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The End of Sunday Night Liturgies
On March 21, 1996, Bishop Carlos Sevilla, SJ (himself an SI grad), called Fr. Sauer to pass along a request from Archbishop Levada that SI discontinue its Sunday Night Liturgy program. The Archbishop hoped that teenagers would celebrate Mass with their families in their home parishes. Fr. Sauer, who celebrated the March 24 SNL, announced…
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Student-Centered Retreats
Up until the 1960s, only priests served as retreat directors, giving talks and leading discussions. “We never had lay people talk during my senior retreat,” said Charlie Dullea. “It was a silent retreat, with a talk by an older priest that we would reflect on. We never had time to discuss our reflections with classmates…
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The Immersion Program
In 1990, SI Principal Mario Prietto, SJ, asked the campus ministry staff to intensify its focus on issues of social justice. The campus ministry team responded with an innovative program in the summer of 1992 that sent students and teachers to El Salvador, Mexico and inner-city San Francisco for what would prove to be the…
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New Opportunities to be Part of SI
In 1995, Principal Steve Nejasmich, SJ, asked English teacher Simon Chiu ’88 to resurrect the Uplift Program that Steve Phelps had created in the 1970s to encourage students from underrepresented areas of the city to apply to SI by offering them a summer school program in their 7th and 8th grade years. That program’s goals…
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The Board of Trustees
As part of a worldwide effort by the Society of Jesus to put an indelible Jesuit stamp on its secondary schools and, at the same time, to invite lay people to help run these schools, SI changed in 1998 the make-up and role of its two governing bodies — the Board of Trustees (the ownership…
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Genesis IV: Endow SI
The SI Development staff rested one year after finishing the Genesis III campaign and launched its most ambitious fund-raising effort in December 1996 — the Genesis IV: Endow SI campaign, which sought to raise the endowment fund to $50 million over 10 years. By 1996, the endowment stood at $11 million. The school, which depended…
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The Legacy of Fr. Prietto
After 13 years at the helm, Fr. Prietto stepped down as principal of SI in June 1994 and received the President’s Award at the commencement ceremony. The citation praised him for being “first and foremost, a priest and minister.” Fr. Prietto could look back with pride on how far SI rose in the ranks regarding…
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From Groundbreaking to Christening
April 22, 1990, was a landmark day at SI for several reasons. First, the Ignatian world celebrated the 500th anniversary of the birth of St. Ignatius Loyola and the 450th anniversary of the founding of the Society of Jesus. And at SI, a steam shovel broke ground in the parking lot to begin the first…
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Genesis III Capital Campaign
Before SI went coed, it had a student body of around 1,100 boys. After coeducation began, enrollment soared to 1,450 boys and girls. When the trustees voted to allow girls, they knew they would have to build to accommodate the larger and more diverse population. In planning for the construction, the development office hired a…
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Focus on the Faculty: 1990s
The decade of the 1990s could be split into two halves. For the first half, the school worked to smooth the transition from a single-sex to a coeducational institution, with the last all-male class graduating in June 1992. Students and faculty saw change everywhere — from the new buildings rising up on the south end…