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
Forging Futures: The Camino Ignaciano Project
Have you ever wondered what truly sets exceptional students apart in today's competitive world? It's not just grades or test scores—it's the ability to articulate who they are and what they stand for.
In this eye-opening episode of Rock Talk, we dive deep into Rockhurst High School's revolutionary Camino Ignaciano Project with Director of Experiential Learning Tyler Baker. This innovative program helps students create professional e-portfolios that showcase their growth through the five pillars of Jesuit education: being committed to doing justice, religious, open to growth, intellectually competent, and loving.
The results speak for themselves. We share the story of Davis Long, whose digital portfolio caught Columbia University's attention among 60,000 applicants, leading to a personal phone call from admissions. But the Camino Project offers more than just college application advantages—it teaches students digital citizenship, professional branding, and the language to articulate their personal development.
"You can get an excellent education anywhere," notes Beth Van Dyke from the admissions team, "but you can't get the formation experience our boys get at other places." This formation includes the confidence to try new things in an all-male environment where vulnerability is encouraged, not criticized. From the unexpected popularity of choir to the growing e-sports program that's already yielded scholarship offers, Rockhurst nurtures well-rounded young men ready to make their mark.
Whether you're a parent exploring educational options, an educator interested in innovative teaching methods, or simply curious about how Jesuit education is evolving for the digital age, this conversation will transform how you think about preparing students for future success. Subscribe now and join our community of listeners discovering what makes Rockhurst unique!
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 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. And this is Steve Redmond. I'm going to be your host today and this is going to be a special episode. My co-host is here, beth, but she's on the other side of the table and she's giving me full control to run this thing, which is risky, we'll see but this is Steve. Today we have Tyler Baker with us, who I'll let him introduce himself in a second, and then we have Beth here as well. And Beth, how are you feeling today?
Speaker 3:Feeling great, just coming off a great Camino Ignaciano class with our second round of freshmen. We're excited. We're even more excited to talk Camino today with you, steve.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and Tyler, go ahead and introduce yourself to the listeners we have and tell them about yourself. Sounds good.
Speaker 2:Well, first and foremost, thanks for having me. This is a cool experience. I don't think I've ever been on a podcast before, so this is fun.
Speaker 2:My name is Tyler Baker. I'm the director of experiential learning here at Rockhurst, and what that means is I get to work with all of our boys to get them out into the community and teach them how to be professional. And I guess today we're talking about in the context of a project that we started a couple years ago called Camino Camino Ignisiano, which means the pathway forward in the Ignatian light. So Camino means path or roadway, and so all of the boys get to design an e-portfolio by their junior year to be able to send to colleges and jobs people out in the community Cool cool, cool, and I wanted to jump right in on this because I told Beth I got to sit in on you all's presentation, which I didn't.
Speaker 1:I don't think I told you that it was outstanding.
Speaker 2:Oh, thank you, Thank you and.
Speaker 1:I mean, really I was fired up and envious because when I was here we didn't have a project like this. But I think it's super cool and I think you guys did a great job. And what happened for this to become a part of the freshman experience? Well, at least in the context that I experienced, right, we were talking to the freshmen. Well, you said you came up with this a couple years ago, like where did the idea or the thought come from?
Speaker 2:Well, so initially, when I started Father Giacobazzi, which was our principal last year, he came up to me and he said how are you going to tie STEAM or STEM across all of the curriculum here?
Speaker 2:And I had to stop for a second and think about. You know what are the needs of the students and you know we have so many classes here and so many different pathways and avenues for students to go down that it was almost impossible for me to create kind of like you know, one, you know, singular vision for all of our students. And so I came back to father and I said there's, there's really nothing that we can do because we don't have everyone on the same page. And he's like, well, there is one thing that all of us do, and if you don't know it yet, you're about to find out but we teach all of our students, but the grad on graduation is the poor, the profile of a graduate, right, which are those five pillars? And I was like I was just blown away Cause I, you know, now we have a singular voice, you know, that can allow students to accomplish everything we've asked them to accomplish. And I was like that's great, but it's not, you know, measurable. You can't. I'm a, I'm a very smart goal, orientedoriented guy.
