Senior Project: a 50-year-old St. Louis U. High tradition, a tradition that many seniors savor as they leave the halls of SLUH, a tradition that many remember for years after they depart, another tradition threatened by the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Every January, as students return to the classroom after a refreshing Christmas break, the SLUH seniors embark on a month long service project at various sites around our city and the globe to help the most vulnerable. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many of the organizations that seniors typically served at closed their doors to volunteers, forcing Senior Project to take on a different form. 

“In July we surveyed our partner organizations to kind of figure out the feasibility of having volunteers, and the results were out of all of our organizations, we could only  accommodate 24 seniors to do service in a class of 224, so it became very clear quickly that the traditional format wouldn’t work,” said campus minister Simonie Anzalone.

The duo of Anzalone and fellow campus minister Brian Gilmore began work in July devising and planning a replacement and calling it the Grande Project. However, the Grande Project includes no forms of service where students go out and serve the vulnerable. Instead it is an elaborate research project, partly inspired by the annual Ignatian Family Teach-In for Justice.

Gathering in the Danis Field House last Monday for the inaugural Grande project kickoff, the seniors learned what the goal of the project is, what they would have to complete, and heard presentations from two of their fellow classmates about the topics they have already chosen and how they choose them. 

“When the Ignatian Family Teach-In went online, they offered this high school week, this high school curriculum,” said Anzalone. “So the theme of the week is prophetic resilience. Each day of the week is a different topic so hopefully they will be inspired by these videos.”

In order to complete the Grande Project, fulfilling their senior service requirements necessary to graduate, seniors are tasked with researching and completing a project that advocates for a marginalized group. Campus Ministry suggested various topics that students can research including abortion, human trafficking, race, immigration, mental illness, and criminal justice. However, students can also come up with their own topics that interest and have meaning to them.  

“My topic falls under mental health, more specifically addiction,” said senior Jacob Sprock. “I chose that topic because it relates to me personally. I have a person in my life who has suffered from an addiction, and I want to make sure that doesn’t happen to other people.”

For the actual project, students have limitless possibilities for how they would like to present their information. This presentation can take on many different forms, allowing students to express their creativity freely. 

“They could create a podcast, some type of STEM work, some type of rhetorical essay, some sort of small documentary, or do the formal type of advocacy in contacting local, state or national representatives of their,” said Gilmore. “We really want them to speak up for their issues.”

Despite lots of good intentions and a thoughtful design, the new Grande Project is receiving some backlash from the student body and parents alike, who are expressing concerns ranging from concerns over communication to parents fearing that their children will not grow from this experience. 

“For me, I am worried that students will just go and research it, and write it and not get anything out of it, which is a missed opportunity and really sad,” said senior parent Angela Fiordelisi.

For many students however, they are already struggling with the first step in the project, trying to discern on their own what to research and learn about.

“I think they need to create a process to help us discern what our final project format should be,” said senior Daniel Juergens. “Right now I think some people are lost in terms of what their end goal is, and I think having a concrete end goal would create a lot of drive and motivation for seniors and help them become more invested.”

Students are also feeling stressed out about this seemingly daunting task, leading them to feel that they are losing focus of what really matters amidst the stressf of the assignment portion of the project.
“They seemed to have put an emphasis on the research paper, and most people didn’t seem to like that part of it,” said senior Angel Guijosa. “If they could put more emphasis on choosing something to look into and learn about I feel like that would be so much better because the assignment part just adds stress to the school days to come.” 

One thing that both parents and students are worried about is the large amount of confusion surrounding the Grande project. 

“I don’t feel that I know enough about what is being asked of you. My son keeps telling me that it is a research project, but I keep seeing things that say otherwise,” said Fiordelisi.

“For me I am still not exactly sure what we are supposed to be working towards, but I think that is by design,” said senior Carson Cornett. “I have faith in the Campus Ministry department to steer us in the right direction.”

Already, Campus ministry is trying to address some of the common student complaints. 

“Mr. Gilmore and I are meeting tomorrow morning to create some step-by-step short videos to send the students along the way,” said Anzalone.” We imagine that the project feels very vast at this point  however, if the students follow along with their checklist, timeline, journal, or Canvas, the goals and deliverables are very clearly stated.”

Despite the negative connotations, many students recognize that Campus Ministry is doing the best that they can in these unprecedented times and are grateful for the new opportunities that will arise from the Grande project. 

“I think that they are doing the best they can in these circumstances,” said Juergens. “It would be better if we could go to the service sites, but I totally get why we can’t. They are trying their best to give us a meaningful project.”

art | Charlie Bieg