8 minute read
Setting the Tone
Jim Horan: I’d like to begin by asking: how did you come to be president of Saint Peter’s Prep?
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Ken Boller: Well it’s an interesting story of course. This is my third presidency, and I was a principal twice, but when I started at Fordham Prep, I said I would serve eight to ten years. The provincial came along in year eight and said, “How about nine years?” So we set in place a process to get a successor. That was the fall of 2012, and at that time, Fr. Bob Reiser indicated he was moving on from Saint Peter’s Prep – I have to distinguish our Preps! They opened a search committee and the provincial asked me if I would apply, so I did. I was interviewed and I was awarded the “gold seal.” [...] It’s an example of the kind of cooperation between the province and the Board of Trustees, where they were searching for a president, and the provincial made someone available, but he was behind the scenes kind of monitoring the process, as he has been in my successor’s transition.
Given your long experience in what was then the New York Province, and also your experience as a member of Prep’s board of trustees [1993-1999], I’m sure you were familiar with Prep on different levels. When you think of Saint Peter’s Prep vis-a-vis the other schools in the province, how are we different, being on this side of the river?
I had been very familiar with Prep, as you said, serving on the board, and as a matter of fact Fr. Bob Reiser is a very good friend of mine... and various things he was facing as the president would come up in conversation. So I was aware of Prep’s story... we have five Jesuit high schools in the area, [and they] are more similar than different. But they are distinctive. And Hudson County, northern New Jersey, is the flavor that makes Prep what it is.
We have wonderful Hudson County roots. Hudson County continues to be the place for immigrants and it’s reflected in our student body. Although we don’t gather this information, I’m quite confident that close to 40% of our current students are either immigrants themselves or their parents are immigrants, so they are first generation. Prep truly has the opportunity to be quite transformative. Even though Xavier and Fordham Prep had significant immigrant populations, it’s even larger here in Hudson County and at Prep.
Immigrants make it real in a certain way: the highfalutin idea of a prep school – looking to the stars and looking perhaps to the Ivy Leagues. I think our young men are equally talented with those at any other school, [and] their families have great hopes for them because they have moved from their place of birth...for their children. The aspirations are very high, and we are able to serve them.
Talking about Jersey City and Hudson County in 2019: many times you’ve addressed alumni, older alumni, and informed them that they graduated from a school in downtown Jersey City, and our current students are graduating from a school in the historic Paulus Hook neighborhood –
And fashionable!
– and fashionable, very important! Talking about the current Hudson County and Jersey City vis-a-vis across the river, the politics etc., what’s your feel? What’s your take on it?
Well, I am loathe to be a commentator on politics in Jersey City although I do feel that I have a lifelong attachment to this now that I am registered as a voter... Perhaps even a posthumous attachment to Jersey City! [laughs]
Tip O’Neill said all politics is local, and we are in a city of 250,000 people, so everything is much more intimate. I had never sat across from the mayor at Wonder Bagel in New York City, but I did in Jersey City, and we had a brief conversation.
When people look at your six years here, they will point to, in particular, the ongoing renovation and growth of our campus: the Perkins Athletic Center, the extensive renovations to Mulry and Hogan Halls. Those projects really have come to transform the Prep. Had you done projects of that scope before you got here, at the other schools?
Yes...at one point, I was accused of an “edifice complex!” [laughs] One of the things I didn’t have to do at Prep was a science facility. At Canisius, Xavier, and Fordham Prep I helped organize and then execute the renovation of science facilities, including at Fordham Prep a major extension to the building. [Here,] that was wonderfully done by Bob Reiser, my predecessor...The biggest challenge, logistically, I think, was the Perkins Athletic Center because we had to shoehorn a facility literally on the sidelines of the field. The renovations of Hogan and Mulry are also significant. I’ve certainly done similar things in other places, but probably not all in as short a time. [...]
I would say, however, that some of the biggest transformation in the school is not in the brick-and-mortar but rather in the wonderful work being done by Jim DeAngelo, our principal, and the faculty, in the faculty formation and the professionalization of the way the faculty approaches their teaching.
