Kansas University students returning to school this year will notice some changes — and a few new faces — at the St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center.

The biggest change is that, for the first time, the Rev. Vince Krische won’t be there to welcome back students for the fall semester.

Krische, the center’s director since 1977, is in the midst of a six-month sabbatical that began June 7 and ends in early January 2005.

Krische has plans to spend the summer in Colorado, where he will begin working on a history of the St. Lawrence center. Later this month, he will leave for Rome, where he will be taking continuing-education classes for priests at the North American College, a Roman Catholic pontifical university.

Krische, 65, will return to Lawrence in late December or the first few days of January next year.

In his absence, John Flynn, the campus center’s director of institutional advancement, is serving as interim administrator.

“One of the great things about Father Vince is that he has assembled a great staff which allows him not to micromanage, and a lot of the day-to-day details can be carried on in his absence,” Flynn said.

During the summer, the Rev. Brian Schieber, vocations director for the Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas, is handling Krische’s pastoral duties.

Two associate chaplains are to be added to the St. Lawrence staff during the summer: the Rev. James Sanchez, a Dallas-based religious-order priest from the Society of Our Lady of Holy Trinity, and the Rev. Tony Dittmer, a member of a religious order called the Apostles of the Interior Life, based in Rome.

Sanchez and Dittmer will take care of Krische’s pastoral duties while he is away and will remain on staff after Krische returns to the campus center.

Mulubrhan Lemma, a Kansas University student from Ethiopia, sings Christian music during a Victory Campus Ministries meeting at Burge Union.

Another big change was the departure, in June, of the Rev. John Schmeidler, a Capuchin friar and formerly the center’s associate director. He now serves as pastor of St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church, 1234 Ky.

Krische has called the campus center, Flynn said, reporting that he has enjoyed the respite from his usual duties.

“He has gone 40 years without a sabbatical. And he works (at St. Lawrence) six or seven days a week. This is a well-deserved break,” Flynn added.