Rock Talk
Rock Talk is the official podcast of Rockhurst High School in Kansas City, Missouri — where we explore the voices, values, and vibrant life of our Jesuit, college-prep community. Hosted by the Admissions and Marketing team, each episode features conversations with students, faculty, alumni, and special guests as we share stories of academic excellence, faith formation, brotherhood, and service. Whether you're a prospective family, a proud alumnus, or simply curious about what makes Rockhurst unique — this is your inside look at life at The Rock.
Rock Talk
Brotherhood Begins: Welcoming Freshmen to Rockhurst High
Step inside the thoughtful, intentional process of welcoming freshmen to Rockhurst High School through this revealing conversation with Chris Bosco, Assistant Principal for Student Life. Discover how this Jesuit college preparatory school has carefully crafted a freshman transition experience that begins months before the first day of school and continues throughout the critical first year.
What makes the Rockhurst welcome unique? It starts with special events like signing days and summer socials where incoming students begin building relationships with upperclassmen who become mentors and guides. The formal orientation day includes a meaningful welcome Mass where parents join their sons as they symbolically walk up the McGee steps into their new community. After being enthusiastically greeted by upperclassmen, freshmen are guided through their schedules and introduced to key resources that will support their journey.
The heart of the freshman experience is the comprehensive CURA program that combines small group counseling, freshman seminar, and the Camino project. This intentional approach helps students navigate the transition to high school while introducing them to the five ideals that will shape their four-year journey: being open to growth, loving, religious, committed to justice, and intellectually competent.
Mr. Bosco reveals what he calls "the secret sauce" of Rockhurst—the vibrant club life that offers approximately 50 different organizations where students can pursue existing passions or discover new ones. From Culinary Club to Robotics, these student-led activities create spaces where young men develop leadership skills, form deep friendships, and find their place in the community.
Ready to discover how brotherhood is built from day one? Listen now to understand why Rockhurst graduates become such well-spoken, thoughtful young men ready to make their mark on the world.
Welcome to Rock Talk, the official podcast of Rockhurst High School in Kansas City, missouri, where we explore the voices, values and vibrant life of our Jesuit college prep community, hosted by the admissions and marketing team. Each episode features conversations with students, faculty alumni and special guests as we share stories of academic excellence, faith formation, brotherhood and service. Whether you're a prospective family, a proud alumnus or simply curious about what makes Rockers unique, this is your inside look at life at the Rock. Hello everyone. Today we are excited to welcome Assistant Principal for Student Life, chris Bosco, to kind of talk with us a little bit about that idea of welcome and brotherhood that you heard from our SGA leaders about last week. Mr Bosco's main focus on campus is not only just student life, as in clubs, activities, co-curriculars, but also looking at how we wrap around services for our students through our counseling department and some of the work they do there. Thanks for coming today, mr Bosco.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having me. Hello and hello everyone. Thanks for coming today. Mr Roscoe, thank you for having me.
Speaker 1:Hello and hello everyone, great. So, as I said, our theme for this set of four podcasts is the idea of welcome and brotherhood, and now we're just moments away. We record these podcasts a little in advance, but next Monday, the 18th, is our kind of kickoff for the freshmen, our orientation. So take us back. You know, how are some ways we welcome our incoming freshmen class, how do our upperclassmen kind of play a part in that and kind of what do you see as a value of some of the things we have in place?
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's a lot of programming that goes into that process of welcoming freshmen and we're talking about freshman orientation and truly the process began back in the spring and even over the winter, I think there were it's called something like signing days, where incoming freshmen were invited to come in and have a little special time as they accepted their acceptance into the school and then in the freshman registration night with freshmen and their parents. That was, I believe, in April of last year and part of that was hearing from administrators and some other key people about that transition of ending middle school and working towards the summer and working towards being here as freshmen and we're drawing close to that point now. But then we also took the freshmen out of that setting and we're drawing close to that point now. But then we also took the freshmen out of that setting and we we moved them over to kind of a fun side where a bunch of upperclassmen were prepared to give them kind of a rocker's welcome, peer-to-peer with loud music, drums and some other sort of silly fun. And it's a great night because what the upperclassmen are trying to do is give every student who is there wondering is this a place for me? What's this going to be like? Am I going to know anybody? Am I going to make friends? What am I going to do? Can I do this, am I going to make it here? And we give them lots of examples of students who are just a few years older kind of stepping forward and saying here are all the things that I'm doing, here's how I did it, you can do it too. There's a place for you, you can be just like me, but you can kind of write your own way too.
