Assistant Provincial Assistant for Secondary Education (PASE) Barry Neuberger visited St. Louis U. High this week for a three-day examination into the state of the school. 

SLUH is a member of the Jesuit South and Central Province, which covers a vast area as far west as New Mexico, and as far south as Belize. As such, the provincial leadership is tasked with managing the province’s multitude of high schools, universities, retreat centers, and parishes. Jesuit high schools in the province typically receive annual visits from either the PASE or Assistant PASE; last year, the PASE, Ron Rebore, visited SLUH in January. 

Before his current job as Assistant PASE, Neuberger had an extensive career in Jesuit secondary education, serving as the principal at both Jesuit New Orleans and Tampa Jesuit. In his position, Neuberger is primarily tasked with helping to ensure that the province’s high schools are operating in line with Jesuit values, and with informing the Provincial of any changes at schools in the province.

While visiting, Neuberger had a very busy itinerary, meeting with a wide variety of administrators and faculty, and observing day-to-day operations of the school. During lunch periods on Tuesday and Wednesday, Neuberger also met with students across all three grade levels currently present on campus, ensuring a fully informed perspective on recent developments at SLUH.

Although the most recent visit occurred just a year ago, a myriad of changes have been underway on the Backer Memorial campus, meaning that Neuberger had no shortage of topics to discuss with faculty. Chief among talking points was the ongoing principal transition between current principal Ian Gibbons, SJ, and his recently-named successor, current Director of Campus Ministry Matt Stewart, SJ.

“Certainly, anytime you have a major administrative transition in the works, that’s a topic for continuity in the long haul, and that’s certainly going to happen when Fr. Stewart takes over the principalship,” said Gibbons.

Additionally, Neuberger also made time to meet with Activies Director Megan Menne to learn more about the school’s shift to an advisory system at the beginning of this school year, as well as the recent adoption of the cascading block schedule.

“We also had a component conversation about work in Global Ed, and in diversity, equity, and inclusion. It’s very promising in the whole Jesuit system across the US, and even just in education period in the US. Those are areas of great interest that we have a lot of visitors coming to see the things we do in those regards,” said Gibbons.

Overall, the view of Neuberger’s visit was a positive one, as SLUH looks to be in strong shape moving forward.

“There’s a lot of admiration among the provincial staff for what we do at SLUH,” said Gibbons. “Kind of universal sense among students, among faculty, staff, along with stakeholders in the school, there are just so many things that it’s doing well, but also taking seriously the things that can be corrected.”

On the horizon, SLUH is beginning to prepare for a Sponsorship Review, an extensive, top-to-bottom analysis of the school and all of its operations that all Jesuit high schools undertake roughly every five years.