Rockhurst University Celebrates Graduates — and Gratitude – at Commencement

More than 600 students earned their degrees from Rockhurst University at its annual commencement ceremony May 10.

The culmination of those students’ academic lives to date in Kansas City’s Municipal Auditorium is a chance for graduates to celebrate with each other and loved ones as their degrees are officially conferred. 

This year, it was also a chance to honor a previous graduate, Stephen Schneck, ’76, who was awarded a Doctor of Humane Letters degree and spoke to graduates as part of the ceremony, the first honorary degree given by the University since 2010.

Schneck was a longtime professor at the Catholic University of America and a nationally-renowned figure on issues of justice, public policy and Catholic social teaching. In July 2024, he was selected to be the chair of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom.

In his address, Schneck encouraged the graduates to take a moment and recognize their own accomplishments. As they make new memories, he also advised them to remember something else — gratitude.

“The gratitude that I want to awaken is a way of understanding your life, appreciating its deeper meaning, seeing even little things in a different light by savoring the blessings that others have given you and that others offer you,” he said.

Schneck asked graduates to stand and thank the families who nurtured them, the faculty who instructed them and the friends who supported them and will become lifelong companions. Reminding them the Latin root for the word gratitude was also the word for grace, he asked the graduates to proceed from her with those values in mind. 

“With gratitude, you will bring grace into the world,” he said. “I look out at your bright, promising, eager faces and I’m truly overcome. Thank you for giving me the privilege of standing here at this podium to offer you a few words.”

Also during the ceremony, the University awarded two special degrees. One, a posthumous degree for Taylor Garber, an employee at the University who was also pursuing a Bachelor of Arts degree in English when she died in July 2024. The other was a Bachelor of Arts degree in theology that was awarded to Jo Ann Herron, an 83-year-old who first enrolled in evening courses at Rockhurst in 1976 and came back after her retirement to complete her degree, a lifelong dream.