The Pedro Arrupe, S.J., Scholarship is a service and leadership program designed to challenge students to become leaders on campus and in the community. Arrupe Scholars are taught the skills to facilitate reflection, engage in advocacy work, lead students on service immersion trips and coordinate local service projects.

Arrupe Scholars complete a minimum of 66 hours of service per school year, primarily at one site in the Wheeling area. Students engage in regular reflection regarding their service work in the community and participate in a year-end service immersion. As "men and women for others", Arrupe Scholars are asked to be leaders in service and academics, leaders on campus and in the community and leaders in solidarity and Ignatian spirituality.

Service Immersions

Arrupe Scholars cap off each year with an immersion trip, which is unique to its own geographical location, population demographics and community dimensions. Arrupe Scholars are encouraged to continually develop and challenge themselves in the service world. Immersions allow students to recognize the difficulties of other environments, many of which parallel the same issues that we see in Wheeling. Students bring back the skills and understanding they received on the immersion to better serve the Wheeling, W.Va. area.

The First Year Immersion takes place in May and focuses on the greater Wheeling area. The students will work on a variety of projects that can include Laughlin Memorial Chapel, the Wheeling Community Gardens, and other projects.

Sophomores will travel to the coalfields region of Mingo County, West Virginia in May to catch a glimpse of how life is for many state residents. Students will engage the community by assisting Able Families, Appalachian Outreach and other organizations.

The Junior Class will head to Louisville, K.Y. for an urban service experience. Students will stay with Crossroads Ministry and spend time getting to know refugees that have been resettled in the city. 

Seniors travel in January to San Salvador to focus on Archbishop Romero's commitment to the people of El Salvador. Seniors will see firsthand the incredible level of poverty in much of Central America and witness the daily struggle for survival for many local residents.

Pedro Arrupe S.J.(1907-1991)

28th Superior General of the Society of Jesus (1965-1983)

As a scholar, doctor and priest, Father Pedro Arrupe was a champion for service to others and justice for all. Like St. Ignatius of Loyola, Fr. Arrupe was a native of the rugged Basque country of Northern Spain, where he was born on November 14th, 1907. Originally, Fr. Arrupe was preparing for a career in medicine when he decided to become a Jesuit priest. In 1927, he interrupted his medical studies at the University of Madrid to join the Society of Jesus (commonly known as the Jesuits). He later resumed his doctoral studies in the United States, where in 1936 he was ordained.

In 1938, Fr. Arrupe went to Japan, serving as a missionary for the next 27 years. As the director for a group of Jesuit novices, he was living in Hiroshima when the atomic bomb was dropped in 1945. As a physician of both body and soul he led the first rescue party to enter the devastation, building a makeshift hospital and utilizing his medical skills to serve the wounded and the dying. To him, this was "a permanent experience outside of history, engraved on my memory." Nonetheless his words and deeds afterwards were full of Christian optimism, firmly rooted in the life-affirming presence of the Risen Lord. He later was appointed as the first Jesuit provincial superior in Japan. 

Fr. Pedro Arrupe, elected Superior General of the Society of Jesus in 1965, is frequently referred to as the second founder of the Society of Jesus because of the charismatic leadership he provided for the order and for other religious communities in the challenging years of Church renewal after the Second Vatican Council. Due to failing health, Father Arrupe resigned his position in 1983. To the end of his life, he continued to inspire his fellow Jesuits and all he met with his courage and peaceful surrender to God's ways. Fr. Arrupe passed away in Rome on February 5, 1991.