The Rockhurst Ignatian Leadership Program, a program with the mission of identifying, strengthening and giving purpose to the student leaders of Rockhurst, hosted the Ignatian Leadership Panel in the McGee Hall the morning of Dec. 2 for students in the program. The panel hosted a variety of alumni in different career fields and philanthropic organizations, where they discussed their own experiences in leadership.

“The point of the panel was to introduce our current students in the program to Alumni from Rockhurst who started out as leaders in their own student organizations and teams, and then moved on to utilize and refine those skills in their careers and philanthropic efforts,” said Beth Jerome, director of the Ignatian Leadership Program. “It was a chance for the boys to hear how they view leaders, leadership, the qualities they respect in leaders and other questions like what makes it hard to be a leader.”

The panel featured four alumni, namely Kevin Connor ’81, Pat McInerney ’82, Max Kaniger ’09 and Spencer Hardwick ’07.

Connor is the Senior Vice President and General Counsel at AMC Theatres, a former member of the board of trustees at St. Teresa’s Academy and is involved in various activities through Visitation Church. McInerney is a Law Partner at Spencer Fane, a former state and federal prosecutor of the Department of Justice’s Organized Crime Strike Force Unit of the United States and is the head of the Rockhurst Alumni Board of Governors. Kaniger is the Founder and Executive Director of Kanbe’s Market, a non-profit organization that is committed to eradicating food deserts by bringing fresh, healthy and affordable food to Kansas Citians in need. Hardwick is the Senior Managing Director and Chief of Staff at Teach for America, a non-profit organization that works to address education inequality throughout Kansas City. He is also the Secretary of the Rockhurst Board of Governors.

Overall, panel members talked about one common thing: the leadership skills they developed at Rockhurst have helped them profusely in their professional lives.

“The panel was an informative experience that gave us real-world insight into the values that we learned on the Ignatian Leadership Program retreat in August,” said senior Brendan Lillis, a member of the Ignatian Leadership Program. “The panelists were all very successful in their careers and had wise insights on how to lead in a variety of different settings.”

This year, students in the Ignatian Leadership Program have attended a two-day Ignatian Leadership Retreat “focused on Ignatian tools for servant leadership that invites students to utilize those tools to discern their own pathway to leadership success,” said Jerome. “Our hope is that students exit the program with skills around reflection and discernment that help them in leadership endeavors in the future.” 

If you are a student interested in joining the program, Jerome invites students to stop by her office, namely, the admissions office across from the Learning Commons.

“We will have another guest speaker in April, at this point it may be a panel or it may be an individual speaker,” said Jerome. “All students are welcome to attend any of our speaker events. We also encourage students to attend the panels being hosted by the Library and Alumni Relations group in the Learning Commons. Both are great opportunities for students to hear from Alumni about how Rockhurst helped them in their careers and personal lives.”