Abstract
Catholic education has undergone a trying transition since the middle of the twentieth century. Decreased enrollment, the closing of schools, and the lack of religious vocations have challenged lay leaders to ensure the vitality of their institution’s Catholic identity. As religious orders within the Catholic faith tradition have transitioned the ownership and governance of their educational institutions to lay boards of directors, the formation of these individuals is essential to ensure the mission and charism of the religious order are perpetuated under this new leadership model. Focusing exclusively on the network of Xaverian Brother Sponsored Schools (XBSS), this dissertation in practice adopts a quality improvement case-study approach to evaluate the nominating, on-boarding, training, and evaluation strategies of two school boards within the Xaverian network. The Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) Framework provided a deductive lens for assessing two schools’ current board practices and competencies within the XBSS network. This dissertation in practice seeks to assist the XBSS network in creating board formation programming by identifying best practices for forming lay board members to meet the core competencies of mission understanding, fiduciary responsibility, and relationship building.
Keywords: Board members, Catholic education, IAD framework, lay leadership, leadership formation, sponsorship, Xaverian Brothers