Speaker 2:So from that moment in the spring, there's the freshman summer social that occurs in june, which is really just getting the, the young men, on campus and having some fun together, and there's a lot of upperclassmen involved in that. Then freshman orientation coming up is really, I think, where we say, okay, you're ours now, you're truly ours now, and we've got a whole day plan of of how we want to introduce you to important people, and that includes each other, not just the adults in the building. But we want them to start establishing and, frankly, by this time, reinforcing relationships that they have with peers and kind of get them into the system that will start on freshman orientation day and then continue all through freshman year. So they'll be able to walk through their schedules with upperclassmen showing them around. They'll be able to hear from the academic assistant principal at the dean's office. They'll get to meet with their counselors. They'll get to meet with upperclassmen brothers who will kind of be ushering them throughout the day but also having opportunities to talk to them about transition topics.
Speaker 2:How do you make friends? For example, what's it like being a student in an all-boys school? What do I do for lunch? Sometimes, as adults, we think of these really broad conceptual things of well, we're going to talk to them. Freshmen, on the first day of school, they just want to know where is my classroom Am.
Speaker 2:I supposed to be seated in the front of it or in the back of it, and so, as orientation goes, it's really just trying to break through all those scary moments. By the time they leave, okay, yeah, this is my place, I feel comfortable here, it's more comfortable. First day of school comes yeah, it's jitters, but they'll understand. Like, okay, I know, I know what's happening. As we tell the brothers and train them for freshman orientation, the goal is to be as welcoming and inclusive and the goal is to make the freshmen feel comfortable, they are welcomed here, they have a place and that there are lots of resources around them including each other.
Speaker 2:If you have any questions, let us know so way back when when.
Speaker 3:I was a freshman. I remember the experience that I had because at the end of the day, I was fortunate. You know, not all of our students go to Catholic schools. You know, especially now there's the population is growing increasingly from you know different schools than you know the Catholic schools. But I came in familiar with guys, whether it was through sports, classmates, all of those things.
Speaker 3:And now, being on this side of it, I'm curious when I hear you saying all this stuff, how much thought has gone into making sure our freshmen come into Rockhurst prepared to have as much success as possible, like you just mentioned. I'm just listening to you and you know the conversations Beth and I've had and it's like, oh man, I wonder how much, like at what point one had it changed over the years. But like, at what point do you start even thinking about, hey, we need to make sure we have this, we need to have this, this thing in place, we need to make sure this doesn't become a barrier, because coming into this environment can be intimidating. But you know how much have this thing in place, we need to make sure this doesn't become a barrier, because coming into this environment can be intimidating. But how much thought and planning goes into that freshman experience.
Speaker 2:That never stops. We're already thinking about, we assess how things are going in one year. We're always thinking, okay, and how might we want to consider doing that differently next year? It's just the constant part of our reflection. Students to do that, so we should model that as well. We start conversations in spring, or I also work in our summer, so we have a lot of incoming freshmen, various coursework camps, camps as well, and that process starts in December of the year before they get here. When we're talking about orientation, those plans take place in the spring as well, and then they really start over the summer and we're just looking at okay, how did this event go, this portion of the event go the year before, the years before?
Speaker 3:I'll give you an example.
Speaker 2:It was only a couple years ago that we started doing a welcoming mass in which we invited parents to that, instead of just having the freshmen walk in at that point in time and then be told to go to a classroom.
Speaker 2:And they're going to go to a classroom and they're going to hopefully find it, and if they need help we'd have people along the way. But I mean, it was kind of like that solitary walk. This is what you experience, right, go to the classroom, you can find it, and that awkward moment of not wanting to look at anybody. Right, it's almost like you know a dance. You're along the side of the wall, like I don't want to call any attention to myself. But we realized we were missing an opportunity there to not only make that first experience better but also to invite parents to it. And so a couple years ago we added freshman welcoming student mask with parents to it, and now they're walking up those mcgee steps, which I think is a powerful in itself. Right, didn't walk up those steps. For some it's the first time they've stepped foot on campus.
