Winter 2018 President's Report:
Where do we go from here?

I write this as the Board of Trustees is preparing to meet to discuss the outstanding work that was accomplished by all those involved in The Strategic Plan for Regis High School. As I mentioned in my last column, we had eight Task Teams studying a variety of areas, and each Task Team was asked to summarize their work in the form of four to six recommendations. We ended up with a total of 40 recommendations, and the Board will examine these, prioritize them, and we will come up with an action plan. I will be sure to keep you informed as the plan continues to take shape. It is an exciting time at Regis.

It is also an exciting time in the lifecycle of a school as we send out scholarship offers to the Class of 2022. As we begin the third trimester, and as over 50% of the seniors begin full-time Christian Service, we are aware of the natural movement of the school year as we simultaneously prepare to welcome one class and say goodbye to another. It is a cycle that we have been engaged in for 100 years now, since 1918 when the first class prepared to graduate. While last year was our 100th graduation, this is the 100th anniversary of the first graduation.

Regis is a school steeped in tradition, but we continue to respond to the needs of our current situation. In the classrooms, for example, our teachers today are much more likely to have students engaged in periods of group collaboration than they were in days that were more focused on long lectures. We have asked a group of faculty to look at other schools’ classrooms to help us imagine what the ideal Regis classroom should look like today. We need to look at furniture, technology, board spaces, lighting, even size. We do not look to copy others so much as to determine what fits best for our students and our teachers’ pedagogical styles.

Next fall we will also re-examine the school’s daily schedule as part of the ongoing, faculty-led Curriculum Review process. How we apportion time in the course of a week for all the various academic courses, along with times for other needs like academic counseling, is a very important element of how we operate.

The work of The Strategic Plan and the Curriculum Review provides us many opportunities to think differently about the how we educate boys to become Men for Others at Regis. We are fortunate that we continue to attract outstanding students, that we have a dedicated and talented faculty who guide them for four years, and we are truly blessed that we have the support of our alumni, families, and friends to enable us to continue to serve our mission to “offer a tuition free Jesuit college preparatory education to Roman Catholic young men from the New York metropolitan area who demonstrate superior intellectual and leadership potential.”

Thank you for your support of this important mission.


Daniel K. Lahart, SJ
President