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Alumni spotlight: Kyla Hockley

Alumni spotlight: Kyla Hockley

by Public Relations | July 11, 2024

LATROBE, PA – Kyla Hockley, C’00, was a trailblazer as a student at Saint Vincent College, so it’s no surprise she is breaking ground in her professional career too.

On July 1, Hockley will begin her role as president of Lancaster Catholic High School—becoming the first female top administrator in the school’s 95-year history. Hockley, 45, was appointed to the post in June by the Most Reverend Timothy Senior, bishop of the Diocese of Harrisburg.

“I want [the students] to look up to me because of how I lead,” said Hockley, a 1996 graduate of Lancaster Catholic. “I've had lots of strong female role models in my life, and my family is full of strong women. … I've never looked at my life and said there are things I can't do because I'm a woman.”

Growing up in Columbia, Lancaster County, Hockley’s first inclination was to enroll in a college in Philadelphia. That changed the first time she visited the Saint Vincent campus.

“As we turned off Route 30, the Basilica kind of rose up out of the cornfields and I was like, ‘Oh, my gosh,’” Hockley recalled. “The minute we were going up the driveway, I knew Saint Vincent was where I wanted to be because it felt like home.”

Hockley was one of two religious education majors at the College, as the program was in flux under the direction of Fr. Tom Hart, O.S.B.

“Nobody had been in the major for a really long time,” Hockey said, “Fr. Tom had just taken over the department, so it was really a moment of, ‘Well, what can this become?’ We had the ability to have some free conversations about what the program could look like. That was fun, kind of re-creating it.”

After graduating from Saint Vincent, Hockley taught religion at St. James School in Sewickley and St. Alexis School in Wexford while earning her master’s degree in religious education at Duquesne.

Eventually, Hockley’s career veered toward administration, so she got a Master of Education degree in Catholic school leadership from Marymount University in Virginia. Over four years as principal at St. John Neumann Catholic School in Manheim Township, she grew enrollment by 60 percent to more than 200 students and increased the tuition assistance tax credit program by 400 percent, according to the Diocese of Harrisburg.

“We took a dying city school and moved it to the suburbs, which drew some attention,” Hockley said. “We really focused on filling academic gaps, invested in staff and we've done amazing things with student performance data. People have signed on for it, because we have results to show for it.”

Lancaster Catholic High School has an urban campus and about 500 students. Hockley’s top priority is a to lead capital campaign to renovate the nearly century-old school building and construct a state-of-the-art auditorium. “We really need to bring an older building up to where it needs to be,” she said.


Alumni Kyla Hockley

Kyla Hockley

 

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