Speaker 2:Outcomes, outcomes, and so I was like you can't quantify loving, you can't put a number on religious, but you can if you do an authentic assessment. So you can. If a student could come up to you and say, this is how I am loving, this is how I am religious, and how powerful would that be if we put it on a digital platform? And now, all of a sudden, you have, you know, these opportunities for students to create these resumes and these digital portfolios that exemplify those five pillars. And so that's kind of where the idea came from.
Speaker 1:I love it and I was. I can't tell you guys, as a as a grad, how excited I was to see the structure that you've come up with to help so early in the process. Oh sure, like I told beth, I'm like I, I. How do I sign up for the project? Because this could help me right now when did you?
Speaker 2:when did you graduate?
Speaker 1:2004, okay all right. Yeah, so you know just I'm big on language.
Speaker 3:True.
Speaker 1:So like how well you all put together for these young men. This is what this is going to do for you. This is why it's important, and the fact that you know I'm an outcomes guy too. What was the gentleman's name? Was it Davis Long? Is that the guy? Was it Niles the gentleman? The one in 60,000. Oh, yeah, yeah, oh gosh.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm like completely blanking on the name. Well, like that's real.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, that was Davis Long. Oh, that was.
Speaker 1:Davis Long. Yeah, that was Davis Long. Like this is real, you know, and it's crazy.
Speaker 3:To give context to that. What Steve's talking about is one of the examples we use in the Camino Project of the importance of this, because with a bunch of 14-year-old boys at you know 8 o'clock in the morning, getting that across is kind of important to them and making it important to them. And so Davis is one of our graduating seniors this year. Last year as a junior he came to Tyler and said hey, I've been hearing from my fellow classmates about this project you're doing, and Davis came in a little bit before this project was really rolling, and so his senior class is kind of our first class that we've been really able to bring through the system Probably not flawlessly, as all things start out Part of entrepreneurship.
Speaker 1:Exactly.
Speaker 3:But Davis came to Tyler and said hey, I'm getting ready to apply to college and I want to stand out.
Speaker 3:And I saw what you did with Brendan Orpals, who was on our podcast two weeks ago, and I would like to do something similar. And so he and Tyler sat down and worked on a e-portfolio that he could share with colleges, and Columbia happened to be do something similar. And so he and Tyler sat down and worked on a e-portfolio that he could share with colleges, and Columbia happened to be one of them. And, with a 4% acceptance rate, you really need to stand out. And so the cool end to that story is that Davis actually got a phone call from Columbia after seeing his digital portfolio to talk more about it. And what's even better is Davis could actually talk with Columbia about what that meant, and not just, hey, I did this because it's an admissions requirement, and that's kind of funny because that's kind of how I circle into this whole story, but it's more than that. It's who I am as a person and as a graduate of this institution, rockhurst High School. This is what you can expect from me, and I think they were really impressed by that.
Speaker 2:And that's a really important point is that, you know, not only are we helping kids build these, you know shareable platforms, but we're also, like, teach them how to articulate those things that are really hard to talk about. Like, how do you talk about, you know, in the context of being loving?
Speaker 3:you know, to a college like.
Speaker 2:What does that mean?
Speaker 3:Yeah, and why is it important?
Speaker 3:or particular to your academic journey. And so the funny thing is, as Tyler was having that conversation with Father Giacobazzi, I was having a side conversation with Father Giacobazzi about, as Steve knows, I'm a research queen. I like to look at what other schools are doing to kind of set themselves apart. And one thing I noticed there were two areas that I didn't see a lot of movement at Jesuit schools with. That I thought were both kind of areas that as a school we could improve on, and one of them was leadership and leadership formalized leadership training with young men. So that was kind of the start of the Ignatian Leadership Program that I'm very lucky to be taking part in and I'm hoping that I can recruit Steven because he's got great ideas there.
Speaker 3:And then the other component to that was I had seen a few examples of not Jesuit schools but other like schools doing these digital e-portfolios and I said why don't we do anything like this? Because we're doing all these great cool things with these kids, but they have no way to articulate that and my admissions brain always goes to their first step is here, but how do we get them ready for that next admission step? How do we make them stand out against 60,000 other equally capable applicants. That's the thing. It's not like you're going up against someone that doesn't have the same GPA or the same ACT score.
