Preston Kendall’s President’s Pen

“What’s happening at Cristo Rey St. Martin?” is a question I’m often asked.  After days like today, I’m tempted to answer, “What ISN’T happening at CRSM?!”  It would be a much shorter response. I’m just home from our quarterly board meeting.  We finished around 8:00pm...

If there were ever a month in the calendar that belonged to Cristo Rey St. Martin, it would be November.  It literally and figuratively has our name written all over it!  The month starts off with All Saints Day on the 1st, Dia de Los Muertos on the 1st and 2nd, the...

You can’t escape Artificial Intelligence.  Everywhere you turn - the news, business, manufacturing, politics, shopping, entertainment – you’re confronted with mentions of algorithms, Large Language Models, machine learning, Chat GPT, Visio, Gemini, Claude, Canva.  It...

“The whole world is a series of miracles, but we're so used to them we call them ordinary things.” ~ Hans Christian Andersen We are back at it!  Only a couple weeks into the new school year and the easy rhythms of CRSM are back in swing. There is nothing better than...

Where did the summer go?  Hard to believe that August is already upon us and we will be back in full-time classes in a couple weeks.  Speaking of time just flying by, this school year will mark the 20th anniversary of our school opening in 2004.  In that year, six new...

When we started the first Cristo Rey School in Chicago, there was a 24-hour diner I drove past every day, called the Steak n’ Egger.  The sign outside said, “We may doze but we never close.”   A lot of people think schools take off the summer or at least only carry a...

There are only two times in our entire school year when all the students gather together.  Because of our Corporate Work Study Program, ¼ of the students are out at work each and every day throughout the year except for 1) the first day of school when we hold and...

This past Saturday, CRSM celebrated our annual Founder’s Dinner. At one point in the evening’s program, a handful of seniors came up one-by-one to the podium to introduce themselves – they each mentioned where they work in our Corporate Work Study Program, what they...

Happy Easter!  Here in the Northern Hemisphere, we are so lucky that the Paschal season corresponds with Spring – both times of expectation, hope, and joy.  It always amazes me how quickly Spring takes root, literally.  One day, you’re walking along a wooded trail...

At CRSM, we are celebrating Lent.  How do you celebrate Lent?  How do you celebrate a period of the liturgical year that starts with ashes on your forehead and a reminder that, “Remember, you are dust and to dust you will return.”? A priest friend of mine describes...