My BarStory S02E17 - Fr. Raymond Guiao and Eric Levasseur

Fr. Raymond Guiao has always been a teacher. His impact as President of St. Ignatius and the Welsh Academy has been tremendously beneficial to Northeast Ohio families, especially those of more modest means.

In this week's My BarStory podcast, St. Ignatius Alumnus and Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Foundation President Eric Levasseur shares an emotional reunion with a long-time mentor.

The CMBF will grant its highest honor, the Richard W. Pogue Award for Excellence in Community Leadership and Engagement, to Saint Ignatius High School’s President and Chief Mission Officer Father Raymond P. Guiao. The award will be presented at Rock the Foundation 19, on Saturday, February 8, 2025 at the Music Box Supper Club.  

For more details, including sponsorship opportunities and ticket information, please contact Events Coordinator Karli Smith at ksmith@clemetrobar.org or (216) 539-3711. 

Transcript

Eric Levasseur (00:09):
Good afternoon. I'm Eric Levasseur, and I have the privilege of serving as the President of the Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Foundation. I'm truly honored to be here today for a conversation with Father Raymond Guiao, the President and Chief Mission Officer for Saint Ignatius High School and the Welsh Academy, and this year's recipient of the Bar Foundation's, Richard w Pogue Award for Excellence in Community Leadership and Engagement. This prestigious award, which the foundation first presented in 2015, was named in honor of Dick Pogue for his incredible contributions to the legal profession, our bar and the civic arena. Each year since then, this award is presented during the Bar Foundation's signature Event Rock, the Foundation, father Guiao's, exceptional leadership and unwavering dedication to St. Ignatius High School and the Cleveland community make him a perfect choice for this recognition. His deep commitment to nurturing the growth of young people and fostering community engagement has had a lasting impact, and we are thrilled to be celebrating him at the 19th Annual Rock, the Foundation event on February 8th. Father, congratulations and thank you for your extraordinary service to our community. And I have to begin by saying it is truly an honor for me personally to be here to extend this award to you, given that I've had the privilege of knowing you for about 30 years now, since I first showed up as a a student in your junior year English class <laugh> many, many moons ago.

Fr. Raymond P. Guiao (01:52):
And we haven't changed a bit, have we Eric <laugh>?

Eric Levasseur (01:54):
Exactly. Well, we, we still look exactly the same. Yes. So, well, father, thank you for taking the time to sit down with us today. Father, you've led St. Ignatius for just about a decade now. Tell us a little bit about the path that led you here.

Fr. Raymond P. Guiao (02:08):
Yes. Well, first of all, thank you, Eric, for taking the time to be with me. It's a real honor to do this interview and to receive this award. My path to St. Ignatius High School was kind of a circuitous one. I was, I started as a teacher and you knew me first as a teacher, and I really had noticed desire except to teach. I never thought of myself as anything but a teacher. And still to this day, I think of myself primarily as a teacher. I had no real desires back then when I was teaching you to be anything but a teacher. But the society of Jesus, the JE would order to which I belong, has challenged me to do more than teach for many years. Before I started here as President of Saint Ignatius, I was asked to be the provincial assistant for formation for Jesuits.

Fr. Raymond P. Guiao (03:01):
Another way to see that is seminary director for the Jesuits of the Midwest Province. So I did a lot of work in helping the men in formation the Jesuit seminarians as they enter the society of Jesus and worked their way 10 to 13 years of training towards Jesuit priesthood. Really enjoyed those years where they were very gratifying years. Toward the end of that period, my provincial superiors said to me, you know, your alma mater is looking for a president. Do you have any interest? And I kind of choked a bit and said, I don't think I would've said yes before I started doing this work for you as provincial, but I think I might be ready. I'll give it a try. He said, you're gonna have to get in line. There are a lot of people who would want this position. And I said, I'm assuming nothing. The school needs the very best leader it can find. So I did throw my head in the ring. I applied, I interviewed, and in 2014 I was appointed. And in July of 2015, I started as president. It's been, it's been a great journey. A very gratifying one, a very challenging one, but one that has brought me tremendous joy in the process.

Eric Levasseur (04:26):
What keeps you motivated? You've obviously been doing this a while now. Yeah. What, what do you find most fulfilling about serving as president of, of St. Ignatius in the Welsh Academy?