Speaker 2:That sounds crazy to think but for some it really is Not for most. We have some students who only learned about rock first, maybe a couple months ago. We have other students.
Speaker 1:Yeah, a couple days ago.
Speaker 2:But then we also have a large group of students who have been thinking about rockers, knowing about rockers, told about rockers from an early age. So how do we create a moment in which all of those and their parents are like no, we're welcome, we're part of this community and we're happy to be here. It doesn't matter if you're coming from north of the airport or south of 199. Everybody has that place if they want to be here. And so the mass.
Speaker 2:Now we have the students walking down and sitting with a parent or two and it's just a beautiful moment. And then it's celebrated in the sacrament itself. And then after that of an hour, they get a little bit of a talking from Dave Laughlin, our president, and a couple other people that will say some welcoming things. But at that moment, that's when we ask the freshman to then say goodbye to your parents and to start walking to your classroom. And as they come out of the rose theater where we'll have that mass I can now say this because it'll be released after that's when the upperclassmen and student government association will be banging the drum and, you know, giving them more of us up here to peer welcoming right and then ushering them to the classroom where they'll continue activities. It's just a far different experience.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think one thing both Chris and I can attest to is that since Mr Laughlin, our president, has been back at Rockhurst one of the driving forces really behind this idea of welcoming students well before they actually are freshmen. And so my predecessor, mike Comiskey, and I, when we first started here at Rocker six years ago, one of the first things we talked about was what does that spring of eighth grade year look like for these students and how do we make that obviously known that they're wanted here, they're welcome here, and so over the years and I'm going to give some credit to some other schools we've begged borrowed and stolen some really great ideas, one of which you mentioned that ceremonial signing that we do right after their admissions letters go out and that I actually picked up from Cristo Rey High School in Los Angeles.
Speaker 1:We were at a Jesuit schools colloquium, which is a meeting of all the Jesuit schools in the nation, and we got to visit their Cristo Rey High School. And they do not only high school signing for every kid that has made the choice to go to Cristo Rey, but they do one for every student who's graduating, no matter where they're going on to next. So if they're going to college great.
Speaker 1:If they're going to trade school, great. But they celebrate each student's success and I thought that was really cool and it didn't have to be because they were playing sports, it was just. You know, we're proud to have you as part of our community and we're proud to send you out from our community, so we really like that.
Speaker 2:By the way, a whole other podcast would be talking about the Jesuit Schools Network that system yeah. There are so many opportunities that we have as a school on the whole, but also individual departments and different levels within it, from assistant principals, teachers to the president and the board to be able to look at what other schools around the country really frankly around the world, but other Jesuit schools are doing that are not that different from us and the amount of wonderful communication and ideas that get shared, that way is really an asset.
Speaker 1:And then for the summer social, we actually stole that from Casha Hall down in Tulsa, oklahoma. I had gone to visit my cousins down there and their son was entering sixth grade there as they start their school, their upper school in sixth grade, and he had just gotten back from what he called his summer fun day. And I said, well, what's a summer fun day? And he kind of told me about it and I thought, well, this is something I think our upperclassmen could really get behind.
Speaker 1:And let me tell you, this year Steve joined us in July, so I was running it solo this year for the first time ever, and the squad of upperclassmen leaders was outstanding and I could not have done that, yeah, they really enjoy it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think for them, they like it because they've been away from campus for a couple of weeks. You know the exams are finished and announced, like, oh, we can come back and have some fun. And then our guys like, I think they recognize the value, the importance of being leaders and okay, oh, it's our turn now to welcome in these freshmen. Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1:And these guys were the first ones to experience that summer social too, so it's kind of like full circle.
Speaker 1:So that was cool. So we've talked a little bit about how we welcome them leading up to and at orientation, but so much of the freshman experience continues on through that first year. So I know one of our major efforts in the last several years has been to develop the Cura program, which Mr Bosco oversees. So can you tell the folks at home a little bit more about what the Cura process is and what that program is and why it's here, what it's designed to do?
