AMDG @ SJU

Special thanks to Fr. James Moore, SJ and Fr. Bill Byron, SJ for their spiritual direction this year in the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius based on the 19th annotation. A beautiful Mass to end our season, and plenty of doughnuts to lure the guys back to the Carriage House.

I attended an all day meeting of the National Alumni Board at St. Joseph's as well. The day began with an update from University President Timothy Lannon, SJ. A few items...

• The Erivan K. Haub School of Business is the largest Jesuit business school in the nation and its part-time MBA program is 20th in the nation and #1 in Philadelphia.


• The GEP (General Education Program) will finally be implemented to replace the current GER.


• 143 St. Joe's students studied abroad; 30 programs on 5 different continents.


• 261 international students are enrolled at St. Joe's, with most coming from China, India, and Saudi Arabia. The communist government in China limits undergraduate students to one semester but many enjoy their time on Hawk Hill and come back for their post graduate degrees.


• SJU athletic teams had 91 student-athletes were named to the Atlantic 10 Commissioner's Honor Roll for achieving a GPA of 3.5 or higher while 248 student-athletes were named to he St. Joseph's Athletic Director's Honor Roll for achieving a semester GPA of 3.5 or higher.


• St. Joseph's currently has 17 alumni serving in the Jesuit Volunteer Corps, which is the largest group from any Jesuit institution.


• Not so small... we now have a total enrollment of 8,338 students, 4,687 who are undergraduates.


• SJU receives applications from 43 states and 45 countries. There has been a de-emphasis on the SAT as a determiner for a student's future success. His/her GPA is now used as the primary predictor (2/3). 704 students of color were admitted and 440 students from Jesuit high schools were admitted.


• There will be a three phase, three year conversation about Catholic/Jesuit identity.


• Merion Hall on the Maguire Campus will be renovated to house the Education, English and Sociology Departments. The John and Maryanne Henning Post Learning Commons will break ground in 2011 as well as the First-Year Residence Hall (presumably to be called Brzozowski Hall) will also break ground next year on Guest Lawn.