A Midwestern Jesuit Family, East to West

Anna Cate and Caroline Meis have Jesuit education in their DNA.

So many wonderful families throughout the Midwest Province have created their own Jesuit legacies by choosing Jesuit education, working on behalf of Jesuit schools and supporting Jesuit ministries. Our hats are off to all of them, the hundreds of families we all know and love.

Today we would like to highlight just one of those families, the Meis family, which has ties to Midwest Jesuit universities from east to west, and smack dab in the middle.

Anna Cate and Caroline, who are 21-year-old twins and kindred spirits, graduated in the spring of 2023 from Loyola University Chicago (LUC). Their graduation might have been the most important date on the family calendar that month had it not been for their father Aaron’s graduation (Ph.D) from the University of Pennsylvania, which shared the top spot.

An LUC alum just like the twins, he currently serves as vice president and chief enrollment officer at Xavier University in Cincinnati. Their mother, Cynthia, graduated from Creighton University in Omaha, and previously worked as a counselor at Saint Ignatius College Prep in Chicago.

The twins’ choice to head from their hometown of Cincinnati to Chicago for college confirmed that the apple did not fall far from the tree. Both Anna Cate and Caroline are grateful for the experiences they had at LUC.

“Within my time at Loyola, I had the opportunity to develop friendships and explore my faith in communities all over Europe,” Anna Cate says. “Spending the second semester of my junior year at the John Felice Rome Center, I learned so much about the importance of understanding the varied, lived experiences of people all over the world, and how God works uniquely through all of us.”

As she enters the job market, seeking a position in social and digital media, she will recall the lessons she learned at Loyola. “I am especially grateful to Professor [Rex] Huppke, who taught Feature and Opinion Writing and taught me to feel strong in my spoken and written voice.”

Caroline’s plans include graduate school in Chicago and a career as a therapist for athletes.

“At Loyola, education is not simply a means to better oneself, but a tool to better serve those around you,” she says. “Dr. Steven Millies, my political science teacher, was not only an engaging lecturer but also incredibly inspiring. He continuously emphasized how important it is for us to be informed about what’s happening in the world, to form our own opinions and be active members of society. A phrase he used that I’ll never forget was, ‘Public opinion is a force in even the most despotic of regimes.’”

Anna Cate and Caroline have a younger brother A.J., a high schooler with plenty of time to decide where he will go to college. Given how deep Jesuit roots run in the Meis family, perhaps he, too, will end up on a Jesuit campus, where the value of the magis is high and the legacies of families thrive. If his sisters have any influence on his decision, he might end up in Chicago.

“Words cannot express how truly grateful I am to have attended Loyola, and to have received a Jesuit education,” Caroline says. “It has shaped me into the woman I am today and has inspired me to go set the world on fire.”