Fr. Raymond P. Guiao (04:37):
Yeah. You know, I've already, I've already said Eric, that I think of myself first and foremost as a teacher. And I think what really keeps me motivated, I know what keeps me motivated is the care, the education, the formation of students that's at the core of all of this. You know, we can say that education is a business and that an institution as complex as St. Ignatius High School is, is one that needs a lot of business savvy. And there's some truth in that. But at the heart of it all, we are a school. And at my own heart, I feel like, and identify myself as a teacher, that's what keeps me motivated. When I see our students every day coming to school, doing the very best they can to grow and to thrive and to flourish, that is motivation enough for me to come in every single day. Think of it, I think of it not as going to work as much as it is going to school. I loved going to school when I was a student myself. I love it even more now that I'm on the other side of the desk. <Laugh>, it's great. I love being at school. So

Eric Levasseur (05:48):
Let's talk a little bit about that and that, that educational aspect of it, that, that you love so much. You're obviously your mission here at St. Ignatius and with the Welsh Academy forming young men to go out into the world. Tell us a little bit about what that means to you. Yeah.

Fr. Raymond P. Guiao (06:05):
Education is sometimes talked about as training. We Jesuits think of it more in terms of forming formation. We're forming a person for a particular mission or for a particular way of life. Training is something that's more about doing tasks right? And doing tasks well. And part of formation includes training, but formation is far more than that. Formation is about the person is about his essence, about his being. So when I think of education in those terms, I know I'm on the right track. Certainly our students are all about being trained in the classroom, in grammar, <laugh> in writing, in mathematics and science, in history, and all of these subjects. All of that is important. But we, at St. Ignatius do a far more than just the, the academics. As important as that is, we're forming the entire person. We have a phrase, it's Aladdin phrase that we often use in our education to characterize her education.

Fr. Raymond P. Guiao (07:17):
It's Cora Personalis that is care of the whole person. You know, when a person feels well cared for, he or she responds beautifully to whatever you ask of him or her. And with our students, when they know that they are cared for, it's amazing how they respond. They amaze themselves when we put challenges to them. If they know that they're cared for by their coaches, their counselors, their teachers, and even us administrators, when they know we love them, when they know we care for them, they respond, they grow, they flourish beautifully. I love every aspect of that.

Eric Levasseur (07:59):
Father, when I was here, this formation process that you're talking about really started in ninth grade. Yeah. When someone went off to high school. It now starts a little bit earlier. <Laugh>. Tell us a little bit about the Welsh Academy, if you could. Yeah.

Fr. Raymond P. Guiao (08:13):
The Welsh Academy started way, way back when Father Robert Welsh passed President of St. Ignatius High School, would do some dreaming. This was back in the 1990s when I was a Jesuit seminarian, a scholastic teaching in the classrooms. That's

Eric Levasseur (08:31):
Mr. Gal back,

Fr. Raymond P. Guiao (08:32):
Mr. Gal, when were a student, I think you still owe me an assignment, but we'll talk about that

Eric Levasseur (08:37):
Later. Well, that's

Fr. Raymond P. Guiao (08:37):
Later. Yeah. Father Wes, she to talk about, wouldn't it be marvelous if we started here at San Ignatius High School, a middle school for boys who are qualified, who want to come to San Ignatius, but who come from backgrounds, very different from the majority of our students today. Boys not from the suburbs, but boys from underserved underprivileged backgrounds, boys who would otherwise have no opportunity to come to St. Ignatius High School because of the high tuition price he used to say in the Jesuit community over dinner. He said, you know, there's no reason why young boys who want to be here and who are qualified to be here, but may not have the means to be here. There's no reason why they shouldn't be here. Let's make it possible. So it was Father Welsh's dream to start a middle school, especially for boys from underserved backgrounds.

Fr. Raymond P. Guiao (09:44):
And, you know, we all thought to ourselves, how's that all gonna happen? The idea was shelved for a very long time. There were other ideas that came to fruition before that, such as our Arrupe Neighborhood Partnership Program. But the idea of an academy school kind of fell away for a while until I started in 2015 and I opened a strategic plan for the school to see what my homework was going to be. And the first lines that I read look into the feasibility of a middle school for boys from families of Slender means. And immediately I recognized that as what Father Welsh was talking about way back in the early nineties, almost 20 years before. And I thought, I wanna make that come true. That was Father Welsh's dream. I wanna make that possible for boys from families who would otherwise not be able to afford this Ignatius education.

Fr. Raymond P. Guiao (10:50):
So I put the board through the ringer. I found a judgment scholastic who would help us with a feasibility study. And we worked it through the board. And we got approval in 2018. Then it was time to do implementation. And I hired Dr. Maryanne Vogel, who was the founding principal of St. Mar de Porous High School. I said she started a high school for young men and women from underprivileged backgrounds. She's exactly the person that I need to help us start this middle school. Father Welsh's dream, you know, he didn't, father Welsh did not want to call it Father Welsh Academy. I went to see him right after the board gave the thumbs up. He was in our retirement home just north of Detroit. And I said to him, Bob, I could call him Bob because we're brothers in the Jesuits <laugh>. I said, you know, we've worked this through the board.

