A Foundation for Success

The bell signaling the start of the day at Grand & Warren has not yet rung. It will not ring for another 40 minutes. Yet, on the third floor of Mulry Hall, in a well-equipped space overlooking the iconic crossroads of Prep’s campus, students are already diligently at work in a review session hosted by the Browning Learning Center.

For many young members of the Prep community, this room and this unique program have become something of a second home, “a community within the community,” the staff said—a place to study, to connect with one another, and to begin forging the life skills that will guide them toward success in university and beyond.

“The Browning Learning Center is a full-service learning center that provides academic support for neurodiverse learners, as well as students with specific learning disabilities, mental health diagnoses, and various medical conditions that can impact learning,” Browning Center Director Christine Davis, now in her eighth year at Prep, explained. A certified Learning Disabilities Teacher-Consultant, she is the SSD Test Coordinator for both the College Board and ACT, a member of the Admissions Committee, and a member of the Principal’s Leadership Team.

“We have students who take AP courses and honors courses. We have students go on to really rigorous colleges, and so we’re really proud of the diversity of the program and the various learning profiles that we’re able to service,” she said. Building on the foundation established in the Browning Center, the program’s alumni have continued their education at schools including Johns Hopkins, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, NJIT, and Villanova, just to name a few.

Overall, ninety-nine percent of Prep graduates enter a four-year college or university following their senior year. But in the years leading up to commencement, Davis and her staff in The Browning Center welcome students who have Individualized Education Plans (IEP or ISP), 504 plans, psycho-educational reports recommending intervention, or documentation from a neurologist indicating ADHD.

“We are a unique program because there are not many private or religious-affiliated schools that support diverse learning profiles the way that we do,” Davis said. “Our students are full participants in the curriculum. We do not change, modify or alter the curriculum. Instead, we provide appropriate support in the learning center environment.”

“This room is never empty, from 7:30 AM to 3:30 PM, and if we were here longer, they’d stay longer,” said Learning Specialist Dominick Della Fave, ’91, who returned to Prep this year to build upon a 25-year career in special education. “And I think it shows the level of comfort and the level of desire to be here.”

The services offered by the Browning Center for students who qualify extend beyond the room in which it makes its headquarters—from testing accommodations like providing extra time, readers, and scribes, to providing guidance on accessing accommodations in college and beyond.

“I think our ultimate goal is for the kids to be as independent as possible and to fill their tool belts with things that they can take with them,” Della Fave said.

The building blocks that allow Prep students to grow into active, self-advocating learners, in keeping with the Browning Center’s goals to “foster independence and self-awareness,” begin when they are freshmen. In their first year in The Browning Center, Prep students attend structured 50-minute periods when they do not have classes. The first 10 minutes of each of these sessions are devoted to executive functioning organization and goal setting. The remainder of the period then allows for one-on-one time with a Learning Specialist, independent study, or small group work.

“They are required to fill out a planner, which is definitely niche in that it’s unique to what a Prep student needs. It’s not a generic planner,” Davis said, explaining that by developing strong study habits as freshmen, students can strive to maintain those habits going forward.

“I think that what we’ve fostered in this room is enabling students to understand that their ability to be ‘Open to Growth’ and learning in different ways is okay,” Della Fave said, referencing the Jesuit Schools Network’s Profile of the Graduate at Graduation. “We have a lot of students who make friends at the Browning Center, and then we also develop relationships ourselves with the students, which make them feel comfortable to come to us for help….That’s kind of the ‘Loving’ part of the ‘Grad at Grad.’”

“Some of my proudest moments are when an upperclassman will help a freshman or a sophomore,” Davis added. “They’ll jump right in, and they’ll model the behavior. That, I think, is what we’ve seen happen more and more, organic mentorship.”

“I think the Browning Center is meeting a need of students that is becoming an increasing need everywhere, and that’s something we’re really proud of,” Browning Center Academic Support Specialist and Head Lacrosse Coach Andrew Watts agreed. “At Saint Peter’s Prep, we’ve met this head on, just by our staffing level, by our space, and by the kind of people who are involved.”

And those same roots, what former principal Jim DeAngelo, ‘85 called “time, place, and people,” foundations for Browning’s success, trace themselves back to the very founding of the Center under his tenure, which began in 2007. With the encouragement of then-Prep President Rev. Robert E. Reiser, S.J., DeAngelo first began looking to other institutions with similar programs, including fellow Jesuit school St. Ignatius College Preparatory in San Francisco, to help guide Prep’s path forward.

“We dedicated a space for it. We hired a part-time Learning Specialist to be on-campus,” he said. “ It evolved from one day a week, to two days a week, to three days a week, and then, within a year or two, it became a full-time position because the need was there.”

