黑料门

One morning last May, Father Stephen Katsouros, S.J., then dean and executive director of Arrupe College, stepped into a conference room on the third floor of Maguire Hall. In the middle of the table was a black letterbox, and the first sheet of paper in that box was an email the dean had printed out earlier in the day. Katsouros grabbed the note and read from it energetically, a lingering New York accent coating his vowels. It was from Daisy Virrueta, an Arrupe alum who was finishing her bachelor鈥檚 degree at the University of Illinois-Chicago. Commencement, she reminded her old mentor, was just around the corner. 鈥淚 would be glad if you could make it to my graduation,鈥� she wrote, 鈥渂ecause if it wasn鈥檛 for all that Arrupe gave me, I would not be where I鈥檓 at today. Thank you so much for all of your help.鈥�&苍产蝉辫; 

Five years after Arrupe opened its doors, promising a rigorous associate鈥檚 degree program for students who otherwise could not afford a Jesuit education, a significant chunk of its inaugural class (Virrueta included) were graduating from four-year colleges鈥攐n time and with a manageable debt load. When talking about it, Katsouros could hardly contain his glee. 鈥淭hese students can get into the workforce, can start making money. They are off and running, alright?鈥� He leaned back in his chair, flashing a 1,000-watt smile. 鈥淭his is one of the best stories in higher education right now.鈥�&苍产蝉辫; 

Katsouros鈥攃andid and exuberant, with sharp blue eyes鈥攊s Arrupe鈥檚 chief evangelist. A veteran Jesuit educator, he鈥檚 of the firm belief that something revolutionary is taking place inside the sturdy and unassuming brick building on Pearson Street, steps from the glitz of Chicago鈥檚 Magnificent Mile. It鈥檚 undeniable that today鈥檚 job market greatly favors those who finish college. Yet the cost of attendance has spiraled out of control, wildly outpacing inflation. For a huge slice of the school-age population, a bachelor鈥檚 degree is both less accessible and more crucial than ever before. Too many college campuses struggle to reflect the nation鈥檚 diversity.

Arrupe is Loyola鈥檚 attempt to curb this pernicious trend. Named for Father Pedro Arrupe, a Spanish Jesuit who spent his life serving the marginalized, it was designed as a bridge program for students with the capacity and motivation to thrive in college but who could use extra financial or educational support to do so. Thanks to a combination of fundraising, grants, and financial aid, admitted students need only contribute roughly $2,000 per year. 

Most who enroll tend to be first-generation students of color from working-class families in or around Chicago. More than 1,000 applied for Arrupe鈥檚 initial 160 seats, demonstrating the demand. 鈥淥ur students are not being wooed by other institutions,鈥�&苍产蝉辫;Katsouros wrote in his book,鈥疌ome to Believe: How the Jesuits are Reinventing Education (Again). 鈥淭hat doesn鈥檛 mean they aren鈥檛 worth wooing.鈥�&苍产蝉辫;

When Katsouros moved to Chicago in 2014, Arrupe was still an idealistic, back-of-the-envelope idea. Putting the infrastructure in place to start classes felt like launching a start-up, equal-parts exhilarating and exhausting. An advisory board was formed. Six mission-driven professors were hired. Those new faculty members constructed a curriculum that aligned with Loyola鈥檚 general requirements. Money was raised, orientation planned, potential students recruited and interviewed. Jacky Cruz, then a senior at Lane Tech High School in Chicago鈥檚 Roscoe Village neighborhood, was exploring her collegiate options and attended as many Arrupe open house meetings as she could. She needed to know exactly how this pie-in-the-sky school would operate.  

