Love, Hope and Mission: Women at the Helm in Jesuit Middle and High Schools

In early February, a few dozen leaders of Jesuit secondary and pre-secondary schools converged in Arizona — where they posed for a picture that tells a tale of change and renewal in the Society of Jesus. In the not-too-distant past, the photo would have depicted an assemblage of men, likely sporting clerical collars; fewer than three decades ago, there wasn’t a single lay person, male or female, among the presidents and principals of schools in the California Province of Jesuits (although a few lay people held those positions in the Oregon Province). But in the photo taken earlier this year at Brophy College Preparatory in Phoenix, the presence of lay collaborators in Jesuit education was palpable — with more than a dozen women arrayed among them.