Meet the Class of 2024!

On Saturday, hundreds of Rockhurst University students will receive their degrees in front of family members and friends during the spring commencement ceremony at Municipal Auditorium. Below, a few members of the Class of 2024 tell their stories.

Ingrid Gomez

Ingrid Gomez's mother calls her the "pioneer" of the family.

From North Kansas City, Missouri, Gomez is the oldest of her siblings, and the first to attend college. It's a status that she said fills her with pride and, at times, has come with challenges.

"I had to kind of go head-first into college, into making some mistakes, into figuring out the process, into seeking guidance," she said. "Everything was so new."

She remembers attending the frosh getaway, a retreat held for first-year students at the beginning of the academic year, and writing a letter to her future self.

"I remember I was so emotional and feeling that not sure if I was going to develop community over the next four years. Not sure if I'm going to make friends," she said. "I was so blind to how much Rockhurst was going to give to me."

Gomez has grown into a student leader both as a resident assistant, a member of Student Senate, a volunteer at the JayDoc free medical clinic and a resident in the sustainability wing of the Kateri Community, among other activities. She attended the Ignatian Family Teach-In for Justice, a social-justice-focused gathering of Jesuit students from across the country, which helped plot her dream career after college.

After graduation, Gomez is heading to New York City, where she will serve as a patient advocate for the summer at Bellevue Hospital, the city's safety net facility. Then she heads to Phoenix, Arizona, to serve as a doula for a year with an organization called Maggie's Place with the Americorps program. From there, medical school is the goal, with a focus on women's health and an interest in how policy can affect outcomes.

"I really think that the experiences that I've gotten at Rockhurst have set me up for extreme success in these roles that I will go out into the world and take on," she said.

BreAnna Droge

"Go forth and set the world on fire," a phrase often attributed to St. Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the Jesuit order, is not meant to be taken literally. But if it did happen, BreAnna Droge is who you would call.

This Topeka, Kansas, native will complete two academic milestones in as many weeks. Not only is she completing her Bachelor of Arts degree in Spanish with a minor in medical Spanish from Rockhurst, but on May 17, she will also complete her fire academy training with her hometown Topeka Fire Department.

It's a dream that started in high school when she participated in Camp Courage, a program that aims to inspire young females to pursue careers as firefighters. Upon completion of fire academy, she becomes the first Camp Courage attendee to join the department.

"The camp was Monday through Friday," she said. "By Tuesday, I knew that's what I wanted to do."

Droge transferred from community college to Rockhurst to play softball for a year before starting fire academy and to complete her bachelor's degree. Balancing all of those demands has been challenging at times, she said. But earning a degree in Spanish will make her a better first responder, she said, which is especially critical when lives are on the line.

"There are a lot of people in our communities who can't communicate as well as they want to," she said, "and in the medical field, that can really impact the level of care that they're given. Spanish was not only about helping my resume, but to be able to help the community I'm serving."

LaNeki Freeman

Fiction and fact are not as far apart as they seem, says LaNeki Freeman.

An English major on the writing track, Freeman said she's been writing for most of her life.

She was named the poet laureate at her high school, Cristo Rey in Kansas City, and was asked to write and read a poem at an assembly in front of the whole school - on the morning of the event. As a student at Rockhurst, Freeman said she wrote a short story about what she called an "entity," who relishes the ability to erase its host's memory.

"I realized that that was about someone important to me who was having memory problems," she said. "Stories were an outlet for me. That's how I coped with a lot of things."

To someone who didn't experience it firsthand, the events of 2020 might read like fiction - from the COVID-19 pandemic to global protests following the killing of George Floyd. But that was the reality that Freeman came to college with. It inspired her, at the urging of a faculty member, to form a new student group, BIPOCA+ Student Support Group, to provide resources for students from different backgrounds. Freeman said she's proud to have played a part in an organization that's become an active part of campus life. The experience forced her to come out of her shell, as well.

"I still value being alone sometimes but I know how to operate with others and build connections, which I probably wasn't going to do before that group," she said.

After graduation, Freeman will return to working for a local bank while studying for the LSAT. Freeman said it's a way to use her skill in writing and a dream that she's had since she was young.

"I played dress up, but it wasn't like princess dresses and things like that," she said. "I played lawyer. I had a suit, and I would dress up in it all the time, until the buttons fell off, and I had a briefcase that I think was my grandparents."

Manny Osorio

Having experienced the first two years of college mostly through a screen, Manny Osorio was ready to hit the ground running.

The St. Louis, Missouri, Spanish major and international business minor began his education at Rockhurst learning remotely because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Once on campus, those relationships that started during remote meetings flourished. So did Osorio, who stepped up as a campus leader through organizations such as SOL (Student Organization of Latinos) and BIPOCA+ Student Support Group. He also served as a student leader for the Hawk Scholars program, which offers extra support to students coming to Rockhurst from historically underrepresented groups.

"I was doing a little bit of everything because I really wanted to get a feel for that traditional college life, especially since I hadn't experienced that my first two years," he said.

As a leader for Hawks Scholars, Osorio encourages new students to take the same opportunity to embrace the opportunities presented to them and explore their passions. For Osorio, that has meant focusing on efforts related to creating a more welcoming campus, from Hawk Scholars to student groups like SOL and the Black Student Union (all while finding the time to complete Rockhurst's rigorous Honors Program). As a leader in those organizations, Osorio said he helped plan events throughout the year to celebrate diversity on campus - a Day of the Dead celebration for Hispanic Heritage Month, a speaker for Native American Heritage Month, and a Black History Month event in February, to name a few. The event Osorio said he's most proud of was in March. It was a panel discussion and networking night with women of color, allowing current students to both learn from and connect with established alumni.

"My goal and my mission for this school year was to have different racial and ethnic groups represented at our school and uplift their voices here on our campus," he said.

In addition to a passion for programs that highlight and celebrate diversity, Osorio also discovered a passion for business at Rockhurst. After taking several courses, he said he wanted to pursue a general business minor and plans to pursue his Master of Business Administration degree following graduation. With that, he said he hopes to serve Spanish-speaking communities.

Sharonda Brown

Despite working in health care for most of her adult life, Sharonda Brown recalls the advice she received upon starting the Bachelor of Science in Nursing program at Rockhurst University.

"What they told us is to forget everything that we thought we knew," she said.

What might have started as a shock soon became an opportunity to embrace, she said.

"I have been a CNA for almost 20 years," she said. "To get in the mindset of building a new foundation helped a lot. Because what you think you know, you don't know."

For Brown, the path to a nursing degree started decades ago - not just to when she earned her CNA certification at age 19, but her childhood.

"I think I was in seventh grade and remember thinking, yeah, I want to be a nurse," she said.

Getting here hasn't always been easy. Brown has a family at home and has needed to take care of her mother, who has been in and out of the hospital after sustaining injuries in two separate falls. And she's balanced her life as a student with demands at home. But at Rockhurst, Brown said she's found a community of nursing students and faculty that inspired her. She's even found a specialty - cardiac health - from one of her faculty members.

"I've just been crazy about the heart since I took that class," she said.

After graduation, Brown will begin work in a cardiac unit on Kansas City's Country Club Plaza, putting to use all of those lessons learned studying for her BSN.

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