Jesuit mission, heard through campus lives.
SLU Mission Matters is a reflective campus interview series from Saint Louis University’s mission and identity orbit. Episodes connect Jesuit education to honors learning, public health, Catholic schooling, racial justice, biology, literature, and student formation.
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SLU Mission Matters documents Saint Louis University through the lens of Catholic, Jesuit mission. It is less a news show than a record of how values take shape across a living university. The conversations are measured and hospitable. Guests are invited to give personal background before describing the work they do with students, faculty, programs, research, or campus memory. Recent episodes show a wide range. The University Honors Program is presented as a reflective, student-directed path with agency and intellectual challenge. The College for Public Health and Social Justice episode turns a building move into a discussion of morale, collaboration, shared space, and campus connection. The Herman Center conversation links Catholic education to research, school partnerships, leadership, disability, and accessibility. Other episodes look directly at institutional history. Father Claude Heithaus’s homily becomes a way to talk about racial segregation, courage, silence, and desegregation at SLU. The Occupy SLU and Clocktower Accords episodes revisit protest, peace-making, African American Studies, diversity work, and unfinished institutional responsibility. The show also has room for surprising academic paths. A biology episode connects wolf spiders, vibrational communication, pest management, and care for creation. A literature episode uses sacramental imagination to talk about faith, ordinary things, film, poetry, and student reflection. Across these subjects, SLU Mission Matters returns to the same central question: where does mission actually live? Its answer is practical and cumulative, found in courses, centers, archives, student spaces, public commitments, and the people who keep asking what Jesuit education requires now.
Made for: For listeners interested in Saint Louis University, Jesuit higher education, campus history, mission-centered teaching, and the relationship between faith, justice, research, and student formation.
What sets it apart: The show grounds broad Jesuit ideals in specific SLU people and programs, moving from institutional history to everyday practice without losing the reflective tone of mission work.
Saint Louis University’s Office of Mission and Identity ensures that the principles and traditions of Catholic, Jesuit higher education, and the mission and core values of SLU are integrated into operations, structures, programs and practices, and the formation of its students, faculty, staff, administration and board members.
Wolf spiders get a seat at the Jesuit mission table; you might want one too.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A clear look at how SLU's Honors Program connects academic choice with reflective, mission-centered learning.
The University Honors Program lands as a thoughtful case for academic rigor that still feels personal. Dr. Rebecca Mewich and Louise Edwards-Niemann frame honors less as a checklist than as a choose-your-own-adventure, where students decide where to spend their energy and build…
A campus move becomes a lens on morale, collaboration, and public health at SLU.
Mission Matters frames a campus move as a practical test of how place can influence academic culture. Dr. Leslie McClure, dean of SLU's College for Public Health and Social Justice, discusses the January shift from the Salis Center on the Health Sciences Campus to the Wohl…
Michael Boyle links Catholic education's mission with the practical work of making schools more accessible.
A $7.3 million gift to St. Louis University's School of Education opens a grounded discussion of Catholic education and the Herman Center for Innovative Catholic Education. Dr.
A 1944 homily frames the pressure, punishment, and persistence behind St. Louis University's desegregation.
Mission Matters revisits a 1944 homily that placed St. Louis University inside a hard moral test: what courage requires when segregation is protected as policy.
A decade after Occupy SLU, two faculty members trace what the First Accord helped make possible.
Mission Matters marks the 10th anniversary of Occupy SLU by returning to the First Accord and its call for a larger African American Studies budget. Dr. Chris Tinson and Dr.
Campus radio from the wrong side of reality.
Campus decisions, Northeast news, and Northeast priorities.
How research culture changes in practice.
Conversations from inside the IT channel.
SLU Mission Matters episode 69 treats the University Honors Program as a Jesuit framework for helping high-achieving students choose, reflect, and contribute.
SLU Mission Matters Ep.
A September 2024 $7.3 million gift from Dr.
Father David Suwalski traces Claude Heithaus's February 11, 1944 homily at College Church, where he denounced segregation at St.
SLU Mission Matters episode 65 uses the 10th anniversary of Occupy SLU to revisit the First Clocktower Accord, which called for an increased budget for African American Studies at St.
Mission Matters marks the 10th anniversary of Occupy SLU, a six-day peaceful teach-in and demonstration after the officer-involved shootings of Michael Brown and Von Derrit Myers Jr.
Professor Casey Fowler-Finn of St.
Mission Matters host Virginia Herbers interviews English professor Paul Lynch and students Ashlyn Jones and Sean Patterson about Lynch’s new course, “The Sacramental Imagination in Modern American Catholic Literature, Rhetoric, and Film.” Lynch says the 25-seat course attracted a waiting list of six or seven students because St.
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Mission Matters Ep.
An interview with staff from the Interdisciplinary Center for Autism Services at Saint Louis University, discussing their work and connection to the university's Jesuit mission.
An interview with Kyle Cruz about the Jesuit Worldwide Learning initiative and his role at Saint Louis University's School of Professional Studies.
An interview with Luella Lozay, Assistant Director of Diversity and Inclusion, discussing her background and Atlas Week at Saint Louis University.
An interview with Gladys Smith, director of Habitat for Neighborhood Business, discussing her work supporting minority entrepreneurs in underserved St.