Eagle-eyed students may have noticed two high-profile faculty absences in the early days of last week: Principal Ian Gibbons, S.J., and President Alan Carruthers. The reason for their absence was a Jesuit Schools Network (JSN) conference in Houston, which allowed the principals and presidents of all 63 American Jesuit high schools to gather together for the first time ever.

Plans for a JSN conference uniting all of the nation’s Jesuit high school principals and presidents under one roof were initially set for the 2019-20 school year, but, due to complications brought on by the pandemic, the conference was postponed nearly two years. While individual schools meet regularly with other schools in their respective Jesuit provinces, they rarely get the opportunity to interact with schools outside of their local area. With the goal in mind of allowing top leadership from schools across all provinces to share and take in ideas, the conference was rescheduled for October of this year.

“This was the first time in the history of the JSN that we’ve done this. It was supposed to happen two years ago, for the 50th anniversary of the JSN, but obviously that couldn’t happen because of the pandemic. This was our first opportunity to do it and bring everyone together, and it was an incredible experience. To catch up with what our schools are doing, with the great projects, but also to share resources in how we’ve overcome some of these challenges,” said Gibbons.

Though Jesuit high schools are spread throughout the United States, Houston emerged as an obvious choice largely in part to the fact that it is home to two Jesuit schools: Strake Jesuit and Cristo Rey Jesuit. 

Starting on Tuesday, Oct. 19 and ending Friday, Oct. 22, conference attendees were hosted at the Hyatt Regency Houston, one of the city’s finest hotels. While there, members of the group listened to keynote speakers such as former SLUH President and current President of Rockhurst High School Dave Laughlin, who spoke on the topic of lay leadership in Jesuit schools, as recent years have seen diminishing numbers of Jesuits in top leadership roles—currently, only three school principals and 15 school presidents are Jesuit. 

Another keynote speech was given by the global Secretary of Education for the entire Society of Jesus, who traveled to Texas from Rome to talk about future endeavors regarding secondary education and the overall religious priorities of Jesuit high schools. This included the promotion of the spiritual exercises, the training of young people for leadership roles in society, and care for our common home.

The presidents and principals also engaged in group discussion focused on a wide range of topics, including challenges with college admissions, social media, and social-emotional learning.

One area of the discussion in which St. Louis U. High featured prominently was in global education, as the school’s seven foreign language programs and abundance of foreign immersion offerings have come to serve as somewhat of a benchmark for Jesuit schools around the world.

“It’s really inspiring because one school keeps coming up over and over again in these discussions about global initiatives, and that school is SLU High,” said Gibbons, “Mr. Chura and so many others are a part of this, with the partnerships that we’ve built, and the programs that we’ve led with, not only other schools in the United States, but also with schools all over the world. We really are in the minds of not only Jesuit (schools), but schools around the world in general.”

In addition, the principals and presidents also had the opportunity to visit both Strake and Cristo Rey, something of particular importance to Gibbons, who served as Assistant to the President at Strake before his time at SLUH.

“I used to work at Strake Jesuit, and I lived with the Jesuit community down there. So that was definitely a treat, to be back there for the first time in about eight years and to see my former school,” said Gibbons.

Also of particular importance to the SLUH delegation was the ability to catch up with former SLUH administrators, such as Gibbons’s predecessor John Moran, who now serves as President of Cheverus Jesuit in Portland, Maine, as well as Laughlin, who was president of SLUH before Carruthers.

In the end, the major takeaway was an overall sense of gratitude for the enormous value that a Jesuit education yields, and a sense of confidence in taking on the challenges of education today.

“Jesuit education is a powerful force for good in the world, and we take that seriously,” said Gibbons. “It isn’t a secret (that our graduates have so much success), and there’s a reason for that. A big part of that is the leadership development that our schools provide, so we’re very proud of what we do. We’ve still got a lot of work to do, but having that time to share with our brothers and sisters from the other 63 high schools around the country, it was very inspiring and really brought us back to our mission and all the great things that we are doing here.”