The Board of Trustees of Brooklyn Jesuit Prep (BJP) is pleased to announce the appointment of Fr. Mario M. Powell, S.J., as the sixth president of BJP, a Nativity-model middle school in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, effective July 1, 2019. As a Catholic, Jesuit-sponsored school, the Board recognizes with gratitude the support of the USA Northeast Province of the Society of Jesus in making Fr. Powell available for this assignment.
Fr. Powell succeeds Ms. Patricia J. Gauvey who has served as BJP's president with great distinction for the past six years, having held the volunteer position of school librarian for the prior seven years. Her dedication and care for BJP's students, families, faculty, staff, and donors has been truly legendary and she will be remembered with great fondness by a generation of BJP graduates.
Fr. Powell is an accomplished educator who has taught and worked in both secondary and middle-school settings within the Jesuit school system of the Northeast Province. For the past four years he has served at Regis High School in Manhattan as the Director of the REACH Program, an educational and leadership program that prepares middle-school students from families with financial need to earn scholarships to Regis High School as well as to other leading high schools in New York City. His success in developing and expanding this program attests to his focus on the importance of quality education in changing the trajectory of the lives of students from migrant and minority families. In reflecting on his new role as president of BJP, Fr. Powell stressed that "Brooklyn Jesuit Prep is precisely the kind of Jesuit, mission-based school that I want to lead, bringing the same passion and energy that marked my years at Regis to BJP. I look forward to hitting the ground running."
With both undergraduate and graduate degrees from Boston College and St. Louis University, Fr. Powell is well versed in the Jesuit educational system. He has served as a member of the Board of Trustees at Boston College High School and is a current Board member at Fordham Prep and Nativity Preparatory School (Boston).
Since its founding in 2003, BJP has worked to break the cycle of poverty through faith-based education and looks forward to continuing that legacy under Fr. Powell's leadership.
