As the new semester begins, the senior class looks forward to the final hurdles of their Grande Project. Next week, the seniors will have a week off instead of the traditional month from classes to allow them to focus on the Grande Project, the Covid-19 replacement for Senior Project. 

The Grande Project had seniors chose a topic, an audience, and a format for a project that met the goal: to demonstrate care and concern for a marginalized group, to listen to those living that experience, to exercise their God-given gifts by giving voice to the voiceless, and to awaken their own God-given ability to bring about a more loving and equitable world. 

To help reach their goals, Campus Ministry created a Canvas course with deliverables to guide the seniors through their project and to help them focus on a topic and gather their ideas. The seniors also received advice on each deliverable from faculty advisors. Seniors could choose something from one of ten topics which included abortion and racism, or propose their own, and they could choose how to format their presentation, whether as a website, a podcast, a paper, a presentation, or something else. 

Next week’s Grande Week, the seniors will have the entire week devoted to the Grande Project.  While previously seniors would have had the entire month off in January to focus on their Senior Project, Campus Ministry was concerned that classes could not afford to have students absent for an entire month.

“The other things we have to consider is that we are in a pandemic, so our schedule last semester was cut short. The amount of material in most cases was not allowed to be delivered that would normally be delivered in the first semester academically,” said campus minister Simonie Anzalone. “So trying to balance everything with the school community, the administration gave us this one week and we are grateful to have this one week.”

Each day’s programming will focus on different aspects of the seniors’ projects and take place during the morning. Seniors have the option to leave campus in the afternoons for more time to focus on their project and to get at least two interviews for their sources.

The week begins on Tuesday, after the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday; Tuesday focus on topics. The seniors will be split up into classrooms by their topic, and two outside experts for each topic will Zoom into the classrooms. 

“Two speakers (for each classroom) are coming in to give them a framework and some knowledge and some inspiration on the topic that they have chosen,” said Anzalone. 

Wednesday is directed towards audience, and will be handled by SLUH faculty and staff. Seniors will ultimately spread awareness about their topic by presenting to an audience, whether that is their family, the school, or another part of their community. Wednesday gives the seniors sessions on tips and advice to best communicate their topics to an audience, and a chance to work one-on-one with faculty and staff. The senior class will also have two speakers to coach them on advocacy: Brenna Davis (Director of Education for Justice and Environmental Initiatives at the Ignatian Solidarity Network) and Marie Kenyon (Director of the Peace and Justice Commission for the Archdiocese of St. Louis). 

Thursday is the day dedicated to format; seniors will work with faculty and staff for helpful advice about presenting their work, and one-on-one sessions for feedback.

Friday is when seniors present an outline or rough draft to their faculty advisors via Zoom. 

“There are some (seniors) that are way ahead, but I would anticipate that the majority of them will do a lot of the work next week, which is why they don’t have classes, they have their afternoons free—they have been given that kind of dedicated space to invest in this work,” said campus minister Mr. Brian Gilmore.

Many seniors are still wrestling with what’s been lost from the original Senior Project, and the timing of the Grande Project.

“Everyone was initially disappointed that we didn’t get to have our actual Senior Project. Initially, I was kind of excited about the Grande Project—excited about what we are going to do, but as I moved though it I kind of got off track; it hasn’t been my main priority because of still coming back to school and having a lot of school work,” said senior Michael Buescher. “I guess this week will be good to set time aside just for the Grande Project, I feel like that will help me get a lot done.” 

Some seniors feel disappointment, but are hopeful for the upcoming week. Others see one week as insufficient and a missed opportunity.

“I was passionate—I wanted to make a website for mental health, but they wanted us to do work on this while we were also trying to go through classes and college stuff, and it just didn’t seem fair because all the seniors before us got a whole month just to prioritize, they were away from school, away from work— they were just doing their project,” said senior Ben Renner. “With the projects in the past years, seniors seemed to really enjoy this. They would always talk about how they loved it, and that even though at the start they were hesitant about it, it really changed them. This just feels like another assignment that we have to do every day, and it’s not going to affect us at all, and that’s just sad.”

Some seniors have other complaints on aspects like deliverables and feedback, but seemingly the main disappointment is time. Campus Ministry stresses communication and that they are always open to help. Still, Campus Ministry and others hope this next week will be helpful and suitable for finalizing seniors to be ‘Men for Others.’ 

“We all want more time to work on our stuff, more time in theory would help us all too,” said Gilmore. “This whole process has been trying to make the best out of the situation we have, and create space for some meaningful work to happen, and we think we have done that.”