Rockhurst News

As most student-athletes can tell you, teamwork is just that — work. But it’s also rewarding.

That’s been the case for members of Rockhurst University’s men’s basketball team this year as they’ve continued a yearslong effort to foster relationships with third through sixth grade students at nearby Troost Elementary School. From helping them with their schoolwork to having impromptu arm wrestling competitions, the players build positive bonds with these younger students and encourage them as they grow.

Bestselling author of “The World is Flat” and New York Times foreign affairs columnist Thomas Friedman will be the guest of the 2022 Rockhurst University Leadership Series, speaking on “Helping Today’s Leaders Understand Big Trends Shaping the World: Economics, Technology, and Geopolitics” at a talk followed by a reception, scheduled to begin at 5 p.m. Thursday, March 24, 2022, at the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts in Kansas City, Missouri. 

Rockhurst University has received the NCAA Presidents’ Award for Academic Excellence for achieving four-year Academic Success Rates of 90 percent or higher among its student-athletes for the 11th consecutive year.

Forty-three Division II member schools are recipients of the Presidents’ Award for Academic Excellence. Rockhurst is one of 10 schools to have earned the recognition every year since the award was started in 2011.

Positive male role models have shaped the life of Rockhurst Master's of Education (M.Ed.) student Donnell Fletcher from a young age, and now the Raytown, Missouri, teacher is doing the same for future generations.

Before he started leading students at Raytown Middle School, Fletcher learned life lessons from influential figures in his family and through high school sports.

Rockhurst University and Keypath Education will launch four new online and hybrid degree programs, including two online graduate programs, one online graduate certificate program and one hybrid undergraduate degree designed to further Rockhurst University’s goal to become a regional leader in healthcare education and to help fill the need for skilled, compassionate healthcare providers.

The new programs scheduled to launch in August 2022 are:

It’s been a while since Rockhurst University last hosted a December commencement ceremony in person, on campus.

That will change at 1 p.m. Saturday as approximately 200 students take the stage in Mason-Halpin Fieldhouse to celebrate with loved ones the completion of their degrees.

The University restarted the December commencement tradition last year, but due to the pandemic, held the ceremony virtually. That makes this year the first in-person winter ceremony since 2005.

Rockhurst prides itself in providing learning opportunities beyond the classroom, but now it can add Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida, to the list of its educational environments.

This fall, six Rockhurst Honors Student Association E-Board members attended the National Collegiate Honors Council’s 54th Annual Conference after having to miss last year due to its COVID-19 cancellation. RU Honors Program Director Maureen Walsh accompanied the group to the site of this year’s event, Disney World.

Rockhurst University students working out in The MAC (Magis Activity Center) will regularly see individuals in yellow shirts asking if they’d like assistance. They’re not doctors, but they help students get a healthy dose of medicine.

It’s the fulfillment of a dream that began close to 70 years ago.

In 1954, Rockhurst University students offered to raise funds for a statue of Mary on campus and an accompanying grotto for prayer. The statue was funded and Mary was placed on a stone cruciform for the time being, but the rest of the project proved difficult to fund.

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.