From the Headmaster

Dear Friends of Delbarton,

Since March 2020, despite the Covid-19 pandemic, new construction has been a major part of life at Delbarton. First, in April 2021 we added St. Benedict Hall to the north end of Trinity Hall in the central area of campus. Not long after the opening of St. Benedict Hall, in December 2021, we began the longdelayed construction of the Regan Stadium Field House and its accompanying masonry bleachers, parking lot, and tennis courts. That work continues, and we anticipate opening these facilities to students and staff in mid-to-late February 2023. As with St. Benedict Hall, the excitement on campus is almost palpable! These projects, both years in the making, would not have been possible without careful planning. From the design of the facilities, to the fundraising needed to pay for them, to the approvals required from the Morris Township Planning Board, all were the fruit of the collaboration of school leadership, the Board of Regents and the monastic community. That consensus-building manifests a particularly Benedictine trait of community collaboration when major decisions arise. We are blessed with the results of this hard-wired ethic of planning in two superb facilities that make a decisive improvement in the Delbarton experience for our students, staff, parents and guests. It would be easy to sit back and bask in the glow of a job well done when we cut the ribbon on Regan Stadium’s new facilities next spring. Fortunately, self-satisfaction is never an option for us! Readers of Delbarton magazine may recall the strategic planning effort launched in the fall of 2021 with a survey that enabled all current and alumni families to weigh in on the key issues facing Delbarton for the next seven years. That survey data was supplemented by a series of interviews of key stakeholders led by our Strategic Planning Steering Committee. The Committee includes a group of Regents who chair or co-chair one of eight Planning Domains that make up the plan’s framework. On October 27 and 29, 2022 at on-campus gatherings, 61 Delbarton constituents used the Steering Committee’s research to forge a draft Strategic Plan. In turn, we shared the draft Strategic Plan with M you this November in a series of online listening sessions, to solicit comments and suggestions from all Delbarton constituencies. Once revised in light of the November sessions, the Board of Regents and the monastic community will approve the final version of the Strategic Plan. Alongside the institution-wide scope of the Plan, our faculty and staff will be busily working on Delbarton’s next re-accreditation by the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools. Every seven years, we embark on an intensive self-study of our entire life as a school. Next, we develop a plan for growth focused on our students’ experience at Delbarton and on how well we align with Middle States’ standards of excellence in secondary education. After a year of internal work, in December 2023, a team of educators from other Middle States-accredited schools will visit Delbarton for three days to validate the findings of our selfstudy and provide feedback from “critical friends” to help us navigate the remainder of this decade. So, while we can rightly celebrate what we achieved thus far in this decade, we have much to do, and wide horizons of possibilities to consider. Look to our redesigned website (delbarton.org), our social media channels, and this magazine for updates on how our vision for Delbarton’s future is coming into focus in the next several months.

P h o t o g r a p h y P ’ 1 2 ,’ 1 4 ’ ,1 8 ,’ 2 3 / M G N N o w a k a u r e e n

Yours in Christ and St. Benedict,

Fr. Michael Tidd, O.S.B. Headmaster