Speaker 3:What makes you unique, what makes you different. And that's kind of where we came to, and Tyler and I talk all about trial and error because that has been our experience, but it's been a great learning experience and when we share with the students, because we even say like we've tried some different platforms, we've tried some different delivery methods and we haven't always gotten it right. So this year's freshmen are benefiting from not only do we have a great platform and Canva, but we have a really cemented plan for all four years, which is great and, yeah, we've seen just today, the freshmen today were quiet.
Speaker 2:It was weird Monday morning, you know, and like wide eyed, like literally like listening to what we're saying and and really taking it on themselves, which is awesome, I think you know and I want to say this because it's I sit in a very interesting seat and somebody had mentioned this.
Speaker 1:I don't remember if it was laughlin or if it was bosco, but they talked about how. You know, rockhurst has something of this effect like always changing but staying the same. I think this is a great way of demonstrating how, when you have a culture like ours, innovation is at the forefront of like, how are we being the best we can be for our young men and helping them be the best in whatever the climate is that they're dealing with? You know, we didn't have STEM or steam when I was know. We didn't have STEM or STEAM. When I was here, we didn't have emails or laptops, so, like, just being able to adapt. I think you guys are doing some phenomenal work, which leads me to this question and a variation of this question. So you mentioned the grad to grad. We've talked about the grad to grad. What is so important about those pillars? That these young men have to hear it and grow in it and live it out, for it to stick Like. What do you guys think is so important about those in a young man's life?
Speaker 3:I think you kind of hit on it a little bit in what you were just saying. It's like what you just said. You're like we didn't have STEAM when I was here. Well, you did, actually. You had science, you had math, you had the arts, but we didn't talk about STEAM in the way we do now.
Speaker 3:So your whole idea of this idea of we aren't necessarily changing, we're evolving, is completely rooted in tradition, right? So grad at grad, which is standard against all Jesuit schools, so it doesn't matter where you go, but if you're at a Jesuit school, that profile looks the same. It may not look the same in context of how they live it out, but it's the same qualities, right. And so I think having a program that's based in something that is so fundamental, that is so universal, that has been part of the school for an extended period of time not since the beginning, but a very extended period of time it says, okay, this is something that we feel important, that not only our students are focused on that. And I think it comes down to what the discussion we've had, that like we are not just about building intellectual young men, we're about building whole men.
Speaker 3:So like what does that look like that looks like someone who is well-versed, that's, in various types of activities, that is spiritual, and so those qualities all come out in the Gratitgrad, which I don't even know if we've actually said what those are, so I'll go real quick. This is what we use with the boys and this dates back to my brother's time I believe it was Joe that told me, but they used to use the acronym CROIL to remember it because they used to get quizzed on it. So if you could remember CROIL, then you could remember which one you were missing. So it's committed to doing justice, which we see that in our service programs. We see it in a lot of the work we do on campus and with the Jesuit ideals in place Religious we clearly see that on a regular basis, right?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Between our four-year retreat program, our daily mass, various different ways students can engage with their religion or their spirituality. O is open to growth. That's what we're working with right now, right, tyler? They're fresh, fresh, new freshmen. So they're being open to growth just simply by walking into this building and making a choice for themselves to expand the horizon. So being open to growth, I is intellectually competent. We saved that one for last freshman year because I think that is the hardest one for them to really quantify, because they see intellectually competent as doing well on a test, yeah.
Speaker 3:And we talk a lot about how sometimes failure is where you find that intellectual competence. Maybe it's that you forgot to turn in something and you learned a lesson from that, or maybe it's that you didn't study as much as you should have and you didn't do well on the test, and so you learn from that and that growth is so important to that intellectually competent, because anyone can get A's. But what does an A mean? What does that effort actually look like and why is it important? And then the L is loving, which I laugh because I feel like that's literally what we've been talking about for three weeks right, Steve this idea of brotherhood, this idea of community.
