St Edwards University - Tower Yearbook (Austin, TX)

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Wine he entered St. Edward’s in 1959, Brother Stephen didn’t try to hide his disappointment. He was a native Californian, he had spent a year as a Holy Cross novice near the University of Notre Dame, and he had spent a week on the Notre Dame cam- pus at the end of his training. So Texas and St. Edward’s didn’t have much to offer him, he thought. Brother Stephen hasn’t doubted since through four years as a student, seven as a teacher and administrator, and now as the life goes whole reversed. 99 lives can 21st president of St. Edward’s University. Certainly the quality most striking about Brother Stephen is his overwhelming faith in this university. Indeed, Brother Stephen’s faith has been more than idle dreaming. While chair- man of the Division of Teacher Education he created the Center for Teaching and Learning, and as Academic Dean was a major force in the development of Model Q, new interdisciplinary majors in criminal justice, bilingual-bicultural education, and environ- mental studies, and the Project Excel and CAMP programs. Before his selection as president by the Board of Trustees after a search committee had screened some 50 candidates, Brother Stephen had served as Interim President for eleven months following the resignation of Dr. Edgar L. Roy. Two days after the Board’s decision was announced Brother Stephen described his selection to some in- quisitive high schoolers in Temple as “escaping from purgatory into hell!”’ No doubt the heat is on for Brother Stephen, but he’s been in the kitchen through the most dynamic and unsettling seven years this hilltop has seen. The next seven promise to be no less interesting. 6é Seinen: I’m concerned about the impact that a decision will make, but generally I don’t worry. You know the earth is probably a billion years old and on and important things happening. But there are lots of things that don’t make that much difference. There are people whose be consumed in details—but in the great spectrum of Western civilization all the decisions we make everyday, it seems to me, are not all that earth-shaking. There are very critical problems that must be well thought out and whose implications must be carefully weighed, but decisions must be made and not worried about. There are very few things that can’t be there are really 123

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The Heat is on for Brother Stephen — “T vealways been the youngest person at something. My age hasn’t been a problem. I just don’t think about it. The only thing I ask of anybody is that I’m free to be myself and that I don’t have to play the role of college president. There are a number of students who know me pretty well, and I continue a kind of normal, natural relationship with them. I don’t try to assert myself as the president. In the long run, you don’t gain respect or cooperation by virtue of your position or your title—that comes from personal rapport and your effectiveness on another level. You don’t descend from on high. 99 122

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Right, Virginia Dailey Academic Dean Below left, Edward Norris Associate Dean for Student Welfare Below right, James Elliott Associate Academic Dean 124