鈥淲hen we started that July, we didn鈥檛 have offices. We didn鈥檛 know how to print,鈥� remembered Minerva Ahumada, a clinical assistant professor of philosophy. 鈥淲e were putting the plane together and flying it at the same time.鈥�&苍产蝉辫;

There was pedagogical freedom, though, in starting from scratch. 鈥淏y and large, we were writing our own ticket,鈥� said Daniel Burke, a clinical assistant professor of literature and writing. 鈥淲e could dream so much about what we wanted this place to be.鈥�&苍产蝉辫;

The students felt it too. 鈥淲e were working together to build this foundation for classes to come,鈥� added Asya Meadows, a member of Arrupe鈥檚 first cohort. 

What Arrupe became was a lean and reliable incubator for undervalued academic talent. At Arrupe, students follow one of three degree tracks: liberal arts, social and behavioral sciences, or business administration. They take courses four days per week in morning or afternoon blocks, a schedule that鈥檚 both structured and predictable (a bonus for folks juggling jobs, sometimes lengthy commutes, and personal obligations). Two years in, students will have earned 62 fully transferable credits鈥�37 hours of general education core requirements, 15 hours of pre-major concentration classes or electives, and 10 hours of Arrupe mission-related requirements (theology, philosophy). Should they choose to, Arrupe alums typically enter a four-year university with both junior standing and the imprimatur of 黑料门attached to their associate鈥檚 degrees. 

Retention is a fixation at Arrupe. When he started, Brandon Thomas鈥攁 classmate of Meadows and Cruz鈥攚as preoccupied with maintaining academic momentum. 鈥淭hat was the number one concern for me,鈥� he said. 鈥淚f I would start this journey, am I going to stop after two years?鈥�&苍产蝉辫;

Katsouros describes the school鈥檚 culture as deliberately 鈥渉igh-touch.鈥� Class sizes are modest. Each new student takes a mandatory summer retreat and a one-credit course their first term that covers on-campus resources, note-taking, and time management skills. On the premises, there鈥檚 a writing center, a peer tutoring center, a career counselor, a graduate support coordinator, and multiple social workers on call. Every matriculant receives a laptop that can be serviced by Loyola鈥檚 IT staff, putting all students on an even technological playing field. When classes are in session, free breakfast and lunch is provided. These are resources that everyone needs to thrive, but which are often taken for granted in more traditional academic environments. 

By that same token, teaching at Arrupe is necessarily distinct from most jobs in academia. Arrupe鈥檚 20 professors jointly serve as advisors with expansive office hours, fielding requests that run the gamut, from basic coursework assistance to heavy topics like finances, home instability, and stress. It can feel all-encompassing. 鈥淲e were always very specific about the idea that we didn鈥檛 want to offer remedial classes,鈥� said Burke. 鈥淏ut that means the differentiation of preparedness is wide.鈥�&苍产蝉辫;

Ahumada鈥攈ired right before Burke, in 2015鈥攊s a warm presence in the classroom. A native of Mexico with a stylish haircut and a calm demeanor, she earned her doctorate at 黑料门and cut her teeth at the massive LaGuardia Community College in Queens, New York. During discussions, Ahumada takes her time teasing out ideas, demanding and then holding her pupils鈥� attention. It鈥檚 her ambition to make esoteric concepts, like social contract theory, feel relevant. She knows everybody鈥檚 name, knows their strengths, knows all that鈥檚 sitting on their plates.   

鈥淚t鈥檚 an amazing place to work at, but it鈥檚 not easy-breezy,鈥� said Ahumada. 鈥淓very time a student comes in, they come in with their own social and political reality. How to respond to that has been puzzling, amazing, and tiring.鈥�&苍产蝉辫;

This innovative model, still a major outlier in higher education, is proving successful and sustainable. Nationally, 13 percent of community colleges students graduate in two years. At Arrupe, that figure hovers around 50 percent. (It jumps to 65 percent after three years.) And of Arrupe鈥檚 first wave of graduates, more than 90 percent are expected to complete their bachelor鈥檚 degrees by the spring of 2020, just six semesters after leaving Arrupe. 鈥淚 marvel at our students,鈥�&苍产蝉辫;Katsouros said. 鈥淚 think they are positively impacting Jesuit higher education as a whole.鈥�&苍产蝉辫;

