What Makes us Jesuit?

Why do we attend prayer service every week? Why do we take six minutes out of our day to pray the Examen? Why do we get to call ourselves “Jesuit?” We often take these aspects of our school for granted, but it’s important to realize what we stand for. This year, over the course of the next five to six months, Jesuit will undergo the Ignatian Sponsorship Review, allowing us as a Jesuit community to evaluate ourselves along with the rest of our school.

In order to be considered an organization sponsored by the Society of Jesus, every Jesuit school and administration in the country must undergo a “sponsorship review” every few years. This Ignatian Sponsorship Review asks the school two fundamental questions: “How is the school Catholic and Jesuit?” and “How does the school form its precincts in the Ignatian and Jesuit tradition?” This “self- study” will follow a document called What Makes A Jesuit School Jesuit?, essentially measuring how well Jesuit College Prep follows the characteristics of a Jesuit school. In no way is the Ignatian Sponsorship Review looking to “take away” a school’s Jesuit title. It does, however, take note of what we as a Jesuit community do well and what we need to improve on.

Jesuit schools and institutions are located all around the United States, and each must participate in the Ignatian Sponsorship Review. As one could guess, it is difficult to track each school individually in order to review it, however, all the Jesuit Schools located in a specific region are assigned to a province, lessening the strain to keep track of all of the schools that represent the Jesuit profile. This year, the Missouri province and the New Orleans province combined (Jesuit College Prep of Dallas was a part of the New Orleans province), forming the Jesuit Central and Southern province.  Because the Missouri province more routinely participates in the Sponsorship Review, we must take part in it this year.

The Ignatian Sponsorship Review studies the six aspects that make up a Jesuit student as part of the process. Loving, Intellectually Competent, Physically Fit, Religious, Open to Growth, and Committed to Social Justice are the facets defined by Jesuit College Prep that ideally make up every Jesuit student on his journey to graduation day. Moreover, our school’s use of the motto, “Men for Others,” further emulates the Jesuit profile of the graduate, displaying the commitment our school has made to the betterment of the student body through first-hand interaction with people in need of help. The Sponsorship Review looks into how applicably Jesuit can implement these six guidelines into the education and development of the students at Jesuit. While those features such as Intellectually Competent and Physically Fit are important parts of our Jesuit student profile, the review is more focused on those features pertaining to a strictly “Jesuit” advancement.

Mrs. Gretchen Crowder, moderator of Jesuit Campus Ministry, is one of the members of the staff at Jesuit taking part in the Sponsorship Review. She enjoys the Sponsorship Review saying, “a lot of what’s addressed in What Makes A Jesuit School Jesuit? can be applied to the office of Campus Ministry or the office of community service.” She believes that, “it’s always good to look over the things that you do and see what you do well and what you need to improve,” and that it’s, “exciting to see what kind of suggestions and changes that can make the students experience in a Jesuit school better.” The Ignatian Sponsorship review is aimed towards improving the Jesuit student experience and better representing the Jesuit school name.

Assisting Mrs. Crowder in this year’s Sponsorship Review are three other well-known members of the Jesuit Faculty. Each faculty member will oversee the three fundamental branches of the Sponsorship Review: serving the mission of the church, religious education and formation, and teaching and acting justly. Mr. Chris Knight will be handling the “serving the mission of the church” branch of the Review, Mr. Matt DuRoss will handle the “religious education and formation” branch, and Mr. Patrick Triplett will be in charge of the “teaching and acting justly” branch. Each faculty member is in charge of a small committee of other faculty members that will reflect and discuss various aspects of their respective branch. The committees will be gathering periodically during the fall semester to accumulate information about our school through the input of various faculty and even students. In the spring a small team will arrive in order to assess the committees work, and speak to students and other staff members in order to develop their recommendations for our school.

Mr. Knight’s small committee of faculty will be “looking at how we as a Jesuit institution can continue to ‘learn in the Church, with the Church, and for the Church’ and assure that we, as a community, continue to grow in our formation and development as the Jesuit College Preparatory School that we all want to be.” When asked about what he most looked forward to in the forthcoming Sponsorship Review, Mr. Knight responded that he “look[s] forward to seeing the hard work that is being done getting confirmed by the Sponsorship Review Committee and also in seeing how we can continue to grow and develop into the premier institution that we are striving to be.”

Mr. DuRoss’ branch focuses particularly on how well we as a school “learn to find Christ and serve Him in others.”  In other words, Mr. DuRoss and his group of faculty members considers the overall religious identity of the school.  Along with this, the small committee will be focusing on assessing Jesuit College Prep’s liturgical life, which includes school wide masses, prayer services, daily prayers, along with the Theology curriculum, retreat programs, peer ministry group, and service program. With the approaching appraisal, Mr. DuRoss is “most looking forward to working with students and faculty to provide documentation that supports the overall success of our school. By being intentional about identifying our strengths as a religious community I hope that we can be more challenged to answer God’s call of service and fellowship through the many opportunities our school provides.”

Finally, Mr. Triplett’s particular branch is looking at how “Jesuit responds to the needs of the ‘under-served’ in the Jesuit community and the surrounding areas.” What Mr. Triplett’s group is discovering is that “Jesuit does a lot in this area, both in big ways that we all know, such as our community service program, and in quieter ways that open up opportunities at Jesuit that might otherwise be out of reach.” Mr. Triplett has enjoyed “discussing and learning about different parts of our school of which I wasn’t as well informed,” and the thing he is most looking forward to “is the opportunity to showcase some very strong aspects of our school.”

Jesuit College Prep strives everyday to give its students and faculty an authentic Jesuit experience. The Ignatian Sponsorship Review will hopefully help us to better ourselves as a community united by spirituality and a desire to learn what it means to be “Men for Others.”