History
Xavier challenges students and teaches students to think critically and to live a life "for others." Though tuition has risen in recent years, a substantial percentage of the cost for each student's education is covered by donations from alumni.
Xavier has maintained its Jesuit and academic traditions despite significant changes during its history. Service in the JROTC unit, which began at the school in 1884 and became mandatory in 1935, was declared optional in 1971. In 2004, Xavier announced the appointment of Dr. Joseph Gerics as the first lay headmaster in the school's history, following former headmaster Fr. David S. Ciancimino's appointment as Socius to the Jesuit Provincial for the New York Province. In 2006, Mr. Michael LiVigni replaced Dr. Gerics as the school's second lay headmaster.
The Ignatian identity of the school has been affected by the declining number of Jesuits at the school. Xavier's lay faculty have consistently renewed themselves to the mission of Ignatian Spirituality, contributing to an increase in the number of students able to intelligently articulate the school's mission.
On June 25, 2007, Father Daniel J. Gatti, S.J. '59, announced the end of his unprecedented 12-year term as Xavier's 32nd President. On Friday, January 4, 2008, the Board of Trustees announced that Francis J. Morison '58 was elected as interim president. He was to assume office on August 1, 2008, but, due to health concerns, was unable to assume the presidency. Morison died in February 2010. With the permission of his superiors, Fr. Gatti was allowed to remain in the office of president. On June 17, 2009, the Board of Trustees announced that John R. Raslowsky II would succeed Fr. Gatti. Mr. Raslowsky assumed office on July 1 of that year.
Read more about this topic: Xavier High School (New York City)
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Every generation rewrites the past. In easy times history is more or less of an ornamental art, but in times of danger we are driven to the written record by a pressing need to find answers to the riddles of today.... In times of change and danger when there is a quicksand of fear under men’s reasoning, a sense of continuity with generations gone before can stretch like a lifeline across the scary present and get us past that idiot delusion of the exceptional Now that blocks good thinking.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“Culture, the acquainting ourselves with the best that has been known and said in the world, and thus with the history of the human spirit.”
—Matthew Arnold (1822–1888)
“I am ashamed to see what a shallow village tale our so-called History is. How many times must we say Rome, and Paris, and Constantinople! What does Rome know of rat and lizard? What are Olympiads and Consulates to these neighboring systems of being? Nay, what food or experience or succor have they for the Esquimaux seal-hunter, or the Kanaka in his canoe, for the fisherman, the stevedore, the porter?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)