|
An
Interview with Brother Phil -
dib:
What is the mission and purpose of
Holy Trinity?
BP:
This mission is a very simple one.
It is to educate first the hearts of
our kids and then their minds.
The purpose of this school has always
been to serve the sons and daughters of
immigrants who come to Chicago.
The
school was founded in 1910, when this was an
eastern European neighborhood, primarily
Polish.
By the mid-1950s, the demographics
began to change.
Mexicans and African Americans began
moving into the neighborhood and the Poles
beginning to move out to the suburbs.
By 1980, Holy Trinity was still
serving an immigrant population, but it was
a population made up of Mexicans, Puerto
Ricans, and African Americans who came up
from the South – maybe second generation
by that time.
In the mid-80s, the Brothers of Holy
Cross made the decision to keep the school
open even though we knew it would be a
constant financial struggle.
For
many years this school never made a buck.
In lots of cases, it ran on a
deficit, and yet it has remained open
through the power of the Holy Spirit.
I am convinced of that.
We have a purpose here.
Today,
we are a school serving primarily a Latino
population.
We are about 65-percent Latino,
about 25-percent African American, and then
we have kids from
Poland, the Ukraine, China, Ethiopia,
Somalia
– we are a little United Nations in lots
of ways.
dib:
Where do your students go upon
graduation?
BP:
We graduate about 90-percent of the
students that come to us, and of that
90-percent, about 95-percent go on to
colleges.
Our top 10 kids compete with anybody
in the city.
They go away to places like Yale,
Harvard, University of Notre Dame, Stanford, Brown, University
of
Chicago, and Williams.
Lots
of kids stay in the area and go to schools
like Dominican, Loyola, DePaul, and the
University of Illinois-Champaign.
A few will choose community colleges
and trade schools.
With every class, we have one or two
who will go into the military.
The Marines is big with a lot of our
boys. Over
the past fourteen years, we have never had a
girl go to the military, but we have had
lots of girls graduate from college, and for
Latinas, that’s big stuff.
dib:
What is the decisive element of a
Holy Trinity education?
BP:
I would say the most decisive thing
we do is try to make sure our kids leave
this school not only with the skills needed
to graduate from college or move into the
workforce, but with a set of ethics to go
along with those skills.
For us, that’s what this education
of the heart is all about.
Another
thing we attempt to do is equip our kids for
the realities of life, but what we really do
is tell our kids “You are capable of doing
what anybody else does, and we are going to
assist you to get it together for yourself
so you can achieve something worthwhile.”
We
put our
kids in situations where they can apply what
they have learned before they graduate.
We have the Friends For A
Future Program, which gives our kids
tremendous opportunities to take what they
learned here and demonstrate that even
though their parents have not been able to
give them access to the corporate world,
they are prepared to go in and succeed.
dib:
Why did you develop the Corporate
Experience class, which gives the students a
lot of job-oriented training?
BP:
Two years ago, we designed a class
called Corporate Experience because
we wanted to make sure that any corporation
that took a Holy Trinity student got a
quality product, a kid who understands the
basics of hand shaking, looking people in
the eye, a kid who knows how to sit up
straight, who knows how to listen, who knows
how to take notes.
Then that became more refined.
We decided to add things like
creating your resume.
There is also a three week segment
where each kid has a mock job interview.
The interviews are recorded on
videotape and we review them with the
students.
We are very fortunate.
We have a lot of corporate people who
come in to do those interviews and tell us
they want to come back the following year.
I
teach the kids how to negotiate and what it
means to work in a diversified workplace.
There is more to diversity than race
and ethnic background.
Our students have to understand that
they are going to work with men and women,
people who are older, younger, people who
have vast experience and very little
experience.
The workplace has people who come
from lots of different religious and
philosophical backgrounds. They will
encounter people with different sexual
persuasions.
The kids also learn that if they are
going to make it in the workplace, they have
to understand how a team truly works when
you have such incredible diversity.
We work a lot at that, and we conduct
a lot of simulations. I give the
students lots of problems to work through.
Finally,
we teach grooming and etiquette.
We teach the young ladies what is
appropriate in the workplace, the difference
between a cocktail outfit and a business
suit. I
also simulate a corporate breakfast where
the kids have to interact with lots of
people they don’t know.
They have to hold a glass of juice
and a roll and not look stupid; and the kids
really appreciate that.
The one thing I have learned as an
educator is no kid wishes to look dumb.
I, as a teacher, need to equip them with
skills so they don’t look dumb.
dib:
What feedback have you received
from businesses that employ Holy Trinity
students over the summer?
BP:
We have a requirement that at the end
of the internship, each kid must be given a
review.
If the corporation gives a kid an
exemplary review, not an excellent review,
it must be exemplary, the corporation makes
a donation towards that kid’s tuition.
We have placed 150 interns and we
have had 146 exemplary reviews.
To me, that speaks for itself.
dib:
What’s next for the Friends
Program?
BP:
The Friends Program is a 501c3
corporation and I’m working to get a grant
to expand the program over the next three
years. We
run the Friends Program on a shoe
string, and almost everything is done by
volunteers.
Bank of America has given us a
donation that allows us to do certain
things, but I would like to have the dollars
to be able to hire an executive director for
the program.
It would be a full time position, and
the director would be responsible for
building corporate relationships and
identifying prospective mentors.
I
would also like to have sufficient money for
cases where a corporation is willing to take
our students, but doesn’t have the money
to pay the student, or pay a decent wage, or
pay the scholarship for an exemplary review.
With sufficient grant money, we could
pay the student for their service and let
them have a meaningful work experience.
Right now, we limit the program’s
size to the number of jobs available.
I
would
also like to use a portion of the grant to
buy some of our kids decent clothing.
Some of our students come from
families that don’t have an extra nickel
to spend.
I’d like our kids to have decent
wardrobes so they can go to work and look
like the kids of corporate America.
My
kids aren’t privileged.
They are disenfranchised in so many
ways. I
don’t want our kids to stand out just
because of their families’ economic
conditions, but I like
the fact that our kids stand out in terms of
their performance in the workplace.
That’s
because we support our kids with a solid
curriculum.
I
would like to extend the Corporate
Experience class to the ninth and tenth
grades, so they are really prepared for
professional work environments by the time
they complete their junior year.
I’d like for our kids to make
outstanding contributions wherever they
work, during the summer internship and
beyond.
I’m
passionate about expanding the number of
kids participating in the Friends For A
Future Program.
I think it’s the right of every kid
that comes to this school and has the desire
to participate in the Friends Program
to be admitted.
No matter how marginal they are, if
they have the desire, I believe I can equip
them to succeed in the workplace.
Right
now there is a great cry for leadership in
the Latino community and other minority
communities.
Where are the leaders going to come
from? I
believe we can help answer that cry through
the Friends For A Future Summer
Internship Program.
|
.jpg)
.jpg)
