Schools

Incoming, Outgoing Headmasters Cross Paths at St. Bernard

Thomas Doherty Comes from a Catholic High School in Lowell, MA. William McKenna Is Going to See Where God Sends Him Next

It was 2006 when the bishop asked retired administrator William McKenna to be the headmaster of St. Bernard for a year or two.

That “year or two” will end in July, when McKenna leaves and Thomas Doherty formally begins as St. Bernard’s new headmaster.

The two crossed paths at the school on Wednesday, as Doherty visited to be introduced to the students, administrators, teachers and others at the school that he will lead.

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Doherty, the dean of mission and advancement at Lowell Catholic High School in Lowell, MA, says he is excited about the prospect of starting at St. Bernard, and getting to know the school and the community. He already knows some of the students, from retreats he has attended over the years.

Doherty, who is 33, says there’s nothing he hasn’t done in a school. He’s taught, run academic departments and acted at the interim dean of technology. He’s driven a bus and swept the floors.

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So while the school itself is new to him, “there’s nobody doing a job here that I haven’t done,” he says.

Part of Doherty’s job – and part of McKenna’s – is to strengthen the school’s financial foundation.

McKenna says he will be leaving with the feeling of having made progress toward that goal.

“There is the satisfaction of saying ‘We’re in a far better place,’ thanks to the collective efforts of so many,” he says.

He came into a place where there was no administrative stability, he says. Enrollment had dropped, and rumors were rampant that St. Bernard was closing.

“The mountain I had to climb was to stem the rumors,” he says.

And now, he feels, the school is on much stronger footing.

In October, it joined the Xaverian Brothers Sponsored Schools system, and this is bringing tremendous changes to St. Bernard, he says.

While the Diocese of Norwich still owns the building, the XBSS runs “the educational side of things,” McKenna explains.

There are 13 Xaverian schools in the system, he says. The four in Massachusetts include Lowell Catholic, where Doherty now works; two in Connecticut, including St. Bernard; two in New York; four in Maryland; and one in Louisville, KY.

The schools, while all connected, have their own personalities and profiles, McKenna says. “There is no lockstep,” he says.

In addition to being involved in the educational side of things, he says, XBSS offers many opportunities for professional development for everyone in the school system, from teachers to administrators to athletic directors.

Doherty, McKenna says, knows his way around XBSS. The school from which he is coming was accepted into the system a year before St. Bernard was.

“Doherty is Catholic-educated all the way through,” McKenna says. “I really think he’s going to be great for the school.”

Doherty grew up in St. Louis, MO. He graduated magna cum laude from Boston College with degrees in theology and mathematics. He earned his master’s degree in math at Notre Dame, where he served as a teaching assistant and instructor. He worked at Maria High School in Chicago before starting at Lowell Catholic, in 2003.

Larry Harvey, the chairman of the board at St. Bernard and General Superior of the Xaverian Brothers, came to St. Bernard Wednesday to greet Doherty.

He said he was pleased with the quality of the people who applied for the position of headmaster, which was a nationwide search.

As Doherty contemplates a new job at a new school, McKenna contemplates retirement. Again.

He might be involved with some St. Bernard project, including work that could happen on some of the 130-acre property on which the school sits.

“I don’t have a clue what we will do,” he says. “I’ll let God decide what he wants. That’s worked pretty nicely so far.”

 


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