Page 3 - Priorities #20 2002-October

From the Headmaster
It’s quite a feat to maintain part of one’s identity in the fifth or sixth century and another part at the forward edge of the 21st. Woodside Priory, in its 45th Anniversary year, does both.
We have a good role model in St. Benedict. I, at least, have a tendency to think of Benedict’s time (around the year 500) as a placid, slow-moving time of human life.
But, in fact, the world around Benedict
was in tumult, not unlike the present.
Religious and cultural strife tore apart the
world and especially hit at Rome. Perhaps the world’s chaos had something to do with Benedict’s desire to establish monastic homes with kindly rules to promote peace and order, so that individuals there could be supported in their search for God.
At Woodside Priory School, we still try every day to support each other in our individual search for God. Our mission statement doesn’t just hang on classroom walls. Faculty began last August to translate the statement into daily practices within their departments. Chapel speakers—sometimes monks, sometimes faculty—help us interprettheworldwith"Benedictineattitude."
I think you will find St. Benedict behind our faculty slogan for the year, "Woodside Priory—The Right Place At The Right Time," and our student body’s slogan, "Woodside Priory—Where Everybody Knows Your Name."
Our personal journey as a Benedictine school depended, and depends, on a generous community that supports the vision. In this, the school has been—and is—fortunate. In this issue of Priorities, Father Egon describes financing that consisted of "loans on loans" in those early years. But a community that believed in the school was solidly there with wholehearted support. Don’t miss the part where the parents asked the monks to raise their tuition! We can still count on that attitude.
This summer, the vast majority of our faculty took advantage of the Summer Grant program, funded by special gifts, to advance their abilities in ways that directly benefit this fall’s classes. You can read the details on the
school Web site—just click on "Priory Parent, September 2002." Again this summer we overhauled and improved our technology, which is as complete and advanced as any school’s I have seen. The vast majority of our students are participating not only in excellent academics but also in sports and arts— all forward-looking experiences but also with roots in peace, order, and individual search for God.
Jennifer Martin, academic dean, showed me some figures from the recent Back to School Night that illustrate the excellent parent community we
enjoy. More than 90 percent of parents attended. And more than 90 percent contributed to the Annual Fund.
I hope you enjoy the text and photos from our yearbook archives. They begin on page 9. In honor of our Forty Fifth Anniversary, we have re-published the school’s history, originally printed in the Fall 1997 Priorities, and made it available on the school Web site. Go to the home page, look to the list on the left, and click on "publications." You will find all the monks and stories that areamusingas wellastouching.
I hope you enjoy the photos and story on page 27 of our Maas Family Commons celebration. We launched our Golden Jubilee Campaign exactly one year ago, in the Fall issue of Priorities. We have met our first goal—ten new units of on on-campus housing with a budget of $3 million, completed in our first year.
I want to congratulate every individual who contributed, who volunteered, who sat through hundreds of hours of meetings to make this accomplishment possible. At our seventy-fifth anniversary year, I hope everyone will look back with gratitude and, to borrow the students’ phrase, "know your name," at least in the sense of knowing the spirit of generosity that moved you.
Sincerely,
Headmaser
“We have re-published the school’s history, originally printed in the Fall 1997 Priorities, and made it available on the school Web site.”
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