Page 24 - Priorities #71

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doors open. “That’s what I was walking into,” Al explains.
It wasn’t just a numbers problem. “The admissions office kept records in a spiral notebook,” Al says with a laugh. “There was no branding, there was no advertising. They didn’t even have something in the telephone directory. They had gone through a whole series of admissions directors. The person they had hired before me, with high hopes, had said, ‘No, I don’t want the job.’”
From his first day at Priory in October of 1990, Al hit the ground running. “We didn’t really speak at schools before I got here,” he says. “But I went to every feeder school I could. I put the message out to people, ‘I’m here, I will go wherever I can talk about the Priory.’”
That was a defining moment for Al. From that point on, together with then-Dean of Students Tim Molak, and Academic Dean Brother Edward, and many others who believed in Priory, he just pushed forward. “You couldn’t step back and worry about it,” Al says. “In order to be a Catholic school,” he adds, “You have to have faith, hope, and love, according to St. Paul. And that was part of what Father Pius was telling me that day. So I felt together we could accomplish the goal.”
His hope and hard work paid off. Priory made its admissions quota that year—just barely, with fewer than 15 girls—and the school survived. Slowly, with the aid of Al’s leadership in admissions, Priory began to find solid ground. Enrollment grew, finances stabilized, and within five to seven years, admissions
He flew back to Spokane on weekends to see his family, who would eventually follow him down on Christmas Eve. “In a way it was nice not having the family here,” he says, “Because I would work here in the office, at my computer, until late in the evening.” But it was lonely, too, and sometimes he wondered if he’d made the right choice.
One night, he hit a low point. “I was here all by myself,” Al says. “I’d call home and Peggy’s trying to run the house up in Spokane with four young kids, and I remember hanging up the phone and walking down, and seeing Father Pius’ light on. And for some reason I went in to see him.”
Father Pius welcomed him in and offered him wine and cookies. “I said, ‘Father, I don’t know if this is going to work. I don’t know if I can bring my family down here.’ And he said to me, ‘You know, Al, the one thing we Benedictines believe in is hope. And unless you have hope, nothing’s going to work for you.’”
became more selective. “At that point,” Al says, “It became much more about building a community.”
For the two decades that followed, Al’s work was focused on building and shaping the Priory community through the admissions process. “I made it a point to read every application,” he says. “So I was aware of every student.” Along with finding the right match between school and student, a sense of diplomacy and care was key. “If you’re truly Benedictine,” he explains, “You have to recognize the individuality of every family, every student. Even when a family departs, you hope you’ve provided some amount of dignity.”
Eventually, the Admissions department expanded to include Camille Yost and Carole Mauss, and Al was no longer alone in his office. “We were a team for about 18 years,” he says. “We complemented each other.” Whirlwind recruiting trips to Asia and elsewhere around the world followed, and between long flights, admissions fairs, and parent meetings,
Of Priory’s 106 enrolled students in the fall of 1990, over half were boarders. Between graduation and attrition, the school stood to retain only 60 students for the coming year. They would need 125 just to keep the doors open.
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