Benedictine launches 20 rosaries in 20 days push for medical school funding

Benedictine College’s 20 rosaries in 20 days push is not just a campus prayer effort. It is a race to keep alive a proposed medical school that leaders say could affect Atchison’s economy, student recruitment and future health-care training.

The campaign began on Divine Mercy Sunday at Mary’s Grotto, where students gathered with President Stephen Minnis to launch 20 days of rosaries seeking Mary’s intercession for the $20 million the college says it still needs for the next step in the project. Benedictine says the money must be in place by the beginning of May, or the medical school plan could be dropped.

For Atchison, the stakes reach beyond campus. Benedictine has spent years building the case for a proposed School of Osteopathic Medicine that would train 180 medical students a year and send graduates to Catholic hospitals, rural communities and underserved areas. The college says the school is meant to form doctors grounded in Catholic bioethics, the dignity of the human person and Christ-centered health care, while also advancing its long-term goal of “Transforming Culture in America.”

The project’s timeline is already tight. Benedictine says it is seeking candidate status in 2026, preliminary accreditation in 2027 and a first class in 2028. If that schedule holds, students could apply by late spring 2027, and faculty recruitment would most likely begin in summer 2026. That accreditation track runs through the Commission on Osteopathic College Accreditation, with candidate status serving as the second step before pre-accreditation.

The college has already bought a key piece of the future plan: a historic 1916 building at 518 Unity St. in Atchison, a 30,000-square-foot, three-story brick-and-limestone structure that is slated to become part of a Health Sciences Complex shared by the medical school and the School of Nursing. Benedictine says the school would be an independent, nonprofit, separately financed, licensed, accredited and governed entity.

The effort has been years in the making. Benedictine’s board approved a collaborative affiliation agreement in August 2022 to set the school in motion. In January 2025, the college named Deacon Stan Sluder as executive vice president over accreditation, fundraising, staffing and construction. In April 2025, it announced Marla DePolo Golden, DO, as founding dean and Deacon Kevin Tulipana, DO, MS, as associate dean. Golden has said the project offers a chance to “rehumanize” medicine.

Mary’s Grotto, where the rosary campaign began, was built to mark Benedictine’s 150th anniversary and the appearance of Mary at Lourdes. A daily rosary is prayed there at 5:10 p.m., and now that devotion has been tied directly to one of the college’s largest institutional bets.