September 26, 2013
Dear Members of the SI Community,
On behalf of the St. Ignatius College Preparatory’s Board of Trustees, I am writing to tell you about some immediate changes to the membership of the Board.
On Wednesday, September 25, 2013, with focus on the mission of SI as a Jesuit school, the Board of Trustees recast its membership with all new trustees. Those who left the Board did so with confidence that the new configuration would be able to better serve the interests of SI and its students. The current Board of Trustees now comprises the following members:
- Fr. Gregory Bonfiglio, S.J., pastor of St. Ignatius Parish in San Francisco, and former president of Jesuit High School in Sacramento;
- Fr. Michael Engh, S.J., president of Santa Clara University;
- Fr. Edwin Harris, S.J., religious superior of the St. Ignatius Jesuit Community, former principal and president of Jesuit High School in Sacramento, and former provincial assistant for Jesuit Secondary Education;
- Fr. William Muller, S.J., president of Verbum Dei Jesuit High School in Los Angeles, former president of Bellarmine College Preparatory in San Jose, and former provincial assistant for Jesuit Secondary Education;
- Fr. Alfred Naucke, S.J., executive assistant to the provincial, former principal and superintendent at Brophy College Preparatory in Phoenix, and former provincial assistant for Jesuit Secondary Education;
- Fr. Stephen Privett, S.J., president of the University of San Francisco, and former principal of Bellarmine College Preparatory; and,
- Fr. William Rewak, S.J., chancellor of Santa Clara University, former president of Spring Hill College in Alabama, and former president of Santa Clara University.
Their extensive professional experience in the administration and governance of educational institutions of many kinds as well as their unwavering commitment to SI’s mission and to excellence in Jesuit, Catholic education will ensure stability during a time of significant change in the school. The new Board of Trustees will convene its first meeting in the next few weeks.
The Trustees are quite aware that during recent years new chapters in St. Ignatius’ long history have begun. While transition can be uncomfortable, we have tremendous confidence in the families, the faculty, staff and administration, the alumni, and the many friends of SI to adapt to new times and circumstances. For the time being, the Trustees have decided to work within an all-Jesuit framework, so that foundations for the future will be firmly established. In this way, we will be able to focus ever more clearly on the core of SI’s mission: the formation of young men and women.
At this time, the Trustees wish to make clear their confidence in school president John Knight, and they look forward to working with him. We also look forward to working with the Board of Regents as they continue their critical work on behalf of the mission of St. Ignatius.
We express our deep gratitude and appreciation to our colleagues who have just completed their service to St. Ignatius as Trustees. Their commitment to the school has been remarkable, and their dedication to the administration, faculty, staff, students, and families is unparalleled. We are grateful they shared their many gifts with the school community and for their continued support of SI in the future. Their investment in the mission of the Society of Jesus has been central to their concern to the very end of their tenures.
These changes to the Board of Trustees are effective immediately. We do not anticipate any changes in the school’s day-to-day operation or with the exciting teaching and learning that takes place in the classrooms each day.
I want to thank you for your support of SI as we prepare our students to strive to be men and women for and with others through intellectual excellence, leadership, service and justice.
Sincerely,
Rev. Edwin B. Harris, S.J.
Chairperson
Board of Trustees
That was inspiring. And from the Saint Ignatius website (http://www.siprep.org/page.cfm?p=474 we have the following. Please note the underlined sentence.
Board of Trustees
As part of a worldwide effort by the Society of Jesus to put an indelible Jesuit stamp on its secondary schools and, at the same time, to invite lay people to help run these schools, SI changed in 1998 the make-up and role of its two governing bodies — the Board of Trustees (the ownership body, which oversees the president) and the Board of Regents (which oversees matters pertaining to the principal and his staff).
This change came as a result of the 34th General Congregation — a worldwide gathering of Jesuits — that took place in 1995. At that meeting, the Jesuit delegates, together with Father General Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, SJ, emphasized the importance of maintaining the Jesuit character of the order’s high schools and increasing cooperation with laity. Fr. John Privett, SJ, the head of the California Province at the time, asked the administrators at SI and the other four schools in California and Arizona to consider these priorities in the make-up of their boards of trustees. Toward that end, SI’s four-man Board of Trustees voted May 12, 1998, to expand to include lay people.
Before the change, Fr. Kolvenbach voiced his support of the new trustees. “I commend you,” he wrote, “for this move towards a greater involvement of lay people in this dimension of our schools.”
The Board of Trustees meet at 4 p.m. (unless otherwise noted) in the Development Conference Room.
To recapitulate, please review the current board composition above. How is that for diversity? Where did all the lay people go? Capturing the papacy wasn’t enough?