Speaker 3:So what does it look like in the context of Rockhurst High School to be loving? Is it being a good teammate? Is it being a good classmate? Is it being a good leader? Is it being a good follower or listener? So there's just a lot of great opportunities for our boys that are already engaged in these things. It's just helping them identify that and then curate it, which Tyler does a great job of explaining that.
Speaker 2:I think that's why Beth and I are such good partners with this, because I'm not from a Catholic background, I didn't go to a Catholic school, and so in my context it's all about education, like looking at the whole child. Whether it's Maria Montessori or if it's traditional education, you look at a rounded child and and that doesn't mean that they're just getting straight A's and that's, that's all. It's that they are all five of those things. We go above and beyond.
Speaker 2:It's not just about being intellectually competent or loving, which is traditional education, but it's also asking them to look at themselves, be reflective. We do the exam every day. It's really about these boys understanding their internal growth. A big part of being an educator is also being a mentor and being able to work with kids to make sure they're growing in a whole rounded way not just smart, not just a great athlete, not just making sure you're at school on time, but it's being loving and being religious and being open to growth and actually committing yourself to being just, which is different. What a Do you all have a favorite? Committed to doing justice is my number one.
Speaker 3:I would say I think anyone working at a Jesuit school is going to agree with that in a lot of ways, I think, because for me, that is how we literally put our money where our mouth is right. We show that we are loving, we show that we're religious, we show that we're open to growth All those other qualities through the work we're doing out in the community. I think you could probably talk to other people that would say different ones, but for both Tyler and I, I think that's just kind of rooted in who we are as people, and I love the fact that that is the type of young men we're sending out in the world. One of the things we talk about a lot in Camino is the idea of being a good digital citizen, because these kids are growing up in a world that we did not grow up in, where their lives are public, very public, and I think anytime we can take technology whether it's social media, whether it's AI, whatever it might be that is problematic in society, and we can help kids make better decisions, to use it in a wiser way, is a good thing, and so one of the things we talk a lot in Camino about is okay, you're doing all this work to present this great professional image.
Speaker 3:What does the rest of your life look like? You know and I think we've all learned this kind of in our own professional life like make sure that everything is, you know, on brand, if you will, and I think that's a skill that our students are learning. I think that's skills that adults are still learning every day is how do we interact with this world of social media and professional life, and so I think a really great tool that we use is okay. What does your Twitter look like? And I always use athletics. I mean, I think both you and I are guilty of this, but because I have that in my mindset and I know it connects to some of our population not all of our population, but I think it does, especially with things like mock trial debate, robotics, now being Misha, sponsored events. I think it ties to all those things, and one of the things I say is now being an athlete is a job in college.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:So you're applying for a job, essentially when you're talking to a coach, and so how do you want to look? So I look at our boys' Twitter, sometimes because they're connected to our Rockers one, and you can see a real change between freshman and sophomore year of what their Twitter, their social media, looks like. Or Instagram, because they are starting to now brand themselves between those two years of I'm a silly kid that's sharing memes and laughing at my friends to oh wait, I'm this.
Speaker 3:I think of one of our graduates from last year, jeb Ketting, who I use as an example a lot, but you could really see a difference in his social media between his freshman and sophomore year of. This is my job now and I, I, I get it. I get. The kids need to be kids, but what this does is it allows them to be creative. It allows them to use social media in a way that's really productive. Yeah, show, show your cool highlight reels.
Speaker 3:I mean Nick Johnson does some great work with you know our sports programs and the video he does show you those highlight reels, show your mock trial debate Film. That I heard and, tyler, maybe you can talk to this more but, like, our eSports team is going to start having Twitch accounts where they stream their competitions.
Speaker 2:We've got three boys with scholarships like offers from colleges already. Yeah.
Speaker 3:So this is like not just a sports thing, this is a life thing. How are you leveraging the work that you're doing to better your future and how do you articulate that?
Speaker 1:And, I think, the language. Well, I'm big on leadership. You know I have benefited from great leadership. I have suffered at the hands of inappropriate leadership, so leadership is one of my hot buttons and where I've dealt with it most was in I don't know if you know this I mentor athletes, so, like me and Beth talk about this all the time.