And we’re doing this interview in our Browning Center, which was a masterpiece of the most recent change. The way it is able to serve kids with a learning difference and help them meet their potential is just phenomenal. It’s a great impact, and a number of our other schools are looking to imitate something along these lines.
From my own visits to Jesuit schools around the country, I find that Saint Peter’s Prep has a rather unique reputation. Some of the hallmarks are the creation of the Higher Achievement Program in the 1960s, or our great campus ministry program. What is it about Prep’s DNA that may distinguish it a little bit from other Jesuit schools around the country?
Well, one of the areas in particular has been this very strong tradition – it’s 25 or 30 years old – around social justice and the teachings of the Church with respect to social justice, culminating in our Arrupe Week experiences. That started, as I say, many years ago, I believe under Jack Raslowsky’s term as principal. The flavor of that is distinctive to any other school in the country and... every year, the theme for the year informs the way we look at issues, the way we engage the students on contemporary issues that relate Church teaching to real-life situations, and that’s important. And that’s become a part of our DNA here at Prep over these last three decades. It integrates then in the kind of service programs we do, among other things.
One of the other things that’s not unique to Prep per se, but we are in the in the vanguard of our Jesuit schools around the world, is in our global outreach...open[ing] up to all our students that the world is within reach, and that not everybody sees things exactly the way we do in Jersey City. Learning those differences and getting into conversation and dialogue with those differences is a very important contribution to them.
In addition to your long, successful career as an educational leader, especially at the high school level, you’ve had a very important and impactful stint as a pastor at Saint Al’s in Harlem. Your next move of course is pastor at Saint Francis Xavier Church in Lower Manhattan. What’s the difference between being a pastor of a parish and the head of a Jesuit school?
On one level I think one of the biggest jobs of the president of a high school is to help set the tone in the school, because the administration, the day-to-day administration, is done by the principal, and then there are a lot of other folks in support functions such as our development office, etc. But the president helps set the tone and see the way things go.
In a parish it’s the same thing, but obviously, the players are totally different...Saint Francis Xavier has an enormous social outreach ministry to the poor through a soup kitchen and a shelter, and a huge lay spirituality program. But they also have a very competent staff of lay leaders who run these things, and so the pastor’s job is to be a prayerful, supportive person in that mix, and help kind of guide, and again set the tone.
As you look back over six years, is there a particular week, or a day, or a moment that will stick with you?
I think one of the things about which I thought Prep really shone through, was in a very difficult period three or four years ago, in the beginning of the Black Lives Matter movement. There was a terrible tragedy of the shooting of some young black men around the country, and this really galvanized a movement. We have a significant African- American population – about 9% – and they come from a variety of backgrounds... they needed to share their own experiences with the larger community. Through some initiatives of theirs, and some work with the administration, we were able to set up a series of opportunities for the larger community to process this, to discuss this, in a supportive, listening environment, where everybody could tell their side of the story and everybody could find out and grow in the sense of what what were the underlying issues that were there. And that was, I thought, one of the moments of Prep at its best.
And I think that leads into my final question... In many ways schools like Saint Peter’s Prep, Jesuit schools, are held to a higher standard, and the expectations for our alumni are extremely high: to be leaders, to be compassionate, the five aspects of being the Grad-at-Grad. What does a school like Prep or any other Jesuit school – what do we have to do to live up to that expectation, both in and out of the classroom?
Well, the first step is continue to do the great work we do, because we’re starting from a very high bar to begin with. The work we do with our young men, academically, spiritually, in terms of service, in terms of outreach, that is extraordinary. The other piece, which I alluded to before, is global awareness. And in the Jesuit network, internationally, we are connecting more and more of our schools through our websites, etc. We will have more opportunities going forward for the young men of this Jesuit school, Prep, to interact with other Jesuit schools around the world and talk about issues of current events, issues of religion, issues of other importance, and begin to share as Jesuit student to Jesuit student – be it from Peru to the United States, or Spain, or France, or whatever – to share different perspectives. These young men live in a global society. They will have to flourish in a global society and beginning to become conversant in that is going to be the skill set they really need. And I think we’re in the early stages of giving them that.
