The strategic plan, a guide for administration on the future growth of Brophy, was approved on Thursday, April 18. It consists of four major priorities: promote human flourishing, cultivate a community of faith and hope, form servant leaders and build a brotherhood that lasts a lifetime.
During the planning stages, forms were sent out to Alumni, parents and other parts of the community asking what Brophy was lacking or where there was a need for improvement as the school moves toward its 100th anniversary in 2028.
“There really weren’t any significant deficiencies that were noted or areas of weakness that we really need to improve on,” said President Mr. Bob Ryan. “That’s not to say that there aren’t areas for improvement, but the overwhelming feedback from everyone was that they just want to see us continue to do what we’re doing and do it more deeply.”
Mr. Ryan developed the four major categories for the strategic plan to reflect the Universal Apostolic Preferences with a specific focus on the goal of accompanying youth in the creation of a hope-filled future.
A large part of the plan to promote human flourishing and build community revolves around restructuring the facilities and buildings on campus to optimize the space used and allow students more space to form smaller, more vulnerable communities. There is no current plan to construct more buildings although Mr. Ryan said that is not a possibility to rule out.
In optimizing the space at Brophy, Mr. Ryan said he wanted to create more opportunities for classes, sports and clubs so that students could find more passions to pursue during their time here.
“Not every student is engaged in something here and we’d like to make sure that every student is fully engaged,” Mr. Ryan said.
A big part of this involved creating more leadership opportunities for students to pursue as the current programs such as Big Brothers and the Student Council are getting twice to four times the amount of applicants as positions available.
All of this is to expand opportunities for students to grow on campus and pursue something they are passionate about according to Mr. Ryan.
“The vision statement here is that we want to promote human flourishing within a community of faith and hope that forms servant leaders for a brotherhood that lasts a lifetime,” Mr. Ryan said.
A new focus for this plan was to extend the community formed at Brophy past just 4 years. Mr. Ryan said he wanted to build out an alumni support system with regional alumni chapters so that students could form lasting friendships and connections with an entire history of students.
“We haven’t had a really significant emphasis on our alumni network at all. And we want to lean into that. We want to change that,” Mr. Ryan said. “So we really want to, to build out programs and structures that strengthen our alumni community. We want to do more to link our alumni with current students.”
This alumni relations program and all other community building programs are being created with the goal of forming a longer-lasting brotherhood for students that allows them to grow even once they have graduated.
“The pursuit of something that you really are passionate about is a holy endeavor,” Mr. Ryan said.
This is the thinking that permeates the new goals for the strategic plan. He said he wants to give students all the opportunities possible to discover their passion through their time at Brophy so they can graduate with a sense of belonging in what they do.
