CSB+SJU welcomes residential staff

This fall, CSB+SJU welcomed two new faces as Residential Life Directors: Mckenzie Stack of St. Ben’s and Corey Klatt of St. John’s.

Klatt was an RA in his college years and previously worked with college students in residential life positions. Klatt said the uniqueness of campus life at SJU is notable, especially with the four-year on-campus living requirement CSB+SJU has.

“This really is a home for a lot of people, especially for the monastic community, so one of the things we are doing is leaning into the phrase ‘home at SJU’ as sort of our slogan for residential life here,” Klatt said.

Klatt said he is extremely aware of the impact that comes with taking on this role.

“These four years of a person’s life are really impactful in their futures, so being able to have an impact on that and help them to determine what their future looks like is incredibly important. I feel really honored that I get to do that on a daily basis,” Klatt said.

Likewise, Stack has long been involved in residential life beginning in undergrad on the East Coast and working her way all the way to Midwest, where she calls home. First drawn to CSB because of the welcoming personality of the staff, Stack said she knew this is where she wanted to be.

“They just would always be present, and would have this energy. . . I was like wow, I want that energy. I want that passion. I want that excitement as a team,” Stack said. Stack said she hopes to make herself readily available to the students.

“I want to know what it is we can do as a department to best serve our students to make sure that we are actually helping them these four years. . . I want it to be that department that hears our students and acts on what we are hearing,” Stack said.

Her focus entering into this new school year is educating the students beyond the classroom.

“Those life skills, learning what you need in life, learning what you need to grow as an individual. We want to make sure that we are able to create that environment and those opportunities for our students so that they can learn and achieve those goals and learn those skills,” Stack said.

Along with these two new directors, Residential Life has also made some changes to how it functions as a whole through the introduction of the new curriculum approach. Stack and Klatt said it is a new standard for what Residential Life looks like, focused on creating a sense of belonging and connection to the school.

One example of how this is being implemented on the SJU campus is the monthly nominations RAs will make for Johnnies who have stood out to them as models of strong character and to feature them on their bulletin board. The curriculum will also include building events on campus intended to get people involved in the community.