Kent State University is mourning the death of Brother Rogério Renato Mateucci, rector of the Pontifical Catholic University of Paraná (PUCPR) in Brazil and a close friend of the Kent State community.
Brother Rogério died Oct. 16 in Scottsdale, Arizona, according to an announcement from PUCPR and the Congregation of the Marist Brothers.
Many in the Kent State family will remember him from May 2025, when he served as the keynote speaker at one of the university’s spring commencement ceremonies. Drawing on a story he encountered at the New England Holocaust Memorial, he told graduates about two friends in a concentration camp, Gerda Weissmann Klein and Ilse, and how Ilse found a single raspberry, wrapped it in a leaf and risked everything to give it to her friend.
“What is your raspberry?” he asked the Class of 2025. “What risks are you willing to take to offer affection and make life easier for those around you?”
He closed with a wish for the graduates: “May you have the courage to say yes to the life that persists in you.”
Watch Brother Rogério’s 2025 Kent State commencement address:
A Champion of Partnership
“Brother Rogério was a true champion of the partnership between Kent State University and PUCPR,” said Paulo Mussi Augusto, Ph.D., Kent State’s associate vice president for global education, who worked at PUCPR for nearly three decades before joining Kent State. “He deeply believed that by working together, our institutions could make a real difference in the lives of our students. Beyond being a university leader, he was a profoundly human person, committed to educating the whole person and, above all, to creating a place where everyone felt welcome.
“Brother Rogério spoke and acted with a rare gentleness and had a remarkable ability to listen, always making room for others to be heard,” Augusto continued. “He loved beauty and found it where art and science met. As a man of faith, he was steadfast, slow to judge and always willing to give people another chance. His legacy will continue to inspire all of us who had the privilege of knowing him.”
Under Brother Rogério’s leadership, PUCPR deepened its partnership with Kent State, including the American Academy, a program that allows Brazilian students to earn associate degrees from Kent State in Brazil at the PUCPR campus and then complete a four-year degree in Brazil or the United States. The partnership helped Kent State earn the Senator Paul Simon Award for Comprehensive Internationalization.
PUCPR canceled classes on Oct. 17 and Oct. 19 at its Curitiba, Londrina and Toledo campuses and scheduled a memorial Mass at 5:30 p.m. on Oct. 19 at the university’s Jesus Mestre Chapel, streamed on PUCPR’s YouTube channel.
