Br. Rob Robertson, CSV

Br. Rob Robertson, CSV, accepted the St. Albert the Great Catholic Educator Award at a dinner hosted by officials with the St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Newman Center, located on the campus of University of Nevada Las Vegas. In all, there were three Catholic educators from the area recognized, but Br. Rob was the only high school teacher.

“It was 39 years ago that I walked into a Catholic school for the first time, not as a student but as a young teacher just out of college,” Br. Rob said of his first teaching job at Griffin High School in Springfield, IL. “That Catholic school changed my life as an adult, just as Catholic schools change the lives of millions of students around the world.”

Currently, Br. Rob is a guidance counselor at the new Cristo Rey St. Viator College Preparatory High School that opened this fall. Its mission of making a Catholic education accessible to young people of limited means — and helping them become men and women of faith, purpose and service — he wholeheartedly supports.

With colleagues from Cristo Rey St. Viator

It was the principal of Bishop Gorman High School — where Br. Rob worked in Campus Ministry  — who nominated him for the award. Mr. Kevin Kiefer pointed to Br. Rob’s involvement in retreats, Christian service, and Christian counseling as making him an indispensable part of any Catholic school.

“His commitment to Catholic education is without question,” Kiefer said, “and he has given his life in the service of students in Catholic schools in both Las Vegas and Chicago.”

The St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Newman Center at UNLV honors Catholic educators every year at its gala fundraiser. All proceeds were earmarked for the construction of a Catholic church at the Newman Center.