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, like a lot of schools, we kind of recognized years ago that this whole topic is about how we are transitioning freshmen into the community and learning our expectations and trying to set them up for success. Like just trying to rethink how that process works. Our teachers do great work in the classroom, but recognizing okay, what on top of that can we add to the freshmen as they're kind of getting ingrained into the community? So we started off several years ago with a freshman small group program that was happening at the same time as the freshman seminar program. Freshman small group pretty simple, pretty simple. It's meeting in small groups with their counselor on a regular scheduled basis and discussing a lot of different topics related to the high school transition, everything from social matters and communication to academic tips and strategies, including hearing from upperclassmen that come in, and then some of the other things as well. Just like saying if you need resources, here they are. And most important to all of the freshman small group was that the counselor was establishing relationship with the students. The students got to know the counselor immediately and with some regularity.
Speaker 2:Freshman seminar Matt Darby likes to say it's all the things. He's our dean of students, all the things that I want freshmen to know, but I just haven't really had the time beforehand to be able to tell him. So I have a toolbox and I'm just putting those tools in the toolbox by being able to meet with the freshmen on a regular basis and discuss these things or to bring outside people in like myself, for example, I talked a couple of times. Well, that eventually became the Cura program when we added a third component, just about what, maybe four years ago I believe it was coming out of COVID and recognizing that you know it's like so many things that were changing, so many needs that were changing. You know, coming out of covid, connection, face-to-face connection, relationship connection, trying to. You know everybody is going to re-establish what normal is right we remember that.
Speaker 2:So the hero program really began then in the sense of now most b days, which is we have a rotating schedule in A and a B day, and so most B days all our freshmen come in 45 minutes, 8 to 8.15. And we divide them up into three groups and a third of the freshman class will be meeting with their freshman small groups, with their counselors. So a third of the freshmen will be meeting with the dean or his guests in freshman seminar and then a third of them will be meeting with Beth and Tyler Baker to discuss the Camino project. Camino is looking at the we call it a graduate at graduation, the values that we hold for all of our students that by the time they graduate they will be on the road well, on the road in fact towards reaching the five ideals of the grad to grad, the open to growth.
Speaker 3:Would you mind, just for the listeners, will you go ahead and just tell us what those five are? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think those people are confused.
Speaker 2:Absolutely yeah, and this has been around Jesuit schools for several decades. I believe that this came out of a Jesuit conference in the 70s. I could be wrong on that, so if there's any Jesuit listening to me right now, direct your calls to Beth Van Dyke.
Speaker 3:Don't call me please, Not, Steve yeah.
Speaker 2:So by the time a student graduates from a Jesuit high school, they are on the road towards being open to growth, loving, religious, we say, committed to justice and intellectually competent. I've been here this is my 25th year starting and since I arrived, that was the first thing that students hear about then and it's what they hear about now and in the CURA program, and specifically the freshman Camino portion of it. That's when freshmen will meet as a group and be able to hear from people that are invited in to talk about. What does that mean for the group? What does that look like to a freshman? What does that look like to a freshman? What does it look like as a freshman doing practicing that value of being open to growth? So it's not a talking to as much as it's trying to get the freshman to reflect like where am I seeing this? Where do I have the opportunity to do this myself? Where am I maybe not meeting that expectation?
Speaker 1:Where am I?
Speaker 2:not practicing being open to growth? Where can I change that in the future? And that's called the examine by the way, that's a whole other topic too, but that's part of Ignatian spirituality is to be practicing that sense of reflection, to say what are the things that are happening, what are the voices that are happening in my experience? What am I listening to when I say voices? Are they leading me in a good way or are they leading me in a not so good way? And what are the graces that I am seeking to make improvements? And so we have those opportunities for freshmen to hear about that with regards to the grad, at grad, and then they begin to map out what they consider as their artifacts, what are their things that they can point to and say you know what? Here's where I'm already practicing being open to growth. And then what the camino project does over four years is try to give them a portfolio of sense that they can show that growth. And that's five different areas over four years.
Speaker 3:And they cannot just know that themselves as an important point of reflection, but they can also share that with their peers, their families and the outside world, and and that's an exciting project, that's occurring, and so help me out, because I had a very interesting conversation at lunch and for folks listening at a place like this, you have a lot of interesting conversations with a lot of different folks and it was about the rockers. I call it the rockers man, but it was in relation to, as we've been doing this orientations for the last seven days, I think, for me being through it right, got to interact with the student panel.
