February 02, 2009
A
select group of student leaders came together on January 29 to hear
St. John’s University Vice President Andre McKenzie, Ed.D., reflect
on working at a Vincentian university and how its charism has
affected him personally and professionally. During the special
luncheon, students were also encouraged to share their own
reflections on how Vincentian service has transformed their
lives.
Photo Gallery
Enjoying a hot meal together on what was a very cold January day,
the students were also warmed by Dr. McKenzie’s reflection, in
which he asked them to consider the words of St. Vincent de Paul:
“The poor have much to teach you; you have much to learn from
them.”
Dr.
McKenzie, who identified himself as a “Southern Baptist from the
south side of Chicago,” is responsible for the University’s
Academic Support Services. He knew little about what it means to be
Vincentian when he joined St. John’s but, he said, over the 22
years he’s spent here, he has learned a lot. “I joined St.
John’s because I figured it would be just the same as working at
any other school. How foolish I was!” he exclaimed.
A member of the first cohort of staff and administrators in the
University’s new Vincentian Mission Certificate program, he said
three key points make him more and more aware that St. John’s is
not like any other university. He recounted how the program
empowers employees to consider and act on the Vincentian Mission,
prepares them to emerge as Mission leaders, and requires spiritual
reflection (including a retreat at the Oakdale campus) and a
minimum of 50 hours of service—two-thirds of which had to be
performed in direct contact with the poor—over the program’s 16
month period.
“The longer I’ve worked here, the more zealous I have become,” he
stated, recounting his experiences of service in a devastated New
Orleans and in a Manhattan soup kitchen, where he volunteers
frequently. “From that work, I have learned to have compassion.”
The group then discussed the difference between having sympathy for
someone as opposed to having compassion, of “walking in the shoes
of another.”
He urged the students to “think about St. John’s institutional
values—truth, love, respect, opportunity, excellence, and
service—be mindful of them particularly during Founder’s
Week.”
Students Shared Too
Jacquelyn Torres, a junior, spoke about the homes in New Orleans
where the water line can still be seen on the walls, about the X’s
that still mark the homes needing rehabilitation and about the one
homeowner who embraced students working on her home, saying “you
are my family.”
Senior Jessica Lazo, an accounting major in The Peter J. Tobin
College of Business, said she came to St. John’s for the major but
“when I saw L.E.A.D., the retreats, the opportunities St. John’s
has given me, I said ‘let me give back’ so I work as a mentor…I see
this [Founder’s Week] theme and I say you lead by example.”
Jessica has just been accepted into Tobin College of Business’
Global Micro-Loan Program, where she will be involved in
helping provide loans to small business owners in distressed
countries, helping to solve the problem of global poverty.
“I had the privilege to go to Panama,” Marielis Rodriguez reported,
“where there are three classes of people: the upper class, the poor
and the poorer.” While there, she lived with a family whose
wage-earner made $7 a day. One day, one of the St. John’s students
asked if they had any ketchup. They didn’t but at the very next
meal, there was a bottle of ketchup on the table.
“They had $7 a day and yet they spent $1.25 on a bottle of ketchup
for him. We experienced such hospitality from people with not much.
You go there thinking you’re going to do for them but they do so
much more for you.”