Fr. Raymond P. Guiao (11:46):
Your dream is about to come true. I said, one caveat, you wanted to call it the Archbishop Romero Academy after the slain Archbishop of El Salvador. I said, I have a better idea, let's call it, because it was your idea, your dream. Let's call it the Welsh Academy. And he said, Ray, he could call me Ray. You know, I don't need a school named after me. And I said, I know that, but I need the school named after you so I can raise the money <laugh>. And he went, you're smarter than you look <laugh>. And with that, he gave me the blessing. It's been called the Well She Academy <laugh>. I'm thrilled. He died just a couple of months before we opened the doors to the first students in 2019. But I know, I know that he's looking down from heaven. We have now 30 graduates of the Welsh Academy who are at San Ignatius High School.

Fr. Raymond P. Guiao (12:45):
And the other students who were not admitted, we were able to get them security into Catholic high schools in the Diocese of Cleveland. Very, very proud of that, that that was able to happen. These are boys who come to us, largely not from Catholic schools, but from the Cleveland Municipal School District, so that they are now in Catholic schools. We know we have served them very, very well. The boys in the high school know how well loved they are, just as they were in the Welsh Academy. And they are thriving. They are in speech and debate. They are in marching band. A couple of 'em are in football, varsity football even. And we have a couple of guys in rugby. 'cause They're, they like to play hard <laugh>, but they're loving their time at St. Ignatius High School. Father Welsh's dream is coming true. Give a kid a chance, especially a kid who is from an underprivileged background, capitalize on his desire and his talents and watch him soar. That's exactly what Father Welsh was dreaming about. And it's coming to pass.

Eric Levasseur (13:52):
Great story of, of Father Welsh. And I, I hope you'll remember that Sunday when you take that formation mission down to the elementary school level.

Fr. Raymond P. Guiao (14:00):
And

Eric Levasseur (14:01):
We're, we're talking about the Father Ow Junior Academy <laugh>. So that, that day may be coming someday. Part of what as you, as you know, the Bar Foundation really does, is go out and raise funds to support these programs that are targeting sort of that same population the underserved in our community, some of the minority populations. Talk to us a little bit about how that dovetails with what you're doing with the Welsh Academy and why that's so important Yeah. To our community.

Fr. Raymond P. Guiao (14:33):
Yeah. you know, San's High School started back in 1886 by serving not the kids from the suburbs, not kids that came from privileged backgrounds. Saint Ignatius High School started in 1886 to serve the sons of poor Irish and German immigrants who are living in this part of Cleveland. And a lot of people don't realize that. And Father Welsh was very, very big on remembering that, remembering from once we have come, obviously those boys who started back in 1886 have had their progeny, their sons, their grandsons, their great grandsons, legacies that we have even today. There's been tremendous success among those who have come through the ranks of he Ignatius High School over all the many decades, 14 decades that we've been around. Father Welsh was really found it very, very important for us to remember that. And to always have a heart for those who are not as privileged to always be ready to serve and to give every opportunity for those who don't have as much as others do.

Fr. Raymond P. Guiao (15:57):
Why is that important? You know, father Welsh, and I really agree on this, it's a much, much richer learning experience when the classroom is filled with a diversity of experience, a diversity of life experience, a diversity of opinion, a diversity of thought. The learning is so much richer when the classroom is a d diverse classroom. And diversity is the fruit of inclusion. The diversity is the fruit of education, equity of giving people the means to take advantage of opportunities that might not otherwise come to them easily. That's what Father Welsh was all about. And that's what I want to continue, especially through initiatives like the Welsh Academy, give a student a chance, especially a student who would otherwise not have a chance and watch him soar as long as he desires it, as long as he has the chops to do it, watch him soar. Give him a chance. I love being a part of that <laugh>

Eric Levasseur (17:09):
Father, when you were gracious enough to accept the Pogue Award this year, it, it immediately struck me that the, the motto of St. Ignatius, as we both know as men for others quite similarly the motto for the Bar Foundation is Lawyers Giving Back. And the connection between those two kind of really stuck out to me. And it brought to mind that as students here or as we lawyers out in the legal community we not only have the opportunity, but also the obligation and the duty to be giving back to our community. Talk about that a little

