There is a Jesuit school in the heart of Harlem that bears an unusual name. While most Jesuit schools recall men of the Society-Loyola, Xavier, and Regis among them-the Thea Bowman Middle School is named for an inspirational Franciscan nun who dedicated her life to educating African-American girls.

The school's unusual name underscores its uniqueness: Thea Bowman is the only all-girls Jesuit school in the country as well as a successful center for learning in the traditionally black neighborhood of Harlem.

Jesuits on staff at St. Aloysius, the Jesuit parish next door, support the school in various ways. Pastor Kenneth Boller is on the school's advisory board; associate pastor Thomas Green assists with religion classes, and Edward Durkin teaches at Gonzaga, Bowman's brother school for boys located a few blocks away. Durkin was instrumental in the creation of both middle schools.

This portrait of Thea Bowman (1937-1990), an inspirational Franciscan nun who dedicated her life to educating African-American girls, graces the hallway of Harlem's Thea Bowman School, the only Jesuit girls' school in the country. The school's artist-in-residence Leon Gardner painted this portrait of Sr. Bowman with assistance from students.

But Thea Bowman School's Jesuit connection is not so much physical as inspirational. This Nativity-style middle school is grounded in Jesuit educational ideals and style and, most important, in its emphasis on cura personalis, care for the whole person.

This Jesuit influence began in 1985, when the Jesuits assumed responsibility for St. Aloysius Parish. St. Aloysius School, founded over 50 years ago by the Franciscan Handmaids of Mary, was on the verge of closing.

In 1990 a new principal, Laurel Senger, came to St. Aloysius School. After consulting with the community she came up with a new vision for the school: a comprehensive program for the neighborhood's children ages two through fourteen.

Children could come as toddlers to an educational day care center and remain at St. Aloysius through middle school, guaranteeing a quality education and a stable community in which to grow. The plan worked. From a low of 116 students in 1990, the school has grown to 305.

Senger, Durkin, and James Pierce, SJ, pastor of St. Aloysius, knew the benefits of single-gender education in junior high and launched Gonzaga Middle School for boys in 1991 and Thea Bowman Middle School for girls in 1995. These programs became a part of St. Aloysius Grade School, which continues to serve boys and girls from pre-K through 5th grade. Boys then apply for admission to Gonzaga as girls to Thea Bowman for grades 6 through 8.

The school emphasizes respect for self and others, no easy task in the crowded halls of a public school. At Thea Bowman, however, where no class has more than 18 girls, the results are seen immediately. Porsche Harraway, a poised 7th grader who has clearly taken her school's spirit to heart, speaks to another Thea Bowman benefit, faculty involvement: "The teachers being here after school and close to us is the best part of Bowman." Maybe it is easier to be "close" when every staff member, from the principal to the janitor, knows each student's name.

	Girls applying to Thea Bowman "graduate" from a western Massachusetts camping experience that serves as a prerequisite to acceptance into the program.
Principal Laurel Senger and students Alena Marajh and Anneliese Whittier examine some of the school's 60 works of art, all painted by prominent African-American artists

The school has benefited from a mentorship program it developed with TIAA-CREF, a nonprofit manager of pension funds. The corporation has donated computers to both Thea Bowman and Gonzaga, and its software applications engineers have trained Thea Bowman's staff and provide weekly computer classes for all grades at both schools. An added benefit of this corporate/school partnership is that students get the chance to interact with African-American professionals.

This experience, combined with field trips to places like the Metropolitan Museum of Art and to an environmental science center in upstate New York, expands the students' horizons and helps them sense the possibilities open to them.

"We want all the girls to be gripped by their studies and to find their talents and set goals," says Richard Burke, vice principal of both middle school programs.

Bowman students, including 7th grader Brittany Edwards, learn to realize their dreams through work. Brittany says that the most important thing she has learned at Bowman is to "always accomplish what you set out to do."

The school offers another challenge to students: they explore new territory in summer camp in Williamstown, Massachusetts. Patterned on similar camp programs at other Jesuit Nativity schools, this camp aims to give girls a taste of life outside the city.

Cultural arts teacher Mark Primus knows each student, including Latisha Brown, Jasmine Evans, and Ginette Santana, by name.

Each group of girls spends a week in a mix of academic, cultural, and athletic activities before attempting what is the high point of the trip: climbing nearby Mount Greylock, a rather substantial climb for these city kids. It was in setting the goal of reaching the top of the mountain that Alena Marajh, an accomplished 8th grader, "learned my potential and overcame my fear of heights." Equally important to her was that she "learned to associate with all sorts of personalities."

The camp, along with summer school and an interview, is part of the application process for all 5th graders who want to attend Thea Bowman. A girl must demonstrate that she is as willing to face the challenge of hiking to the summit with fourteen of her classmates as she is to share her thoughts about a favorite book. The groups return to New York more confident in doing both.

Karen Melk, director of the Thea Bowman program, assists students during their weekly computer classes, taught by computer pros from TIAA-CREF, a corporate partner of the school.

With a school like Thea Bowman enjoying such success (graduates have gone on to high schools such as Portsmouth Abbey Boarding School in Rhode Island and Loyola High in New York City), it may seem odd that Jesuits began educating girls and women only recently. The Society of Jesus has a reputation for being a teaching order, but Jesuit historian John O'Malley points out that it was not until ten years after its founding that the Society began establishing schools, and that was primarily for the sake of educating its own members.

Boys were admitted to study alongside Jesuits; it was not the practice of the time to educate young women formally. They did not begin attending schools in large numbers until the nineteenth century as new women's religious orders were founded to address their needs.

Some of these congregations took their inspiration from the Jesuit model and built schools for girls on its example. Complementary single-sex schools existed until educational trends in this century suggested co-education as a worthwhile alternative.

Today, all U.S. Jesuit colleges and universities admit both sexes, as do thirteen of the forty-six Jesuit high schools. Nevertheless, single-sex education retains its value, and it is on this fact that Thea Bowman sets a new course as an all-girls school in the Jesuit tradition.

Andrew Downing, SJ, with a BA in religious studies from Yale, is a Jesuit scholastic who has tutored at Boston's Nativity school and taught at Fairfield Prep. He is currently studying philosophy at Fordham University, and this summer he will be working in Lebanon and Jordan.

For all the newness of Thea Bowman, its program maintains ideals that shaped the Society's first schools over four centuries ago. At the root of all Jesuit education is the belief that education concerned with the entire person leads to good values and ultimately to service of the community. To this end, the original schools taught a curriculum heavy in literature. In keeping with this tradition, Bowman today stresses a love of reading in its students beyond a simple attainment of reading skills.

Karen Melk, director of the Bowman program, sums up her desire that every graduating 8th grader be "in charge of her education and proud of her role in what she has achieved so far."

This extraordinary little school in Harlem is a place where the dreams and talents of girls can be nurtured by teachers who care for their development. It is a place where the ability to accomplish is seldom limited by the opportunities provided. It is a community that each girl may call her own and which calls each girl to be herself. It is a great "new" direction for the Jesuit tradition of education.