Senior Caroline Knopke said she grew up diving — “it's the only sport I've really ever known,” she said — and competed through high school. When it came time to choose a college, she found herself drawn to Rockhurst University. But that meant the end of her competitive diving career (though she would still coach a local girls’ team). Until this year.
Nhukha (’21) and Nhukim (December '22) Nguyen are many things, but first and foremost they are sisters and best friends. Born two years apart, they are also the daughters of Vietnam immigrants, as well as student and community leaders, Buddhists, and Rockhurst Hawks.
The University prides itself in living out the slogan “A Home for All,” which includes different faiths and diverse backgrounds. Its faith tradition is “one of invitation and inclusion, not of expectation or requirement.”
LaTisha Davis may have a business card that says Rockhurst University Director of Multicultural Belonging and Engagement, but her role can be simplified to one thing for students: She’s here to be your person if you need one.
Everyone needs a support system and to feel like they’re included, and before she was the University’s first director of the office, Davis was a first-generation student from a marginalized background trying to fit in at Wichita State University.
It’s completely normal for a college student to see something they want and decide it’s too expensive – especially shoes. And especially Nike Air Jordans, which can run into six figures depending on what you’re looking for… unless you can make them yourself and sell them to musicians and athletes.
There was a unique addition to the Thomas More Dining Hall that may have caught your eye this year. Renovations to the dining hall during the summer of 2021 brought with it the introduction of a hydroponics grow room offering an alternative to soil gardening.
Hydroponic gardens produce more plants quickly with less space and less water than soil gardening. This system utilizes nutrient-rich water and recycled soda bottles as a mesh-type medium that serves as the soil alternative to support the roots of the plants in grow towers.
Rockhurst University will honor Alvin Brooks, longtime Kansas City leader in social justice and civil rights, with the establishment of the Alvin Brooks Center for Faith-Justice on campus. The center will house many of the university’s faith-justice related efforts, including a chapel, mission and ministry programs, and diversity, equity and inclusion programs. Work has begun to raise funds for the center and to identify a location and construction and design partners.
As the August 18-20 move-in days approach at Rockhurst, students are using Instagram videos to encourage incoming Hawks to be sure they are vaccinated against COVID-19.
Since 2004, Rockhurst University has marked the solemn occasion of Yom Hashoah, or Holocaust Remembrance Day, with an interfaith ceremony in partnership with the Midwest Center for Holocaust Education.
This year, in addition to a ceremonial reading on Kinerk Commons of names of those killed by the Nazis during the Holocaust – a list that includes 152 members of the Society of Jesus — the day included another symbolic gesture of interfaith cooperation and companionship.
Rockhurst University Companions,
After securing all but nearly $1 million of the expected $23 million cost, Rockhurst University will begin construction on the renovation of a campus cornerstone, Sedgwick Hall, into the future home of the Saint Luke’s College of Health Sciences at Rockhurst University.
