Building a new Mount
Mount St. Charles Academy opens new dorm for boarding students
WOONSOCKET – In an era of declining enrollment at Catholic schools, Mount St. Charles Academy is bucking the trend, and the biggest reason is plainly visible to anyone who drives by on Logee Street.
It’s the soon-to-be christened Brother Josephus Residence Hall – Mount’s first student dormitory since the private college-prep school abandoned the boarding school model in 1972.
Named in honor of Mount’s first principal, who established Mount as a boarding school in 1924, the $3.7 million facility began housing students from Canada, Sweden, and all over the United States about two weeks ago – many of them elite players in the sport for which Mount’s name is synonymous – hockey.
“We’re seeing growth at the local level in the commutable area, especially in the middle school and ninth grade,” said Mount President Alan Tenreiro. “We also know schools like ours need to pull from a wider geographical area. And so this resident student program, which we’re lucky to have filled to a hundred percent occupancy, meant plus-70 students to Mount Saint Charles this year, and in total we had 221 new students. That’s pretty amazing growth.”
Despite a full court press by construction crews to get the 19,000-square foot dormitory ready for occupancy by the start of school, they missed the mark, largely due to inclement weather this spring, around the time crews were trying to pour concrete for the foundation. Mount put up the students who were waiting to move in at Holiday Inn Express in Smithfield.
Crews are still putting the finishing touches on the building, including some landscaping work, siding, and – in the basement – a state-of-the-art athletic conditioning center that will be open to the entire student body. A large Christian cross will also grace the facade of the building on the Logee Street side.
Tenreiro said all of the work will be completed in time for a dedication ceremony, on Oct. 28 at 3:30 p.m., if not for the annual Open House, Oct. 20, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Mount is anticipating a great deal of interest for the latter event, designed to give prospective students and their families an opportunity to see the campus, whose newest amenity – the dormitory – is already proving a big draw.
Inside, dormitory rooms straddle either side of a main corridor in a layout that has all the outward appearance of a standard apartment house. Living quarters are grouped in clusters of six bunk-style beds – three each on either side of a common bathroom with three-sink vanities and multiple showers. There are separate quarters for three fulltime “prefects” or, as Tenreiro refers to them, “dorm parents.” Their job is basically supervisory.
The two above-ground levels – carbon copies of each other – also come with an activity room and other common areas. The lower level, which is still under construction, will eventually house a fitness training area that Tenreiro purposefully stops short of calling a gym.
The facility, he said, will complement a new initiative at school aimed at offering all students – not just those in athletic programs – strength and conditioning training. Any students who is interested will have access to an athletic trainer, every day. It’s all about common-sense injury prevention, not just for athletes, but anyone who’s physically active.
“It’s sort of a preventative program for students, and student athletes who are on campus,” he said.
One thing dorm students can’t do while classes are in session is sneak away to their rooms. They’re not allowed in, generally speaking, during class time.
Resident students get meals, including dinner, in the cafeteria, which is easily accessible from the dorm.
Interest in the facility has been so strong since Mount began marketing it over a year ago that Tenreiro is inclined to characterize it as an economic driver – not just for the school, but the region.
“It’s a program that Northern Rhode Island, this area of Massachusetts and all of Rhode Island should be proud of,” the president said. “We have so many people coming to visit the school now from outside the local area. They’re staying at hotels. They’re eating at the restaurants. We probably had over 200 visits last year and they’re staying multiple nights. I think the business community is really going to benefit from what’s going on.”
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FOR MOUNT, Brother Josephus Hall is simultaneously the linchpin of a marquee hockey program and a down payment on the school’s long-term financial stability.
Tenreiro says there’s a room at the dormitory for any student, no matter the career path, but in practical terms, it’s only students who are in a very specialized program, with top notch training, whose parents are likely to commit to the costs of boarding. For now, anyway, that means hockey. And not necessarily on Mount’s storied varsity squad – but something even more competitive.
Most of the students boarding at Mount are playing with the Rhode Island Saints, which is part of the USA Hockey circuit.
Some of them, said Ten
reiro, are professional hockey aspirants. Some are already signed to Division I colleges.
“It’s a special program, it provides top-tier competition, connected to a brick-andmortar school with academic excellence,” says Tenreiro. “It is open to anybody from wider geographic area, however, first-come, first-serve basis, it did fill up with hockey players.”
A room at Brother Josephus Residency Hall is on track to cost about $21,000 during the 2020-21 academic year. With tuition, a boarder’s price tag for the year at Mount would run about $35,400, not including special program fees for participating in the hockey program.
Mount borrowed the money for the capital improvements from the Rhode Island Health & Educational Building Corporation, the same agency known for providing government projects with access to below-market loan rates.
Tenreiro said Mount is projecting a positive return on its investment in the residency hall within five years.
“It’s a revenue-driving program,” he said. “If we put money into building a new field, it’s a great thing to do, and we have that as an ultimate goal, too. But that in itself is not going to drive revenue. Over the five-year period, we start to see net revenue for the school, and that’s important too.”
When Mount opened its doors some 95 years ago, it was primarily a boarding school. With a student population of 225 during its inaugural year, 145 were boarders.
In something of a return to its roots, Mount appears to have found a magnet for new students at a time when other Catholic schools are struggling. According to the National Catholic Education Association, Catholic school enrollment declined by more than 403,000 students during the last decade in the U.S., or about 18.4 percent.
At Mount, the numbers are going the other way. Mount has 642 students enrolled this year, including 221 students who are attending for the first time. Minus 118 seniors who graduated last year, that’s a net gain of 103 students, which represents an expansion of the student body by roughly 16 percent.
“The great part is we already had an expanding campus life,” said Tenreiro. “Now we continue to expand that. We’re really becoming like a small college in many ways.”