and mission week. We had to figure out a way to do service and we figured out how to do that. 

I've seen it on the sports field, I've seen it on the stage. I've seen it in various other clubs. They've been a spectacular group. I think the Class of 2021 has knocked it out of the park, collectively, when it comes to the grad at grad.

 

CF: So this will be my penultimate question. I think as a school, especially as a Jesuit school, we have always tried to center everything around God. So how and where did you find God during dealing with all of this craziness?

 

AC: I found God in the moments of my own self doubt. I found God in the incredible service and hard work of our administrative team, the Covid Task Force, and the blood, sweat and tears that people put into that. I found God in Mr. Muskoff's commitment to find a way to get athletics going. I found God in teachers who, while faced with almost insurmountable challenges and demands, generally did so with grace and composure and professionalism at a level that I didn't think possible. 

I found it in donors who, despite a market being rough, invested in what we do, and a board that continued to engage heavily. 

We pulled off two Cashbahs that raised over $2.6 million between the two of them, virtually. That's unheard of. The advancement team succeeded in continuing to do $3 million a year plus in annual fund in each of those previous years. Across the board, people found a way because they believed in the mission. 

People talk about how Catholic schools are so successful when some other schools really struggled. And I think in the end, it's the mission, it's the calling, it's the vocational element of the gift of our tradition. That's God behind that in the end, that's the Holy Spirit. So there's no doubt in my mind that that is the case.

 

CF: Mr. Hussung, on the art retreat, said ‘we often talk a lot about where we find God, but it's what we do with God that really is spectacular.’ And so that leads to my next question: where do we go from here, leading out of the pandemic, looking forward to the recovery? What's it going to look like next year, a year of recovery from this whole tumultuous time?

 

AC: We have many things we don't have answers to, kind of like this whole thing, right? You move forward and you answer the question of the day and then tomorrow you expect to answer the question of the day. 

I think that we have a pathway that's more clear than it's been before. I think that we understand the need to not just wait for it to end but to plan our way out of this, and that's why we have this strategic summit this summer, to plan our way out of it on an academic level. I have a group of board members meeting to kind of plan our way out of it from a financial standpoint. 

We will take the lessons of the pandemic and see what are the ones that we should keep. And we'll shelve the other ones for the future. Hopefully, it never happens again, but it may. We're going to plan, we're going to be smart and I think we have people around here that helps that become a reality. 

How we've managed this entire enterprise is to put a bunch of motivated smart people in a room, identify the issues, use various different discernment processes and problem solving methodologies and research to find the possible answers and then pick the best possible answer for our scenario. It's not magic. It takes a lot of work. It takes smart people and we'll continue to do that.