A powerful St. Thomas presence for more than a decade was presented with an unexpected career opportunity to advance his pedagogy with clear Catholic purpose and integrity.

Faculty member Dr. Grover Green ‘04 is assuming the founding headmaster position of a liberal arts school for the Archdiocese of Milwaukee debuting in August 2024.

The Archdiocese has opened a series of STEM-specific schools and Green will front the first attempt with a liberal arts-focused curriculum emphasizing the whole person – spiritual, intellectual, moral, and physical. The strategic plan for the 100th school in the Archdiocese calls for a pre-K through 12th-grade model in a suburban area that is not presently served.

“It has been my dream for some time to lead or start a school but I didn’t anticipate an opening would present itself this quickly,” Green says. “The offer had to be exceptional to pull me away from St. Thomas.”

Green closes out a high-impact 11-year stay with the social studies department. He was known for discovery and academic excellence while standing strong for the character and principles of a Basilian community.

Green was instrumental in developing and implementing Camp Aquinas, named after the institution’s patron St. Thomas Aquinas, the consummate union of sanctity and intellect. The five-day immersion for freshmen at Camp Cho-Yeh debuted in 2017 to fortify student engagement rooted in the Basilian credo Teach Me Goodness, Discipline, and Knowledge with a healthy mix of challenging team-building activities.

Green and Campus Ministry Director Andrew Quittenton tirelessly collaborated on the Camp Aquinas blueprint before deciding on the proper model for the St. Thomas mission.

Green was also a compelling force in establishing the Eagle House system and Communio program. Both were designed in conjunction with Camp Aquinas to provide a deeply positive influence on student intellectual participation and well-being.

Green credits a series of committed colleagues and St. Thomas stakeholders in those initiatives for “sharpening my vision of the deeper possibilities for mentorship, ministry, brotherhood, and community.”

Green earned his Bachelor of Arts and Master in Education from the Univerisity of St. Thomas and his Doctorate Degree in Education from St. Louis University. His family’s rich St. Thomas legacy includes his father David Sr. ‘64 and brothers David Jr. ‘96 and Daniel ‘00.

In Green’s farewell to the campus fellowship, he expressed supreme gratitude for St. Thomas and “the chance to grow as a teacher, a leader, and a human being … evidence of the infusion of God’s grace flowing through this community. (Social Studies Dean) Brett Mills took a chance on a twenty-something who had a desire to return to his alma mater to teach. And his guidance was foundational for me.”

Green left St. Thomas identifying “a quote from one of my favorite works of literature, one that sums up for me the power of a good education.”

You must know that there is nothing higher and stronger and more wholesome and good for life in the future than some good memory, especially a memory of childhood, of home. People talk to you a great deal about your education, but some good, sacred memory, preserved from childhood, is perhaps the best education. If a man carries many such memories with him into life, he is safe to the end of his days, and if one has only one good memory left in one’s heart, even that may sometime be the means of saving us. – Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

Catholic. Basilian. Teaching Goodness, Discipline and Knowledge since 1900.