Burke and Ahumada are just as jazzed to see what the future holds. 鈥淲e鈥檙e done with the phase where we have to build new things only to solve problems,鈥� Burke said. The staff, in other words, has the flexibility to launch entirely fresh initiatives. Internally, administrators recently compiled and released an advising handbook for faculty members, illustrating how best to reach and care for students in need. On the curriculum side, Arrupe has added a host of STEM classes after the student body expressed a growing interest in health, engineering, and technology fields. (In 2018, the school began offering a pre-STEM concentration within its liberal arts major; a pre-nursing track is also in the works.) 

Professors have started coordinating across departments, linking classes along thematic lines. Burke, for example, recently taught a literature class focused on post-apocalyptic narratives, while an environmental science professor explored the risk of climate change with the same students. The Institute for the International Education of Students, meanwhile, has started funding Arrupe鈥檚 first study abroad program, a 10-day summer tour of the route of St. Ignatius, beginning with a trip to the Basque Country and ending with an extended stay in Barcelona.  

Slowly and tentatively, a collegiate culture is even starting to develop, a tricky task at a two-year school made up entirely of commuters. Wintrust Commons, on Maguire鈥檚 first floor, opened in 2017, a shiny student dining and communal space that has quickly become a hub for breaking bread and collaborating. Student relationships are cemented on campus, and then after hours, on social media and FaceTime. To Blanca Rodriguez, a 2017 Arrupe graduate, 鈥渋t felt like a home away from home.鈥�&苍产蝉辫;

Burke still receives term paper drafts from students who have moved on, anxious juniors and seniors who lean on a teacher they trust. Every semester since Arrupe opened, he鈥檚 gone out for high tea or a meal with a handful of students from his first class; the tradition evolved out of a classroom discussion of a novel (Passing, by Nella Larsen) whose first chapter was loosely set at The Drake. 

There are further tweaks that Arrupe mainstays would still love to implement, programmatic gaps they鈥檙e eager to fill. The school has the capacity to accommodate 400 students each year; enrollment, which sits near 300 currently, could grow. (Katsouros is wary of Arrupe feeling 鈥渢oo boutiquey.鈥�)

Professors, meanwhile, talk about better balancing their teaching and advising workloads, battling burnout and trauma fatigue. Maybe the student body could engage more in on-campus groups or clubs, in between their existing responsibilities. And maybe the staff could help foster what Ahumada calls a more 鈥減olitical space,鈥� in which 鈥渟tudents are more reflective on what might be some of the systemic issues that make a place like Arrupe necessary.鈥�&苍产蝉辫; 

鈥淏y and large, we were writing our own ticket. We could dream so much about what we wanted this place to be.鈥�

- Daniel Burke, clinical assistant professor of literature and writing

Katsouros would love to see similar programs sprout like weeds, far and wide. To that end, he announced last November his reassignment by the Society of Jesus to develop a nationwide network of post-secondary schools, using Arrupe as its explicit inspiration. (Father Thomas Neitzke, S.J., has since taken the helm as the new dean of Arrupe.) Jesuits talk a lot about social justice, Katsouros points out, stretching his arms wide. 鈥淲ell,鈥痟ere it is!鈥�&苍产蝉辫;

In the summer of 2019, staff and students held a surprise birthday celebration for Katsouros, who turned 60 that July. Wintrust was decked out with Hollywood-themed decorations, and a few dozen alumni made familial small talk while waiting for their fearless leader. 

Down the stairs he sauntered, serenaded by Stevie Wonder鈥檚 鈥淗appy Birthday,鈥� a sheepish grin spreading across his face. Meadows presented him with a highlighter-green cake. 鈥淚 am blown away,鈥� he said, 鈥渁nd so glad to be celebrating with you all.鈥� His birthday wish? 鈥淭hat we have more and more get-togethers like this one, and that more and more Arrupes open.鈥�&苍产蝉辫;