ST SEBASTIAN’S

MOVING
FORWARD
“The Whole is Greater than the
Sum of its Parts” ~Aristotle
An interview with Headmaster Bill Burke and Assistant Headmaster Mike Nerbonne.
By Dan Tobin
An exciting transformation is coming to the St. Sebastian’s
School campus. Shortly, the School will break ground on a
new Science/Math Complex, which will be situated on the
field behind the Birmingham Academic Building. The building
will feature eight dedicated science
labs/classrooms and five
new math classrooms. The library
will double in size, with
additional space being made
available for group meetings
and study space, and a room devoted
to the role of faith and
reason in science.
Once finished, all full time
science and math teachers will
have their own, dedicated
classroom spaces. By
reconfiguring rooms currently
used for science and math, all
disciplines in the curriculum will
gain additional space and be, for the first time, physically located
together as departments. Departments will be able to work more
closely as a team, and interdepartmental projects will be easier to
coordinate and execute.
“This project is going to transform all eight of our academic
departments and really help advance our mission, which is all about
integration – it has been from the start,” stated Headmaster Bill
Burke. “We don’t check any part of a person at the door. We
We don’t check any part of a person
at the door. We integrate the
spiritual lives with the intellectual
and the physical and the emotional
and the aesthetic. I think this new
building will be a reflection of what
we do and also enable us to do it
better.
integrate the spiritual lives with the intellectual and the physical and
the emotional and the aesthetic. This new building will be a
reflection of what we do and also enable us to do it better.”
Assistant Headmaster Mike Nerbonne added, “It’s a science,
math, library improvement that
will help every discipline within
the School. I like to say that we
have academic departments, but
when a boy walks down the aisle
in the church his diploma doesn’t
say the Classics Department or
the Science Department. It says,
St. Sebastian’s School. So,
although we have departments
because we need departments to
deliver an excellent program, we
don’t really tend to think that
much departmentally. We think
globally about what’s the best
education for this student. That’s
one of the beauties of this project. It isn’t just for a department. It’s
for the entire School.”
In The Classroom
Currently, Science classes have one day in the lab each week. The
other days, due to space restrictions, may find these classes meeting
in Religion, English, or Classics classrooms. The Math Department
is even further fragmented. While some classes are located in the
32 | ST. SEBASTIAN’S MAGAZINE Volume VI, Issue I