Speaker 3:then we had our sga come this you know to all, you know know to the all faculty and we were talking about how I was just always impressed and appreciate how well spoken and thoughtful our young men are. You have a conversation with these upperclassmen, some of them juniors, some seniors, with these upperclassmen, some of them juniors, some seniors, and they can actually have a dialogue with you as an adult and thoughts and opinions and knowing that that's where they're heading when they leave. Where or how have you seen? You know the program that, whether it's Camino, cura, personalis, impact those young men as they grow. Like, okay, you hear it, you deal with it. Freshman year, like, when do you see the light bulb go off?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you touched on something that, like, really is near and dear to me and it always has been. At Rockhurst we have high expectations. We want students to feel challenged, to be more, to be more of what we believe they're called to be. They're created to be by God as a gift. So we have those expectations, but we also give them the opportunities to practice it. Like it's not enough just to say this is what we want for you or this is what we want you to want for yourself. We're going to give them the opportunities to go through that experience of recognizing I'm developing it or, oh, I'm not developing it. I might need a little bit of help. And so those students that you talk to, those were guys who've had opportunities to own their experiences that they have when they've been asked to do something, or if they say they want to do something on an athletic field and owning what it means to be a member of the team and having to have the responsible leadership to perform, to meet expectations and to put in the hard work and to bring people along with them or in a club or even in the classroom. When it comes to saying we expect more and that's not a threat. That's more like a wonderful invitation to say let's do it together. But I think what you're tapping into are just moments when our students are not just told hey. I think I want you to think about what would you say to these new faculty and staff as they're coming in Now we're going to give them lots of opportunities, even as freshmen, to get in front of one another and talk about things that are important, things that excite them, and then develop that over four years.
Speaker 2:So, going back to the Freshman Cura program, how is that like a stepping stone or like beginning step towards what you experienced last week with some upperclassmen? Number one, I said relationships, the Freshman Cura program. I think at the top of everything else, it's all about forming relationships with peers and adults and recognizing like I like these people, I know these people yeah, do I get along really well with all of them? Of course you know it's a real world out there. However, we're kind of we recognize that we're brothers, we recognize that we're rocker students with each other and they kind of start forming that relationship and then friendships kind of ensue from that, adult connections that occur in the freshman CURA program. You know, similar manner of kind of recognizing, like I see that teacher a lot because she's helping with you know she comes into the Camino Project and she's reviewing you know what we're talking about and that just kind of sparks an opportunity for him to develop that communication back and forth with an adult.
Speaker 2:I think what I hear from students who visit from other schools, what I think what I hear from new teachers who might be coming from other places, is just kind of recognizing that our students feel really comfortable being here. They feel like when they're having conversations with their teachers. Of course they respect them but they also recognize like it's fun to be in the classroom. You hear from the students we call them shadows.
Speaker 1:I don't like that term.
Speaker 2:It's just me I'm losing that battle for 25 years. Our guest eighth graders. When you ask them about their experiences shadowing, one of the things that they'll often say after they talk about how much they enjoy the food- that's true yeah, ice cream goes a long way.
Speaker 2:Frozen yogurt, though, that very few people recognize. When you ask them, though, about the day what they enjoyed, after they say food, they say well, the classes just seem like different. What does that mean? To say the classes seem different? Well, what's different is that there's a bunch of brothers in that classroom and the teacher has a role in there to teach and to guide and to direct and to challenge. There is that authority and respect, but the teachers are enjoying that experience as much as the students are, and that community, I think you know, is found in those classrooms as much as it's found in a club, which is a voluntary experience or an athletic experience. Maybe, steve, you can talk about that kind of going through that as a student.
Speaker 3:Yeah, go ahead, steve I, yeah, and my mind is swirling over there, but yeah, it's the enjoyment of the process and being in the building is is where we were at Right. I'm just, and I don't know I get emotional about it.
Speaker 3:I'm trying, I'm trying to, I'm trying to center myself a little bit because it's true, you know, when you you talk about, the thing that jumps out at me when you're saying that, and it's really close to my experience, is when we're talking about forming those relationships and those relationships creating this environment that we're in.
Speaker 3:That was one of the things that I I can't shake. Every before I was in this role I was preaching that to the high heavens, to any young man or family considering coming here, because those were the things that, no matter what I was going through and I was going through a lot when I was here I always felt comfortable. I always felt like if I needed to talk to them not that I did, but if I needed to talk to somebody I knew I could right, if, if I was, was willing to share or say something, that people would listen and they would support me and they would pick me up and it's cool to see. It's cool to see that still happening. I know I don't know who was saying that today when we were talking, but it was talking about rockers evolving but not changing.