Speaker 1:It's just like you know, teaching kids the bigger picture outside of. Oh, I put the jersey on and I go on the court and do stuff. That's awesome. So does everybody. How are you separating yourself? How are you taking this opportunity and maximizing an opportunity? When you put your four or five years in, what is the yield on that? You know, sadly, I've seen people go play college ball and they leave with no degree. That's yeah.
Speaker 2:I wish I had a sound effect for that.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 1:But it's just like being able to whether we're talking about athletics, where we're talking about education, we're talking about life getting I coined it as take your life seriously, because you are so exposed and wide open that one little hiccup might cost you more than you can imagine. At the same time, you have so much opportunity. The e-sports is it the Camino Project? Is it, you know, whatever? To advance your life and really put yourself in a position to glorify God. You have to hear it and you have to be guided down that path to be able to do that. So I love it. I wanted to ask this question because you guys both I know you, I know Beth a lot better than I know you, but you seem like a great guy. What is something in your experience and maybe it was your freshman year, or maybe it's just life experience that has you so passionate about doing what you're doing for these young men at Rockhurst High School? That's a great question.
Speaker 2:You know no one thing. I don't think. There was a time I worked at Operation Breakthrough for eight and a half years and during that time we would partner with Rockhurst High School every once in a while to do these challenges, where they would come over and they would create a small business or they would get a design thinking challenge and we would, you know, give them the space to do it and we would pair them with some of our students. And I saw a difference in the boys at Rockhurst, not that they were, you know like, wearing you know suit coats, because they were, and that threw me off too, because I've never seen high school kids dressed nicely like that but they would put on this Rockhurst persona when they were in public and it kind of like I don't know. It floored me in a way, but at the same time it made me want to understand why they could do what they do and if it, was real or not, and so I worked with Greg Owsley he was my predecessor before.
Speaker 3:Yeah, great guy, great guy.
Speaker 2:And you know his kindness and the way that he taught and the way that he connected with the boys also showed me like there are leaders out there, like Greg leaders at Rockhurst, that inspire these boys and I never really had that kind of mentor. I mean, save for my dad, I was an Eagle Scout. So I have those boys in my life that I grew up with but I really never had that high school experience where it was just different and otherworldly where it was just different and otherworldly.
Speaker 2:And so when Greg decided to transition out, he gave me a call and he's like hey, you should think about maybe taking your skills that you've gleaned from working with the underserved and see if you can pick those up and put them in place at Rockers and really show the boys how to be men for others. In the context of committed to doing justice, which you mentioned earlier, like, what is your favorite pillar? Just that idea, the way that they say it. It's not you're just, it's saying you're committed to doing justice, like for all people. So that commitment is really what that whole key is about. That whole pillar is about, and I wanted to be a part of it and it just so happened, serendipitously, that when that door opened I walked through and since then it's just been like, you know, just go, go, go.
Speaker 2:And it's been a blast.
Speaker 1:I love it, Beth. What about you?
Speaker 3:I think and we talked about this too like my high school experience was not a straight narrow path, if you will. I struggled a lot academically. You know executive functioning, which we see a lot with our incoming freshmen, getting stuff turned in, holding myself accountable. So for me, what I like not just about this project but those pillars is that within them, half of it is a redemption arc. Right, we don't expect them to be able to do these things as freshmen. We don't expect them to be walk in and not make a mistake. That's being open to growth. It's okay. I made this mistake. I didn't do my first poster project for Mr Baker and Ms Van Dyke, so now I'm stuck with them before school working on that because I didn't get it turned in.
Speaker 2:I cannot believe that you were unlawful in high school.
Speaker 3:Well, just ask my mother. She'll vouch, but I will say that for me, this opportunity for failure and then to be able to do that in a system that supports you through it, is really important. And so what I see with our boys is a community and an environment that allows them to take risks, allows them to make mistakes and to learn from them in a very caring way. It's not a you screwed up and now you're going to be a screw up for the rest of your life. It is you made this choice. Let's look at why you made it and let's fix that and let's work together to make better choices at a different date and I think that that is what is really powerful so that they do get to the point where Tyler sees them as juniors and seniors and they're out in the community and they've experienced those follies, right. They've experienced those setbacks and they have learned from them. So they know when they go out and represent Rockerstown, they're not going to act like idiots, right.