Fr. Raymond P. Guiao (17:50):
Bit. Yeah. I think that's great. Synchronicity between the Bar Foundation's sort of motto, right. Of giving back and what our school motto is of being men for others to give back is really what we, in the Catholic faith as Christians who follow Christ take to heart. That's a gospel call, right? It's not just a humanitarian, wow, this is a good thing to do. Well, that's a very noble thing. It's also a very holy thing. That is, its response to what we believe Jesus Christ calls us all to do. Nothing must end with ourselves. It must never be for self gain, especially when there are others out in the world who need, and we have. And we may have an abundance. And that's not just our monetary, that's not just our material possessions, that's our talents, that's our desires, our passions. How can these be harnessed for the good of others, for the common good, for those who would otherwise not have opportunities? You know, I was sitting at a commencement not too long ago, and I was listening to the commencement speaker and he quoted, I can't remember who it is, and I'm still searching to find out, but he quoted the speaker who said, you know, graduates, you are very talented men and women, and you are destined to do great things and to gain great wealth. But he said, the happiest among you will be those who serve others.

Fr. Raymond P. Guiao (19:39):
I love that He took, he took it from, there's great promise for you, but happiness in hears in how much you do for the other and for others is our motto at St. Ignatius High School. Giving back is not only a privilege, but a duty of all of ours. Yes, it is a noble call in the humanitarian terms, but it's a call to holiness in terms of people of faith.

Eric Levasseur (20:13):
And Father, you've obviously spent your life living out that call, serving others. But we are here today to talk a little bit about you, about Father Gao and here to recognize you. And I was hoping you could tell us a little bit about what it meant when you found out that you were going to be receiving <laugh> the Pogue Award this year. <Laugh>,

Fr. Raymond P. Guiao (20:35):
I was stunned. <Laugh>, I was questioning, I thought, how, how could I be the recipient of an award? I tend to go to a lot of galas and watch many deserving people be recognized for the great things that they do for the legacies that they leave behind. And I stand up and applaud and congratulate them just like everyone else does, deserving people. I never thought of myself as deserving of this. You know, I do the work as our faculty and staff does, and we have a stellar faculty and staff at St. Ignatius High School and the Welsh Academy, not for rewards, not for recognition. We do this because we love to do this. This is our vocation in life to teach guys like you to teach so many who come to us with desire to be better people. That to me is the most gratifying thing of, also to be recognized for doing what we feel is our life's vocation is a very humbling thing. I'll say too, when I saw the list of previous winners, I swallowed hard and said, I have a lot to live up to here. These are tremendously gifted, passionate, dedicated, accomplished individuals that I would be recognized among them is a very humbling thing. And I'm deeply grateful and deeply honored to receive it.

Eric Levasseur (22:11):
Father, talk to us a little bit if you could you have a unique opportunity in your position as president of St. Ignatius in the Welsh Academy, to be a role model to a lot of young men who are at a point in their lives that are open to influence, if you will that are looking for role models. I know you were certainly a role model of mine back when when I, when you had me in your classroom. What do you say to the next generation of future leaders and future community servants out there in our community?

Fr. Raymond P. Guiao (22:47):
It's a great question. I've never thought of myself as a source of great advice, sage advice, right? And yet, I think that's an important question. I do hope that our students, as they aspire to do great things in the world, will always recognize that their desires are first God's desires. You know, when we think of our desires, our genuine desires to do good things, we can think of them as our desires that these came from us, from our imagination, from our heart may true, but San Engage Saola, the founder of the Jesuits, the patron of our school, said, no, no, no. Those desires were first in God's heart and God poured them into yours. When we recognize that, then we recognize it's way bigger than ourselves. And that whatever we put ourselves, our hearts and our minds to do, we recognize that we become instruments of God's desire.

Fr. Raymond P. Guiao (23:53):
And that's a very humbling thing. I think that's a very grounding thing for young people who want to do great things. So that's one of the messages that we send at the Welsh Academy, at Saint Ignatius High School. And that comes right from the spirituality of Saint Ignatius Loyola. Our desire is our first god's desires that he places in our hearts to do with what we will, God's will, we hope with no relationships with our neighbors. We need to be in dynamic relationship with our neighborhood. And this, the dynamic relationship can be the source of grade learning and formation for our students. So it was Father Welsh who started the Arupe Neighborhood Partnership Program and saying, you know, some of our neighbors are in real need. Why don't we, our students help our students to push out into the neighborhood, to get to know the neighbors, to get to know their needs, and to be willing to answer the needs, right?