Speaker 3:Yes, yes years, because part of the success that we're able to create is young men coming into the same environment, the same expectations, the same love, the same all of that. And you know you call giving opportunities to grow and learn and hey, and make mistakes, right, you know I think of grace Absolutely. Hey, and make mistakes. Make right, you know, I think of grace absolutely. You're not coming in here and being smacked over the head, if you will, when you are acclimating to such a impactful environment and I call it impactful in hindsight, but I know, being young it could seem intimidating yeah, you're coming in with a lot of guys coming from a lot of intimidating.
Speaker 3:You're coming in with a lot of guys coming from a lot of different places. You're coming in with a lot of guys that are good at a lot of stuff. Oh yeah, you know, you're coming in with teachers that are really good at what they do and have expectations and, at the same time, you were afforded and are afforded room to be a young man, growing into yourself. Yeah, which?
Speaker 2:by the way is not predictable right there's not a written book on what my life will be you know when I'm, when I'm 14, what it's going to be by the time I'm 18. And that's the real world, that it's not 100, and I think, given given the young men that opportunity to explore what interests them and also maybe even accidentally stumble into things like oh my gosh, the juggling club was like a really big deal here back in the teens.
Speaker 3:You said the juggling club. The juggling club, oh, okay, yeah yeah, there's a shout out there.
Speaker 2:That was the most absurd thing in the world that suddenly the Berry Commons was a place that you had trouble walking through during activity period because there were bowling pins plastic ones, thank God and juggling balls and rings and everything else flying around. Of these kids that were juggling, not many of them ever thought about being a juggler when they first stepped foot in Rockers, but somehow because they kind of formed some relationships with some friends who are like, yeah, let's check this out, and they felt that comfort to be able to goof around a little bit at first. But suddenly, you know, three years later they're running the juggling club and in our mission as a school. What I loved about that story too is that like they're going to go to a nursing home and they're going to perform in front of the residents. They're going to go to schools and they're going to perform. They're going to, they're going to perform in front of the residents. They're going to go to schools and they're going to perform. They're going to meet up with the improv club and do two shows a year in which they take the proceeds of that and donate to an organization of their choosing that they feel strong about.
Speaker 2:And the beauty of all that is they're taking that risk of I don't know anything about this, but why not? They feel comfortable enough to be able to do that and they do that together and they get challenged by it. But they have that sense of like resolve, that resiliency. That's a big, big, important word, right. But they keep kind of moving that direction of like yeah, I'm just going to keep kind of honing my craft at it because they're falling in love with something and then, as they're doing it and they're enjoying it with the people they're doing it with, they suddenly start dreaming even bigger, which is like we could put on a show, we could raise money if we put on a show, and then we could take it to a local place that we volunteer at, for example.
Speaker 2:there's a lot of examples of that. That was, from you know, a couple of years back, but those still exist today.
Speaker 1:I was going to say. I think the bowling pins and such have been replaced with ping pong balls and hacky sacks which I'm very excited to see a comeback as a child of the 90s.
Speaker 2:But I can't wait to blow out my ACL or whatever. I'm trying to keep the hacky sack up Right.
Speaker 1:So on that note, actually it's a perfect segue, another huge part of what you do besides this very important mission of making sure our boys are comfortable in the school, have people and resources at their fingertip Another big thing that you do and I will say, as I'm going to self-proclaim myself a prospective rocker's mom favorite because the calls I get quite frequently and I have some really great meaningful conversation with prospective moms and some dads around.
Speaker 1:really, this worry like is my child going to meet people? Are they going to make friends? So you've talked a little bit about how the CURE program does that. But this other side of your job, which is a huge job, is to oversee our 45 different clubs and student organizations and part of that freshman experience is the freshman club fair. So can you let the people at home know a little bit more about what that experience looks like?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, of course the club life here is really important because we see it as just an extension of what's happening in the classroom in terms of learning about the world, learning about self, learning about interacting with others what we see, you know, say, from an athletic standpoint as well, with teams. But we're also trying to give students the opportunities to just develop interests outside of the world in a variety. If we don't have a club that a student is interested in, they know to come talk to me and we'll start figuring out how can we start that. Or if we think we can do a club stronger than we are, we'll talk about that In our few minutes ago, our past conversation we were talking about we want to give students opportunity to grow and it's almost like the secret sauce, I think. Sometimes I refer to our clubs as like the secret sauce where we're giving a young man who has no prior experience in doing I think of a name of a club that we do.
