Villanova Preparatory School (commonly known as Villanova Prep) is an

Augustinian Augustinian may refer to: *Augustinians, members of religious orders following the Rule of St Augustine *Augustinianism, the teachings of Augustine of Hippo and his intellectual heirs *Someone who follows Augustine of Hippo * Canons Regular of Sain ...

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

co-ed Mixed-sex education, also known as mixed-gender education, co-education, or coeducation (abbreviated to co-ed or coed), is a system of education where males and females are educated together. Whereas single-sex education was more common up to ...

day and

boarding school A boarding school is a school where pupils live within premises while being given formal instruction. The word "boarding" is used in the sense of "room and board", i.e. lodging and meals. As they have existed for many centuries, and now exten ...

in Ojai, California, United States. Sitting on more than , the campus contains two dormitories, a chapel, trails, and assorted academic and athletic facilities. Villanova Prep is located in the

Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles The Archdiocese of Los Angeles ( la, Archidiœcesis Angelorum in California, es, Arquidiócesis de Los Ángeles) is an ecclesiastical territory or archdiocese of the Catholic Church ( particularly the Roman Catholic or Latin Church) located in th ...

, and is a member of the

Augustinian Secondary Education Association The Augustinian Secondary Education Association (ASEA) is an organization founded in 1986 to "foster unity, efficiency, and continued development within the Augustinian ministry to secondary education" in North America. It operates without a budget, ...

. The school offers both day and resident programs and is the only co-ed Augustinian boarding school in the United States. In 2015-16, Villanova Prep's student enrollment was 265. Boarding students comprised 34% of the student body and represented 14 countries.

History

Villanova Preparatory School was established in 1924 at the request of Archbishop John Cantwell, the first head of the

. The school was founded by

Augustinians Augustinians are members of Christian religious orders that follow the Rule of Saint Augustine, written in about 400 AD by Augustine of Hippo. There are two distinct types of Augustinians in Catholic religious orders dating back to the 12th–13 ...

from

Villanova, Pennsylvania Villanova is a suburb of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It straddles Lower Merion Township in Montgomery County and Radnor Township in Delaware County. It is located at the center of the Philadelphia Main Line, a series of Philadelphia suburbs l ...

who were invited to California to open parishes in the early 1920s.

Academics

Villanova Prep offers a college preparatory curriculum for grades . In 2015, the school began offering the

IB Diploma Programme The International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme (IBDP) is a two-year educational programme primarily aimed at 16-to-19-year-olds in 140 countries around the world. The programme provides an internationally accepted qualification for entry into ...

for its junior and senior students. Villanova Prep is one of only a few schools, and the only high school, that is a designated

Clare Boothe Luce Clare Boothe Luce ( Ann Clare Boothe; March 10, 1903 – October 9, 1987) was an American writer, politician, U.S. ambassador, and public conservative figure. A versatile author, she is best known for her 1936 hit play '' The Women'', which ha ...

Program recipient. The program encourages young women to enter, study, and teach in the

STEM Stem or STEM may refer to: Plant structures * Plant stem, a plant's aboveground axis, made of vascular tissue, off which leaves and flowers hang * Stipe (botany), a stalk to support some other structure * Stipe (mycology), the stem of a mushro ...

fields. Each year, Clare Boothe Luce Program members participate in educational field trips such as to the

Catalina Island Marine Institute The Catalina Island Marine Institute (CIMI) is a non-profit educational program founded in 1979 and run by Guided Discoveries on Santa Catalina Island, California. It is the host to approximately 15,000 students a year, who visit it in school-orga ...

and

Santa Clara University Santa Clara University is a private Jesuit university in Santa Clara, California. Established in 1851, Santa Clara University is the oldest operating institution of higher learning in California. The university's campus surrounds the historic Mis ...

's School of Engineering Maker Lab. Students also participate in various lecture series, lab tours, workshops, and documentary screenings throughout the year. Additionally, Clare Boothe Luce members lead an annual STEM workshop for middle school students in the region, exploring the areas of environmental science, engineering, coding, robotics, biology, and chemistry.

Student life

In the 2014–15 school year, two-thirds of the student body was day students from throughout

Ventura County Ventura County () is a county in the southern part of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 843,843. The largest city is Oxnard, and the county seat is the city of Ventura. Ventura County comprises the Oxnar ...

. There were 90 boarding students representing several countries, primarily in Asia. A major tradition at Villanova Prep is Wildcat Day, a daylong intramural competition. Held annually since around the late 1970s, the event consists of several "tribes" contesting a series of physical challenges. The exercise is intended to instill in every student the school's core values of "truth, community, and love" while developing the leadership skills of seniors who lead each tribe.

Athletics

Villanova Preparatory School athletic teams are nicknamed the Wildcats. The school is a member of the

CIF Southern Section The California Interscholastic Federation-Southern Section (CIF-SS) is the governing body for high school athletics in most of Southern California and is the largest of the ten sections that comprise the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF ...

(CIF-SS) and competes in the

Tri-County Athletic Association The Tri-County Athletic Association (TCAA) is a high school athletic conference in California affiliated with the CIF Southern Section. Established in 2006, the association is an amalgamation of the Tri-Valley League and the Frontier League. The TC ...

