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More Than a Building

By Joe Vollert '84 • SI President

Last fall, the St. Ignatius Alumni Association hosted a networking event on the evolution of venture capital at the offices of Mintz, led by managing partner Steve Osborn '94. In conversation with alums Tripp Jones '99, a partner at Uncork and SI Trustee, and Elliot Geidt '99, a partner at Redpoint, Mr. Jones offered a striking observation: we are living through a once-in-a-millennium moment of technological innovation and disruption, and we sit at the very epicenter of that revolution. Artificial intelligence will not only transform how we work and what we do, but also how we learn and live our daily lives.

In many ways, the opening of the New Learning Commons in early spring 2027 coincides with this epochal shift. While the NLC creates space for the Edward A. Reese, S.J. Chapel, dozens of new classrooms, the Hub, and a new commons area, the vision behind it cuts to the heart of Jesuit education.

I often say that Jesuit education is "hand-to-hand combat." The eyeball-to-eyeball encounter between teacher and student is what forms our young Ignatians into leaders. That may sound like a bold claim, but teaching is a sacred responsibility, and true education is a deeply human experience. The New Learning Commons is designed to create the conditions for those relationships to flourish.

The Commons itself will be a gathering place where students can eat, socialize, and study — a space where learning is both ubiquitous and communal. One of the defining challenges of our time is increasing human isolation, and part of our response is to intentionally create spaces where students come together and build community. Scattered across all four floors of the NLC will be dozens of breakout rooms and collaboration spaces for group study and project work. The first floor will also feature a large, library-style quiet study area alongside a dedicated large-group study space.

Tucked into the northwest corner of the NLC is the Edward A. Reese, S.J. Chapel and chapel garden. Dedicating sacred space, where students can strengthen their faith, discover their God-given gifts, and discern how those gifts might meet the world's greatest needs, is central to the SI experience. Quiet reflection need not be reserved for the occasional retreat; it belongs in the rhythm of daily Ignatian life.

If we were to step into an SI classroom in the 1980s, we would likely recognize much of the curriculum — with the notable exception of science — but see vastly different teaching methods. In other words, what we teach is relatively similar; how we teach continues to evolve. Students do as much, if not more, learning outside the classroom than inside. Walk through the Student Center or the library, and you will find students working together on projects or studying for tests together. "Homework" has taken on a whole new meaning, with mastery of the material trumping day-to-day busywork.

Enhancing Personal Attention to Students

By Danielle Devencenzi-Cronin '97 • Assistant Principal for Academics

At SI, our priority is providing personalized education for our students, and the New Learning Commons is built to enhance teachers' ability to give that close, personal, eyeball-to-eyeball attention Mr. Vollert identified as a hallmark of Ignatian education. Faculty have been involved in the NLC process from day one, and I am excited about what we will be able to do with the thoughtfully-designed spaces in the new building.

For example, many of the class spaces have adjacent breakout rooms where students can go for focused work or conversation that is best done away from the larger group while still within view of their teacher. Imagine a math class where a few students who have mastered a given concept use the breakout room to tackle something new while the teacher works with the full class. Or, imagine a language class doing a project in small groups in the main space while rotating into the breakout room individually to speak with the teacher.

Principles of personal attention and flexible space go beyond the classroom. The NLC will also include a teacher-student collaboration room, a dedicated location for faculty and students to meet outside of class time. Our students are generally very good at advocating for themselves and asking for help, and the collaboration room is a new type of space teachers can leverage to give students personalized attention, whether that is meeting in its larger common area or in the collaboration room's various corners and alcoves with different types of seating, whiteboards, and other tools.

Speaking of tools at our disposal, I am mindful of the promise and perils of new technologies. In order to form leaders who do incredible things made possible by those technologies, we will need to set them on paths where they learn how to use and build upon them without stunting their fundamental abilities to think, problem-solve, and engage with the world. Our values and mission statement guide our work, so as we have considered which technologies we implement in the NLC, we have anchored our decisions in whether those tools benefit student learning.

Finally, there is one more element of the NLC that I believe deserves special mention for how it will affect our students' academics. The new building has large windows with sweeping views of the surrounding neighborhood and beyond, out to the Pacific Ocean, the Marin Headlands, Sutro Tower, and more. I genuinely believe that having that sense of place and natural beauty inspires creativity, pumps up curiosity, and, overall, activates learning in students. That makes sense, because when we have access to the outside environment, our brains are stimulated in different ways than when we do not, which is why we have made a concerted effort to bring our classes outside the four walls of the classroom in recent years. In the new building, the outside world will be more accessible — both through windows and on the rooftop terrace and the west terrace.

We will go into the NLC without all the answers — as Principal Michelle Nevin Levine says, the students' experience will guide us. But we are excited for the opportunity to try new things, form new habits, and reinforce that Ignatian education is built upon close, personal relationships between teachers and students, feeding each other's creativity.

This article appeared in the Summer 2026 issue of Genesis.