Speaker 1:Culinary club.
Speaker 2:Culinary club, I think, is a great example, yeah, but because he just kind of either said yes to an announcement that invited him to it, or many times it's a friend that just forms like let's go check it out.
Speaker 1:Culinary Club's a bad example too, because there's going to be food, so that's always enticing, or 99% of them, that's why they're going to that meeting is they want to get some food.
Speaker 2:But what happens there is that they get to own that. It's their club. Yes, there's a moderator there who is going to support them and guide them, but most of our moderators are pretty clear about saying no, students, you have to come up with the ideas. You have to figure out. You know how is this working. I'm going to kind of guide you along the way. But it's your club. We see a lot of strong friendships come out of that. We see a lot of exciting programming that affects the community, comes out of the kind of spirit of the community, not just the rah-rah spirit, but just that sense of that community life. So we want freshmen to tap into that One. We have to. You know we just graduated the seniors.
Speaker 2:We need people to step into their shoes and we make that pretty clear to the freshmen. Like this is not just an invite, like we're asking you please to get involved. That conversation is always happening. Many of the presenters at that spring freshman registration that I refer to, they're coming and talking about their club. They try to excite the student into maybe looking into that club. Freshman Kuro will early start talking about club. We understand freshmen need to have a few weeks to kind of get settled. You know there's a lot of adjustment that happens from middle school to high school. But then about three to four weeks into the school year we do have the freshman club.
Speaker 2:Fair, this has been going on for decades as well. We fill up our largest gym, the Loyola Gym, with typically about 50 different groups that are in there. That is kind of a wild show sometimes because you might have the outdoors club in one corner with their tent set up and fly fishing. Across from them we have the drone club. That's flying drones. We have across from them the robotics, that's driving around a robot that's shooting either T-shirts or rubber chickens at people as they walk by. And then you got the album club, that's, you know, headsets playing music and kind of chilling and listens. Really, you know good music there for sure, and so forth and so forth. It's I call it gauntlet, because you just walk up and down the rows with with clubs on both sides as the freshmen kind of walk through it and those are upperclassmen behind those tables trying to demonstrate. You know what the club is, but inviting them Please, if you're interested, if you want to know more, write your name down here.
Speaker 2:We'll put you on a list. We'll get information to you. Listen to us on the announcements when you hear we have a meeting. You know some that might have social media pages. You know, follow us on this way or that way. They really want to get the freshmen involved in that and that's just an integral part of what we do in every early September, mid-september, and then we follow up by then saying, okay, coming October, what are we doing to see which freshmen are starting to follow up on that, like?
Speaker 2:which which are freshmen, are actually doing something, as opposed to just writing their names down on a piece of paper and then that goes on all year. Would I like to think that we're able to catch every freshman at the exact same time and light that fire of engagement and commitment in a club? No, it doesn't work that way. You have to give that individual young man time to adjust and find what really sinks in for him, and for some it's immediate, for others it might take some time and, yeah, it's a little bit challenging to have that patience and that sense of confidence that everything's going to work out in that regard, in terms of getting engaged beyond just the classroom. But then our process is, as the time goes by, we're kind of starting to look out, okay, who seems like he's not getting engaged in that way and what can we do as the adults to step in? What can peers do to maybe kind of turn up that attention to try to lure that young man in?
Speaker 1:Great. Well, thank you so much, mr Bosco, for joining us on what is a very busy planning week for you. So thank you again for your time and for visiting with us. Like Mr Bosco noted a little preview for next week's episode. I'm going to step back on the other side of the microphones and let Steve run things next week, because I'm going to be joined by my counterpart, mr Tyler Baker, our director of STEAM, to talk about the Camino Project, which is that portfolio project that Mr Bosco referred to, and fill you guys in a little bit about this exciting opportunity that is a four-year formative experience for our young men. So be sure you turn in next week for a Rock Talk, thank you.