Speaker 3:They're not going to because they not only that, it stands for them too, it's their community, Whereas I think sometimes, when you're younger, you don't think about that Like, if I act like this, you know I'm representing myself, but also my community. And so there's this, this sense of brotherhood and obligation to represent it well, and I think you see that, even from your time with your friends, you know this. This commitment to being a rockers man does not stop when you graduate. It goes well beyond that, right.
Speaker 1:And I think, cause I got two more questions for you, but I wanted to say this first like I love the fact that we're giving them the permission to care about things that actually matter. Yeah, like it's okay to be smart, it's okay to want to be successful. It's okay to be caring, it's okay to yeah. Just because you see some people acting like clowns, you're held to a different standard and you should be, and that's okay. You know versus.
Speaker 3:And you owe that to yourself and I think that's what I saw out in the community Like when.
Speaker 2:I saw Rockers boys. You could tell the difference between a kid that's coming from Rockers and a kid who's coming from you know wherever.
Speaker 1:I'm a big fan of expectation, like even when you and I went down to Powell like yeah, they were digging in the garden and had bugs on them and this and that, but they did it in a way the way. There were some that were a little more rambunctious than others, but not disrespectful, they're just more lively but they handled themselves in a way that represented themselves and Rockhurst High School well.
Speaker 3:And that may have been that conversation we had on the bus down. It's a good reminder, though, because you know and that freshman day for others, so it's their very first day on campus and they're going. We are saying that we trust you your very first day on campus and we are saying that we trust you your very first day on campus to go out and represent us in the community, because not only do we trust you to make good decisions, but we want you to know how important giving back to the community is. That's our very first day, our second day, and we go to Mass that day, their second day. We start with Mass and then they get into the academics, right. So it's setting these expectations from day one, and so one of the things I said on the bus is you're wearing all of you are wearing a shirt that says Rockers High School right now.
Speaker 3:So, whether or not you think it, you are representing Rockers, and we've had a great seven-year relationship with the pal in Casey K and officer Tomasek and all of his people over there, who are awesome. I'm not going to let you act like a fool, because officer Tomasek and the people at the pal do such important work for our community and they don't need that. And but, like you said, we didn't even have to do that. Once they were there, they were invested in the work. It was not glamorous work, but they felt a sense of accomplishment, they understood why they were doing it and it wasn't time where we had to deal with behavior issues, because they were in it and they were all in it and they didn't know each other.
Speaker 3:You know, and so they were getting. This first experience of brotherhood was working together towards a common goal without having anything else keeping them in common other than their rocker chocolates, which I think is great.
Speaker 1:All right, here we go. What is one thing?
Speaker 2:And I always feel bad when I say one thing because that's challenging.
Speaker 1:no-transcript well.
Speaker 2:So the camino project is one of the spinning plates that I have right, but there are multiple plates up in the sky, so one of them that I'm really excited about is kicking off this the esports in a different way this year. The captain came to me two years ago. I was like, hey, mr baker, I'm really good at this video game.
Speaker 3:Can we get what game Overwatch? Okay, yeah.
Speaker 2:Overwatch two, sorry yeah. And he's like I'm really good at this game. Do we have an e-sports team? I'm like no, but let's start one. Man Like that's it checks all the boxes. A kid wants to do this thing, but he's not being supported. It's his niche and he's not a sports guy. He's not an academic, although he is a pretty good academic.
Speaker 3:He's going to be a doctor one day.
Speaker 2:But this boy was really wanting to do this and I could see the fire, and so we started this really quiet esports team. We would take monitors from my office and walk them downstairs, plug them in commitment.
Speaker 3:Yeah, they would bring their own technology.