(TCAA). The Villanova Prep baseball team won a CIF-SS championship in 1961 and the boys basketball team won a CIF-SS championship in 2022 Villanova Prep discontinued its football program in 1974, but in 2001 it was brought back in an eight-man format under head coach and athletic director John Muller. The school switched to the conventional 11-man version in 2004. In only its second year in 11-man, the team went undefeated during the 2005 season and made the CIF playoffs. Villanova Prep returned to eight-man play in 2013. Villanova Prep defeated Chaffey High School 75-69 in overtime on February 25, 2022 to win its first-ever CIF-Southern Section Boys' Basketball Championship. Villanova Prep was the only Ventura County boys' basketball team to win a CIF-SS championship in 2022.

Notable alumni

Colman Andrews Colman Robert Hardy Andrews (born February 18, 1945) is an American writer and editor and authority on food and wine. In culinary circles, he is best known for his association with ''Saveur'' magazine, which he founded with Dorothy Kalins, Michael ...

(1962), cofounder of ''

Saveur ''Saveur'' is an online gourmet, food, wine, and travel magazine that publishes essays about various world cuisines. The publication was co-founded by Dorothy Kalins, Michael Grossman, Christopher Hirsheimer, and Colman Andrews, who was also the ...

'' magazine *

William P. Clark, Jr. William Patrick Clark Jr. (October 23, 1931August 10, 2013) was an American rancher, judge, and public servant who served under President Ronald Reagan as the Deputy Secretary of State from 1981 to 1982, United States National Security Advisor fr ...

(1949),

California Supreme Court The Supreme Court of California is the highest and final court of appeals in the courts of the U.S. state of California. It is headquartered in San Francisco at the Earl Warren Building, but it regularly holds sessions in Los Angeles and Sacra ...

justice,

National Security Advisor A national security advisor serves as the chief advisor to a national government on matters of security. The advisor is not usually a member of the government's cabinet but is usually a member of various military or security councils. National sec ...

Ronald Reagan Ronald Wilson Reagan ( ; February 6, 1911June 5, 2004) was an American politician, actor, and union leader who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He also served as the 33rd governor of California from 1967 ...

(1982–1983), and

Secretary of the Interior Secretary of the Interior may refer to: * Secretary of the Interior (Mexico) * Interior Secretary of Pakistan * Secretary of the Interior and Local Government (Philippines) * United States Secretary of the Interior See also

*Interior ministry ...

(1983–1985) *

John Gavin John A. Gavin (born Juan Vincent Apablasa; April 8, 1931 – February 9, 2018) was an American actor who was the president of the Screen Actors Guild (1971–73), and the United States Ambassador to Mexico (1981–86). Among the films he appeared ...

(1948), actor, president of the

Screen Actors Guild The Screen Actors Guild (SAG) was an American labor union which represented over 100,000 film and television principal and background performers worldwide. On March 30, 2012, the union leadership announced that the SAG membership voted to m ...

, and United States ambassador to Mexico *

Michael G. Wilson Michael Gregg Wilson, (born January 21, 1942) is an American-British screenwriter and film producer, best known for his association with the ''James Bond'' film series. Background Wilson was born in New York City, the son of Dana (née Na ...

(1956) screenwriter and film producer * Steve Hovley (1963), Major League Baseball player, Seattle Pilots/Milwaukee Brewers,

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Kansas City Royals The Kansas City Royals are an American professional baseball team based in Kansas City, Missouri. The Royals compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) Central division. The team was founded as an expans ...

*John Fuller (1980), CEO,

Wahlburgers Wahlburgers Franchising LLC, doing business as Wahlburgers (stylized as wahlburgers), is a casual dining burger restaurant and bar chain. It is owned by chef Paul Wahlberg and his brothers, actors Donnie and Mark. , there are 49 Wahlburgers ...

Tara Hernandez Tara Hernandez is a professional software developer, and veteran open source contributor, who developed procedures and tools at several Silicon Valley companies. She was an early promoter of what came to be known as the Continuous Integration rev ...

(1986), software developer and

open source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized sof ...

contributor in Silicon Valley

Notable faculty

Parry Shen Parry Shen (born June 26, 1973) is an American actor, author, screenwriter, and producer. Shen's first major acting role was in '' Better Luck Tomorrow'' as Ben Manibag, the film's leading character. He also starred in another Asian American film, ...

, drama teacher and dormitory staffer; actor, '' Better Luck Tomorrow''

Controversy

In 1998, James Woodstock, a 31-year-old religion and morality teacher, was convicted of statutory rape after impregnating a 16-year-old student. In early 2006, it was discovered that the headmaster had hired a

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

teacher, Shannon McCreery, who had been convicted of second degree murder for assisting in his father's suicide in 1996. Though the headmaster was aware of the conviction, he did not disclose this information to the school's board of directors nor the rest of the staff.Los Angeles Mission - Head hires murderer
Fallout from the incident included McCreery's dismissal and an attempt to oust the headmaster.

References

External links

*
Order of St Augustine, International HomepageAugnet
International Cooperative Web Site for Schools in the Tradition of St. Augustine {{authority control Boarding schools in California High schools in Ventura County, California Ojai, California Augustinian schools Catholic boarding schools in the United States Catholic preparatory schools in California 1924 establishments in California Educational institutions established in 1924