Rockhurst News

Near the pedestrian entryway to campus outside Arrupe Hall stands a new piece of campus art that serves as both a tribute and a reminder.

They met through a mutual connection, hit it off, a first date on a hay ride on a crisp fall night.

One of the first things you see as you enter Kateri Community is now a large ink drawing of two entwined hands, framed by a thick wooden frame. This, believe it or not, is a portrait.

It’s been quite a year for all health care professionals, and certainly in the nursing profession.

That makes this past week’s Nursing Appreciation Week, which concludes today with International Nurses Day, especially important as a way to look back and thank those who have sacrificed so much to take care of others over the past 12 months.

When Rockhurst University last updated its vision statement, one very specific word was included — “transformative.”

For many, the news in December of the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the COVID-19 vaccine developed by Pfizer was, understandably, cause for celebration.

But it would mean a mobilization like the nation has not seen since World War II to get those doses to the American people. And that’s where people like Brad Dunn, ’08, and the family business in St. Louis where he is vice president, Cee Kay Supply, come in.

Saint Luke’s College of Health Sciences becoming part of Rockhurst University means lots of new connections are being forged — between faculty and staff colleagues and students. For sophomore Emma Barben, it’s meant sharing a surprising new connection with her grandmother.

In 2011, Rachel Stotler Clasemann, ’97, MOT ’99, was driving home from work in Omaha, Nebraska, when a car accident changed her life.

The immediate result of the accident was a ruptured spleen and traumatic brain injury. In the years since, she has endured multiple surgeries, successes, setbacks, infections and therapy. But, according to those who know her, Rachel has never shied from a challenge, and remains steadfast in her path to recovery alongside her family, including her two sons.