Speaker 2:They would bring their own you know, gaming systems and they would sit there and they would play for two hours and we'd have to pick everything up and take it all back upstairs and put it back in my office and we did that every like three times a week, you know, for the entire year and these kids were five of them were talking to each other and cheering each other on and they're playing online. They're playing at home, like, no matter what snow day, it didn't matter, we're still playing Like you know it's. And it was that, that camaraderie, that that brotherhood, that love. You know that that I was seeing in this. So this year we doubled down. We expanded our, our computer science program. We got a new hire, gabby's fantastic.
Speaker 2:You guys should have her on. If you can, we'll find her.
Speaker 1:She took over the esports.
Speaker 2:That's her wheelhouse Now. The kids are super excited about joining this new platform. We have funding for it now, so it's official. I'm looking forward to it just skyrocket Again. I mentioned earlier we have three kids who got scholarships offers from different universities. These are the kids that usually I mean sometimes they fall through the cracks. I mean esports and online gaming. You know, you kind of like age out a bit, a little bit, unless you really double down and you want to be a professional goal right. And these kids are serious I mean serious players love it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we have an e-chess team now that I I mean, they were ranked top 10 in the nation last year. I saw the little plaque there. Yeah, first year hit the ground running and these I mean we've got potential and so I'm really excited to see what that potential is and what they can do this year.
Speaker 3:They also have a great space down on our first floor, so if you're on campus for a tour, be sure you check that out, and it's really, I think it's funny. Since I've been here, I've seen two spaces really transformed by students. One was our weight room and a commitment from our students to want to have a better environment to work out, and, as Steve and I always compliment, I mean, it's always everything's put back where it belongs every single time because they take pride in it. And the same thing with your esports room. I see these kids treat the furniture, treat the environment with such respect, because it's something that they have wanted and they've earned, and I think that makes it so much more important To answer your question, though, steve, the thing that I am most looking forward to, which I always look forward to, is getting to see the growth of these freshmen, because I always joke, I spend a lot of my time in K through eight education, and my first jobs were teaching kindergartners through eighth graders and I always say kindergartners, for about almost the full year, are really like second semester preschoolers.
Speaker 3:There's a lot of like basic things we're going over waiting your turn, you know, raising your hand, being patient, you know and it's kind of the same way with freshmen right I spent a lot of my time in middle school and I will tell you everything I see about our boys and where they struggle and where they thrive is still that developmental stage of what they're.
Speaker 3:What you're seeing in eighth grade I'm kind of at the top of my game, but I'm also very insecure at the top of my game. And so watching that growth and we always talk about it is, by the end of the Camino project we probably, on average, have around seven boys that haven't fully committed to it, right, haven't completed it to our level of expectation Seven out of last year, 200. That's saying that a large majority of them are buying in. But what that also tells us is another really important thing in the sense that, okay, these seven boys didn't commit, and that then becomes a bigger question why didn't they commit? Are they not feeling like they're going to make it through to graduation, cause this is tied to their graduation requirement? Does that mean that they're not feeling the sense of support that they need to complete it?
Speaker 3:So it's become like another intervention point for our counseling department, for our academics department or sorry department and even our student life, to say, okay, is this kid not involved and that's why he didn't do his Open to Growth?
Speaker 3:Because he's not doing anything, he's just showing up on campus and going through the day.
Speaker 3:So it allows us this great opportunity to check in with our freshmen throughout the school year and to see where they're at and then to make those changes and those interventions to make them feel a part of this community or, if they're not feeling a part of this community, address what that is. And I think that that is one of the things I always look forward to and tyler will say I probably don't look forward to it in may, when I'm chasing them down during finals to come see me. But I, in a way, I do, because I think that's where my, my freshman experience relates to them. I wish I had had someone chasing me down and saying, hey, if you continue down this it's going to be a huge thing for you to dig out of, and that's what we don't allow them to do here. Is we really stop that train from exiting the station? So yeah, that's what I look forward to is the growth of our freshmen from day one to, you know, day 365.
Speaker 1:Got it All right? Last question, and a very important one If you could tell a prospective family the number one reason they should send their son to Rockhurst, what would it be?
