Jesuit High School

Jesuit High School is a private Catholic, all-male high school run by the U.S. Central and Southern Province of the Society of Jesus in Tampa, Florida. The school was established in 1899 by the Jesuits and operates independently of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Saint Petersburg. The school teaches a college preparatory curriculum and has been named a Blue Ribbon School of Excellence. The Jesuit motto is Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam which means "For the Greater Glory of God." The school encourages its students to be "Men For Others," which is a student model derived from a famous 1973 speech given by Jesuit Father General Pedro Arrupe. Fr. Arrupe led the Jesuits in the transitional years after Vatican II, from 1965 to 1983, when the Jesuit order incorporated that Council's vision into its institutions. History Jesuit High School was founded in 1899 as Sacred Heart College and affiliated with Sacred Heart Parish, then a Jesuit-run parish. This was in downtown Tampa at the corner of Florida Avenue and Madison Street. By the mid-1950s enrollment had exceeded the capacity of the original facility. Father Michael Kennelly, S.J., who served as the school's president and rector from 1953 until 1959, spearheaded a $600,000 capital campaign and the purchase of 80 acres of rural grazing land on Himes Avenue in West Tampa, where the school moved in 1956. Kennelly had obtained the necessary permits and designed the new campus, which he centered around St. Anthony's Chapel.