By Deanna Howes Spiro, Director of Communications, AJCU
This month’s issue of Connections highlights the many ways that our colleges and universities are helping their faculty, staff and administrators to become leaders in the Ignatian tradition. Many of these new programs at our schools were founded by faculty who were inspired by their experiences in the Ignatian Colleagues Program (ICP), which is a program sponsored by the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities (AJCU). You will learn more about ICP and AJCU’s second leadership program, the Jesuit Leadership Seminar, in this issue.
It’s been a very busy winter here at AJCU, and you may have noticed that we jumped from January to March for Connections! February began with our annual winter board meeting in Washington, D.C. followed by a week of meetings sponsored by the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities and the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities. Later, our president, Rev. Michael J. Sheeran, S.J., traveled to Rome for a week of meetings with the international higher education secretariat of the Society of Jesus. Upon his return, he issued an open letter to President Trump and members of Congress on the need for gun control. The letter is available to view on our homepage and on YouTube.
Throughout the month, we worked closely with the media center at Fairfield University to put the finishing touches on our new Jesuit Educated video, which is now available on YouTube. We also launched a new microsite featuring information on all 28 Jesuit colleges and universities in the United States: jesuiteducated.net. The video and website are currently being shown to high school students and their parents during the many Jesuit Excellence Tour (JET) events taking place across the country this spring. We hope that the video will reach and inspire the next generation of Jesuit educated students on our campuses!
We resume the regular schedule for Connections this month, and are excited to share the upcoming April and May issues with you later this spring. In April, we will highlight some of the beautiful chapels and sacred spaces on our campuses; in May, we will feature innovative ways that our schools are encouraging philanthropy from all generations of donors. We hope you enjoy these next few issues, and that you have a blessed Holy Week and Easter!