Speaker 3:This is probably unfair because this is 98 percent of my job, but I will say, you know, being the sister of two former Hocklets and the daughter of one and the granddaughter of one, there have been times I've loved rockers and there have been times that I'm like didn't love it, and I think what I learned the most by coming here as an adult and working here is all the things that I would get frustrated with my brothers about when they were at rockers was really not anything to do with rockers and actually it's some of the qualities now that I think make them stand out. You know I said young men. They like that. Stand out, young men. We'll call them young men stuff.
Speaker 3:Is that confidence which I equated to cockiness right?
Speaker 1:When.
Speaker 3:I was in high school like, oh, my brother's so full of himself.
Speaker 3:It was a confidence that was embedded in them and probably in the same way I saw that as cockiness, they saw my confidence that I was getting from St Teresa's at the time as a bossiness or a pushiness. So it's funny because once you're in that environment, my brothers haven't had the opportunity Well, I guess my older brother's kind of getting the opportunity to experience St Teresa's as a father now. But having the unique experience now of being part of that community and seeing what that actually what's happening, that formation is so awesome. And so I always say you can get an education anywhere, right, you can get an excellent education anywhere in the city. I don't think you can get the formation experience that the boys here get at other places. And why I say that is the all-male environment allows for a vulnerability that you cannot get in another environment. They are not afraid to take risks. They're not afraid to try things that may not seem like typical male things to do like choir. Choir is our biggest co-curricular on campus.
Speaker 2:And.
Speaker 3:I think that vulnerability and that ability to try things out of your comfort zone is what sets them apart. So that's what I always say. The formation is what I would tell a parent.
Speaker 2:Number one, to kind of go off that too the network, Like just the network of all the amazing graduates from rockers that are out there in the world and it's everywhere. I mean I didn't really realize that my first couple of years, but now that I've had, you know, four classes, you know graduate and and these kids are out there, I have kids that email me all the time you know, saying, hey, mr Baker, I'm at KU or wherever right now and I'm looking at, I'm working on trying to find my first job, what do you recommend? Whatever, and then I connect them with other people in the network outside and when I reached out to Burns and McDonald just the other day, found an alumni and he was like I have 10 people, 10 people here on campus that want to work with you guys, however you want to, in whatever context you want. They're alumni, they're graduates from, from Rockers, and they're waiting for you to talk to them and that's everywhere.
Speaker 2:I mean that's not. I mean you, right, you're an alumni. Yeah, so how that network has impacted you in your personal life. All the boys that graduated 260 freshmen this year, like 200 graduated last year all those kids are out there right now. Right, I mean like seeds in the wind and it's just, it's an amazing network. So that's I mean, number one reason that my son will come to Rockhurst High School is because of that network, that experience, that formation. I love it.
Speaker 1:I love it and I can't say it enough. You know whether we're talking about the network, whether we're talking about that confidence, that funny. I had that convo with somebody years ago and you know, working with athletes, working with young people and big on having people be successful, there was this, there is this, whatever you want, to call it?
Speaker 1:let's call it animosity towards, towards rockers, hawklets and all of this. And I just said to it was a couple I said why wouldn't we want these young men to be confident? Right, and it's not fake confidence because they've put the work in, they've done the work, they've been challenged to do the work and then they reap the benefits of the work. And what you miss is how they had to overcome whatever failures and setbacks along the way for that final product. And then we want them to be what Cheapish, right.
Speaker 2:And for others it doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 1:They go out in the world hearts on fire to do something.
Speaker 2:Yeah, as Beth said, the first thing freshmen do is get out there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know and go get it. So I appreciate you guys. This is a, this is fun and and I I want to sign up for the program. Let me figure it out. We'll get you a job.
Speaker 3:We'll have Steve's portfolio available on our website by the end of the year so you guys can come back and check it out. But yeah, thanks for having us, Steve, and thanks, Tyler, for not just joining us today but for being my partner on this journey. Yeah, I've really enjoyed working with Tyler.
Speaker 2:It's been a great collaboration.
Speaker 3:I'm back at you. Yeah, so next week we have the new man on campus, Father Kramer, joining us. Oh yeah, If you have not met Father Kramer yet, you are going to be so excited for this podcast. He brings a fire and energy like no other.
Speaker 1:Yeah, looking forward to it, guys, and this has been another episode of Rock Talk. This is Steve Beth and Tyler and