Recent Grad’s Service Reflection Gets National Attention

Kat Dolan, ’20, came to Rockhurst University having already had what some might consider a lifetime of experiences. And they’ve all played a part in a new piece in the latest issue of America, the national Jesuit magazine.

Dolan is the author of an article in the April 2021 issue of America that connects her own personal history to an experience she had as a student at Rockhurst University for a reflection on faith that she said started as an “essay about doubt.”

Dolan has served as a studio assistant to some of Kansas City’s well-known artists, worked in restaurant and hotel management and then built a reputation as a renowned pastry chef. The work took her from Vancouver, British Columbia, to Corvino’s Supper Club here in Kansas City. In the high-pressure world of acclaimed kitchens, she was at home — perhaps because, not in spite of, the previous struggle with an eating disorder that caused her to leave college in the first place.

“Cooking saved my life — that and psychology,” she said. “Then, at a certain point, you have saved yourself. And I think I got to that point. I think to do cooking you have to need it, because it takes so much of you.”

But when it came to finishing the bachelor’s degree she began years before, she was less sure. Dolan had begun her undergraduate degree at Georgetown University. Coming back to college after more than a decade away was a daunting idea, and not a decision that came easily. There were her own questions about higher education as a path for her, as well as the prospect of being a 36-year-old undergraduate college student. Those feelings soon started to dissipate.

“When you’re living the same day-to-day reality as someone, you understand each other,” she said of relating to her younger peers. “Whatever I was afraid of — being an outsider — was never my experience.”

Instead, Dolan said she thrived as a student in a way that she hadn’t before. She connected quickly and deeply with both her fellow students and faculty — several even attended her wedding, which was officiated by Glenn Young, Ph.D., associate professor of theology and religious studies.

“I absolutely re- fell in love with education at Rockhurst,” she said. “I think there is something so unique about Rockhurst. The size and intimacy of classes here was not something I had experienced. In my opinion this was one of the most nurturing educational environments I had ever been in and I really was impressed by that.”

It was also through Rockhurst that Dolan participated in the Miller Service Scholarship, working over the summer at Kansas City’s Plaza Academy with at-risk youth, a descriptor she said covers a wide variety of backgrounds and circumstances. The required reflection she completed at the end of that experience connected all of her past experiences to her present. Dolan said she knew she wanted to write something honest, but hadn’t thought much else about it until Bill Kriege, director of campus ministry, approached her with the idea to submit the reflection to America, the national Jesuit magazine, for consideration. To have someone think her work had worth was reassuring, Dolan said. To have a national publication think the same was overwhelming –– and not just because it’s meant working with an editor.

“I was incredibly grateful for it and I was struck by it — I don’t know how many times in life people offer you this kind of unconditional push of support,” she said. “I was really moved. I am floored by it.”