The High School Leadership Group (HSLG) of the Jesuits Central and Southern Province hosted their annual conference this past weekend at St. Louis U. High for the first time in six years.

The conference is a meeting of Jesuit school administrators from 13 high schools from all across the expansive Central and Southern Province, which stretches from Denver to Belize City, to talk about subjects ranging from diversity to the direction of the schools to their traditions to ways to improve.

The administration was eager to host the conference and show off SLUH and the city of St. Louis.

“In many ways, all of our schools are the same. Students are similar, faculty is similar, the mission statement is very similar, yet there is a unique context to each one,” said Principal Ian Gibbons, S.J. “(SLUH) is the old- est of the Jesuit high schools in the province. ... And also some of our traditions of liberal arts plus STEM, it’s a very subtle combination that we have, so being able to show that with the tours and the student panel and also showcasing St. Louis.”

The conference began with a Mass in the North American Martyrs Chapel.

“A big shout out to Mr. Joe Rankin, Mr. Rick Figge

and all the men and women in Environmental Services and Maintenance who worked so hard to get the renovations of the Ignatian Conference Room/North American Martyr’s Chapel completed in time and readied the school for our guest's arrival,” said President Alan Carruthers in an email to the Prep News.

Students led tours to various areas around the school including the theatre, Innovation Lab, and Field House.

The next day, the group was given a presentation from Provincial Fr. Ron Mercier, S.J. on the new provincial who will succeed him.

“It was with mixed feelings that we listened to Fr. Ron Mercier S.J., our current Jesuit Provincial who was both feeling under the weather and speaking to us as a group for the last time,” said Carruthers. “Fr. Mercier has done a ton of work at a time of transition as the Missouri and New Orleans provinces combined, and he has been a tremendous support for myself and SLUH.”

Following a presentation from St. Louis University on 1818 College Credit, theology teacher Michael Mohr, S.J. led a prayerful examen.

One thing that has grown exponentially since SLUH last hosted six years ago was the STEM and innovation atmosphere at SLUH. Rather than going to faculty, the administration decided to have a student panel that featured juniors Daniel Blittschau and Brendan Carr and seniors Micah See, Luke Giunta, and PJ Butler, who dis- cussed their personal experiences with the Innovation Lab and STEM in general at SLUH. The panel divided in- novation into two areas: the projects the presenters were doing and the ways they are impacting the community (like the Clavius project).

“One way to showcase (our innovation) was to bring in the students,” said Gibbons. “They were very impressed with the guys, the guys prepared well, each one had their own focus. They nailed it.”

“They were rockstars,” said Walsh. “Everybody loved them.”

One person that stuck out was Carr, who discussed the marimba he is building in the Innovation Lab.

“Brendan Carr led off by just the power and wonder of innovation. He is potentially not a likely person to be engaged in innovation; he’s a musician and involved in areas well outside of STEM, but that is just a great story to headline,” said Gibbons. “Our visitors loved it. They were very impressed.”

Overall, the conference attendees were intrigued by the professionalism that the students showed at the panel.

“One of my friends, who is a president at one of the other schools, accused us of hiring actors for the student panel,” said Gibbons. “He thought they were so good and so poised.”

Another interesting piece came from the former Director of Diversity and Inclusion at De Smet, Dan Lester, who led a simulation to mirror the uncomfortable experience of African Ameri- can students when they walk into a majority white school.

“It was really hard,” said Walsh. “But it was kinda cool.”

One goal that the ad-ministration had for the conference was to highlight the things that make St. Louis great. They did this by speaking about the history of the Jesuits in the city and by taking the attendees out to dinner at Bellwether in Lafayette Square, a historic part of town.

“We put a lot of thought into what makes St. Louis unique and how can we showcase SLU High,” said Gibbons.

Former President of SLUH David Laughlin also made an appearance. Laugh- lin is the President of Rockhurst in Kansas City.

“The best part was Mr. Laughlin came back and so it was really nice that he came back,” said Walsh, who worked with Laughlin for 12 years.

It required a lot of people to put the event on.

“The student leaders were wonderful, giving up Friday evening and Satur- day afternoon, as were the

grounds crew that helped get the site ready and helped us with all the different needs of the place and the IT folks who helped with the technical aspects. Mrs. Hylla and Food Service did a tremendous job and Mrs. Walsh was just amazing,” said Gibbons.

“Mrs. Walsh, Ron Re- bore our Provincial’s Assistant for Secondary Education (PASE), Fr. Gibbons and Kathy Hyla from Food Services did a wonderful job organizing and executing the event,” said Carruthers.

“SLU High is an awesome place and sometimes you can best see that through the eyes of others, to see them seeing it and to feedback to you the things they are impressed with,” said Gibbons. “One of the best compliments they can give is to say ‘we can really use that idea or program back at our school.’"