Q&A: The new headmaster at St. Thomas Academy

When Matthew Mohs graduated from St. Thomas Academy in 1990, he had no idea he would one day sit in the headmaster's office.

But in July, Mohs took on the top spot at the all-male Catholic school. He's spent the last two months getting reacquainted with the community and faculty, some of whom were teachers there when he was a student.

Mohs replaced Thomas Mich, who led the private, grades 7-12 military academy for a decade.

He sat down with the Star Tribune to discuss his goals for the school.

Q: How did your career in education begin, and what had you done before becoming headmaster at St. Thomas Academy?

A: I was part of a teaching program through the University of Notre Dame called the Alliance of Catholic Education, similar to Teach for America but for Catholic schools. I was placed in Hammond, LA, and found my love of teaching there.

I came back for a master's program at the University of Minnesota for public policy and got connected to the Minnesota Department of Education. In 2004, St. Paul public schools recruited me to become their federal programs director. I was in St. Paul for 10 years, the last two as their chief academic officer.

A: There are a couple of things. Our enrollment is good but we do have a bit of capacity that we would like to fill.

For us, we have our four pillars, essentially the things that make us somewhat unique. Certainly being a military academy is one of the things.

We actually are in the process of transitioning out of our JROTC program due to federal budget cuts. Every one of our 9-12 boys is in the military program, and we've been under the JROTC umbrella for 99 years, but at the end of this year, we are transitioning to become an independent military institute.

For our boys, it's really not going to look all that different but it will give us the opportunity to enhance our military academy and be more flexible. For the institution it's a big change and it will have a budget impact as well.

One of the things we continue to focus on is faith in action, so our service program is very important. Our campus ministry class is taking on a fundraising effort for the Officer Patrick Memorial Fund (the Mendota Heights officer who was fatally shot this summer).

A. We do have over 40 percent of students that receive aid here. We are socioeconomically diverse. At the end of the day, yes, we do have a different student population than St. Paul public schools.

In St. Paul, 75 percent of students are students of color. Here, 85 to 90 percent of students are white.

The socioeconomic status is certainly much more secure than in St. Paul, where many families are close to the margins or below. For kids in St. Paul, I really saw the work as life and death work. If we have a positive impact on the kids, it's the difference between potentially breaking the cycle of poverty.

At St. Thomas, our goal is to take fine young boys and turn them into excellent young men who will be leaders in society, business, law and medicine and orienting them in a way to recognize that the world is far beyond just their perspective now and that they have a need to be remembering others and be in service to others. So it's a different mission.

For me, I see the deep value of both missions, but the St. Thomas Academy mission is more personal because I lived it and it's one that I think I can contribute to making better.

A: There are. It's a goal that the board has established and it's certainly a strong desire of mine. I really do believe that it's important for our boys to recognize that they're going into a world that looks much different from St. Thomas Academy. They're going to need to know how to — and want to — engage with people of different backgrounds, faiths and skin colors. I very much want to see St. Thomas Academy become more diverse but I also know we need to do some work before we even start to ask for folks to put their faith in us.

I think for me, it really is taking a look in the mirror — how do we expect students of color to show up? How do we value their experiences and support their development and not just expect conformity? And yes, in a military school and a Catholic school, there's a lot of expectations of conforming. Part of our growth as an organization is starting to see the value in different perspectives even if we have a firm hold on our traditions.

Q: What makes you believe that a single-sex environment is powerful?

A: I think when you talk to folks about an all-male environment, people jump to the idea of lack of distraction, this idea that if you're in school with girls and going through puberty, that it just becomes this distraction, another factor that goes through boys' minds before they're ready to take a leap. I think there's some truth to that.

I think the all-male environment that we foster goes beyond that. There is a sense that we are fine-tuned to educate boys. Every boy is different, but boys do, on average, have different learning styles we can tap into. I do know that this environment allows most boys the chance to find out who they are, who they want to be and how do they get to be who they want to be.

A: I hope to have a long tenure here. I've been telling folks I want to retire from here. I'll have to make sure the community wants me to stay that long.

Erin Adler • 952-746-3283