Fr. Raymond P. Guiao (25:02):
Whether it's shoveling snow or helping them move, relocate to another place their kids or grade school kids, spend time with them so they're not just latchkey kids watching TV or spending time in front of a screen that they've got really good supervision and activities to be involved in. That's what our Rupe Neighborhood partnership program does. It gets into the neighborhood, it gets our students into the neighborhood. You know, Pope Francis talks about a culture of encounter that is our society can, in contemporary terms, really isolate ourselves and we become kind of insulated from the rest of the world. And it can be very, very easy to accept that. And to even embrace that. Pope Francis says, challenge yourself to get beyond your comfort zones, to get to know the other, to get to know the other's name, to get to know the other's story. Because when you do, that's when compassion develops.

Fr. Raymond P. Guiao (26:13):
That's when understanding grows. That's when some of the problems of society begin, begin to become solved. When we bother to encounter the other, to come to understanding, to reach into each other's lives. The same is true for institutions like St. Ignatius High School and the Welsh Academy. To know the other, to love the neighbor. This too is a gospel call. Love your neighbor because in loving our neighbor, we're loving and we are honoring God. So there too, it's a very holy endeavor that we are about. We cannot stay isolated in our little worlds or our little islands. I think that's how we develop fear of the other. When we push into encountering the other and coming to understanding, that's when the richness of relationships occurs. And we're all better for being in relationship with each other.

Eric Levasseur (27:20):
And I'm curious on, on that note, your thoughts, father, we've never talked about this before, but being here in Ohio City Yeah. This neighborhood mm-hmm <affirmative>. That you find yourself in, that you've been a part of for a long time now. Yeah. What does it mean to you to watch the transformation Yeah. Of this area over? We don't need to talk about how long it was when we were here together, but you know, certainly there's been some rather drastic change over the years. Yes. Talk a little bit about that.

Fr. Raymond P. Guiao (27:50):
It's very exciting to see the changes, the advances in the neighborhood and saying, we need to stay here in the city of Cleveland. There, you may not know this, but there was a benefactor back in the late seventies who said to Father Welsh father, we need to move the school out of the city. I will give a gift of land in the southern suburbs. Let's move the campus. And Father Welsh looked at him and said, thank you very much, but no, thank you. We are committed to the city of Cleveland. Jesuits are very urban creature <laugh>. Right. Franciscans and Dominicans, they tend to be way out in the countryside. Right. <laugh> just a beautiful life. It's not our life, it's Jesuits. We tend to be in the nitty gritty of the city, <laugh>. That's where we feel most comfortable because one of our mottoes as a, as a society of Jesus is finding God in all things.

Fr. Raymond P. Guiao (28:51):
Even. And maybe especially in the grit and grime of the city. There's a really enriching experience that students have when they come into the city, the inner city of Cleveland for school. We're a very open campus. Ohio City is now a very beautiful neighborhood. And I know the neighbors are very grateful for the, the beautiful ways that we maintain our campus, which is open to the neighbors, our athletic fields, when we're now using them. They're open to the neighbors. Our neighbors walk through dogs, their families, all through our campus. It's a great way for us to be good neighbors in Ohio City.

Eric Levasseur (29:39):
Father, the the theme for this year's rock, the foundation event is the future is Bright. Yeah. As you look ahead with St. Ignatius and the Welsh Academy, what are you excited about? Mm-Hmm <affirmative>. What's next?

Fr. Raymond P. Guiao (29:54):
Yeah. So many things. I love that the theme is The Future is Bright. We as Jesuits, the Worldwide Society of Jesus, have as one of our guiding principles, guiding young people into a hope-filled future. I love that image. That's what we do at St. Ignatius High School. That's what we've done for 14 decades. Accompanying, guiding young people into a hope field future. I mean, more immediately, what we as Ignatius High School look forward to is completing our capital campaign which is resulting in a beautiful expansion of our campus. We have a building that's going up now in the backyard of the school that will increase our campus significantly with more classroom space, more space for our students to lounge in, to study in, et cetera. It's really, really quite exciting to see what is coming up. But, you know, that's all based on a strategic plan that isn't just about bricks and mortar important as that may be. We're working on our curriculum. We're working to see that the direction of our curriculum is really towards cutting edge education for our young men. We are a school after all, and while we want wonderful amenities, we want the very best education and the educational principles and professional development for our teachers. That's what we are committed to as a school that is rising, really to become the preeminent Jesuit high school in the United States. The future is bright.

Eric Levasseur (31:36):
Well, father, thank you so much for, for taking the time to sit and to talk with us today. For all the work you and St. Ignatius and the Welsh Academy are out doing in our community. It's, it's truly an inspiration to us all. And it's as I said, truly an honor to be able to present you with the Pogue Award this year. Certainly someone who is extremely well deserving and has meant a lot to many in our community. So, again, congratulations. Father, thank

Fr. Raymond P. Guiao (32:09):
You very much, Eric. I'm deeply honored. Thank you very much for recognizing me.