The program flourished over the following years, and so have its students. The Browning Center grew steadily under the leadership of its first learning specialist, Elizbeth Benedict, and then under the current staff as they began to step into their roles.
“When I first started we had about 30 students,” Academic Support Assistant Renato Rodrigues, ’10 said. Now in his ninth year in the Browning Center, he provides Math and Science support.

“Now we have 120 students, four full-time specialists, and two math teachers who come in and provide assistance as well. We’ve quadrupled [the number of students] in eight years,” Davis added.

Looking back to the Center’s beginnings, DeAngelo noted that input from the students and families being served was crucial in positioning Browning as a “hallmark program” of Saint Peter’s Prep, “as much a part of our school’s program as our athletic program or co-curricular program or science and math curriculum.”

“I think it is another expression of cura personalis, of care of the individual,” he explained. “And I think, with a school being able to say to a family, being able to say to students coming out of eighth grade, we accept you as someone who has the potential to succeed here, if you need some accommodation and…some extra help, this is what we can offer. And that will open up the pathway to a Jesuit education.”

He recalled a meeting with some of those students and families in the summer of 2007. “One of the conversations was: what should we call it? What should we call this room? I remember one of the rising seniors at the time said, ‘Well, we can just call it a learning center because that’s what we do. We’re going to learn there.’”

And with part of the name now settled, Prep then looked to a towering Jesuit whom the Center could honor.

Rev. John E. Browning, S.J., ’46 served Saint Peter’s as a teacher, a principal, a counselor, and long-time director of the Higher Achievement Program (HAP), which welcomes seventh graders to Grand & Warren each summer.

“I think one of Fr. Browning’s specialties, and especially through HAP, was always looking for the guys who…just needed extra help or were reluctant to get involved in an activity or sport,” said Director of Admissions John Irvine, ’83, P’11, who has overseen HAP since taking it over from from Browning in 1994. “And he was always the one to kind of push them in that direction.”

“I think it’s really his time as a counselor which made him the obvious choice for the naming of the Browning Center, because he was just just such a caring person,” Irvine added.

Appropriately, DeAngelo also credits Prep’s guidance counselors for their stellar work supporting students, faculty, and staff prior to the founding of the Browning Center’s more specialized offerings.

“Browning was really someone who was open to helping anyone who needed help and especially those who needed it the most,” Della Fave agreed. “So I think it’s great that we have something that is in his name that is so apropos of what he stood for. And I’m just proud to be here and proud to be in the place that’s named after him.”

Notably, Father Browning also codified Prep’s Spirit Awards, “one of our most cherished traditions,” according to Irvine. They remind us that heroes come in many different forms and that we should recognize them among us. That distinctive Prep spirit is alive and on full display in the Center that bears Browning’s name.

“Because the staff is so fully involved with different facets of Prep, we love celebrating our students and what they do outside of the classroom,” Davis explained. “Two years ago, we had a Spirit Award winner in every marking period, so we were really proud of that.”

“We have a niche for every single kid who’s in here. I think that makes it special,” Watts agreed. “I think that’s rare to find, and I think that speaks to the type of kid we have here at Prep as well: super proud and super resilient.”

That sense of Prep pride continues even beyond graduation. “The Browning Center is unique because it helps students develop a personal relationship with learning,” Gus Nations IV, ’19, a Browning Center alumnus reflected. Nations, a three-time Big East All-Academic selection with Xavier University Track, called it “a space that celebrates individuality and enriches Prep.”

The Browning Center left such a strong impression with him that he even reached out for advice on securing testing accommodations for the LSAT last year.

“I was so proud to know all these years later, Gus still knows that we can help him,” Davis said. “What impressed me most was not just the fact that he was taking the LSAT, and he’s going to go on and become a lawyer and really change our world, but that he picked up the phone and called us first.”

That ongoing commitment to each and every student extends throughout Prep’s halls, from Browning, to faculty, to administration, and beyond. “The administration has been fully supportive of everything we’ve wanted,” Davis said. “Right down from the furniture, to the space, to the staffing. There hasn’t been a single thing that we’ve asked for that the administration has not supported, and that is what sets us apart from other schools.”

DeAngelo also noted the importance of getting “as many people on board as possible” in the creation of the Browning Center.
“Any professional development I’ve done around learning differences has actually helped me to become a better teacher for all of the students in the classroom,” he said. “And I think that’s been one of the advantages of having a learning center at Prep and really committing to it as an institution. I think it made us better teachers.”

“There are very, very few schools that are ‘all in’ the way that Saint Peter’s Prep is ‘all in,’” Davis added. “It’s an all or nothing thing….It has to be all or nothing. Students need consistency. They need to know that they can rely on us. They need to know that we’re here. Even four years later, we’re here.”