The halls of St. Louis U. High will certainly look a lot different next year—new renovations, a new incoming class, new teachers, and, as announced two weeks ago, a new Assistant Principal of Academics.  Assistant Principal of Academics Tom Becvar announced at the Cashbah evening dinner that he will not be returning to SLUH next year after working here for 48 years. While the news has saddened many, it will also mark a new era for the SLUH administration, which is conducting an internal search for his replacement.

Principal Ian Gibbons, S.J., who found out about Becvar’s retirement early in this semester, decided that the search for a new Assistant Principal of Academics will be an internal search, meaning that instead of looking to bring someone from outside, SLUH the administration hopes to fill the position with one of the SLUH faculty members.

“We haven't had someone step into a role like this in a long time internally, so I deliberately made it an internal search for the AP role and I think that's definitely the right call to help our people here have opportunities to expand and grow as professionals,” said Gibbons. “I came from a school that hired externally, and I do not want that to happen here at SLUH, especially with the immense talent that we have here.”

While an external search would allow for a new voice and vision to enter the school, advantages to this approach will be that the new assistant principal will be familiar with the inner workings of the school and will already have a relationship with the faculty, students, and wider community.

“We have a lot of outside voices here, and those are great. I'm one of them. I'm not a graduate. I've been serving at schools outside of our province for a long time,” said Gibbons. “But, we're a community internally that can be pretty bold and can think in ways that are not just very conservative institutionally.  I think giving people that have spent a lot of time in this institution a chance to move up at this school is important, particularly to their professional growth.”

The news comes as Gibbons has been envisioning the structure of his administrative team.  Gibbons sees this change as an opportunity to make the administration more systematic.

“I've been looking at redesigning the administrative structure, and about three years ago, I put together some plans for what proposals for that would look like. The different roles have evolved over time based on the individuals, what they enjoy doing, what they're really good at doing, but it's not systematic. It's not representing the real bigger needs of the school so I am looking at reconfiguring those elements,” said Gibbons. “We'd certainly been looking at reframing that role and that maybe becomes a question of what are we looking for in the successor to Mr. Becvar.”

The school will be looking at two candidates and interviews for the position began yesterday. The candidates will be interviewed by the administrative team, and the department chairs, and they will be assessed on their organization, communication, interpersonal, and leadership skills.

“I think they need to be very detail-oriented, I think they need to be organized. They need to be visionary. They need to be open-minded and able to address conflicts and tensions, and even paradoxes, with professional diligence and an assumption of the good in dealing with this,” said Gibbons. “Obviously they need to be very smart, engaged, and have a deep love of SLUH students and the mission of the school.

With all the work as Assistant Principal for Academics that Becvar has done for the school throughout his 48 years, the future assistant principal will have large shoes to fill.  However, Gibbons has faith in the interview process and is hopeful that the new assistant principal will surely be up to the challenge and expectation placed on him or her.

“Mr. Becvar has been here for a long time, and he surely has made a mark on this school with all that he has accomplished throughout his time here,” said Gibbons. “I have a great respect for the candidates involved in the process.”