STEAM Program Coming to Belen
The Belen Jesuit Preparatory School administration is proud to announce the implementation of a Science, Technology, Engineering, the Arts and Mathematics (STEAM) program.
Belen Jesuit is committed to the Ignatian tradition of excellence, the magis, and striving to have the premier academic middle and high school programs in the region. Working towards the strategic vision of the school and in keeping with these traditions, Belen Jesuit will continue to prepare its students to be engaged citizens of an ever-changing and diverse world. It will invest in an environment that provides its students with rigorous, forward-looking academic programs, first-rate facilities and expert faculty.
“The school will provide students with the opportunity to take courses in a STEAM-based curriculum. Through a hands-on learning environment our students will become self-reliant, logical thinkers who can carry these skills into the real world,” said school Principal Mr. Jose E. Roca ’84.
The STEAM program will be funded, in part, by a generous $1.5 million-dollar gift made by The Goizueta Foundation. “The Goizueta family and Belen have been intertwined for nearly seven decades, beginning with Roberto Goizueta who graduated from El Colegio de Belén in 1949. His career led him to build up Coca-Cola and turned it into one of the most recognizable brands in the world. Through it all, he never forgot his alma mater,” said school President Jesuit Father Willie Garcia-Tuñon ’87. “Goizueta was very generous to our school. He made our gymnasium possible and established the Goizueta Scholars Program. Even in death, with The Goizueta Foundation, his commitment continues. This new gift will help implement the vision for Belen’s future and echo Goizueta’s love for Belen and commitment to a great education.”
“My father’s lifelong love of learning, which was fostered while a student at Belen, is reflected in the grantmaking of The Goizueta Foundation,” said Board Chair and CEO Olga Goizueta Rawls. “It is our hope that this grant will help today’s Belen students discover that same thirst for knowledge that my father embraced.”
The STEAM program will find a home on the second floor of The Roberto Goizueta Athletic Center, where the coaches’ offices, training room, wrestling room, and weight room are currently located. The new area will be renamed The Goizueta Center, with construction anticipated to begin during the summer of 2019.
In the near future, the Belen Jesuit STEAM team will be visiting schools with established STEAM programs to gather best practices. The alumni of the school will be surveyed to gather data on STEAM-related career opportunities within the Alumni network. Established organizations, like Project Lead the Way, Code.org, and the AP College Board, will be used to provide structure to the establishment of a STEAM curriculum.
BELEN JESUIT PREPARATORY SCHOOL
500 SW 127th Avenue, Miami, FL 33184
phone: 305.223.8600 | fax: 305.227.2565 | email: webmaster@belenjesuit.org
500 SW 127th Avenue, Miami, FL 33184
phone: 305.223.8600 | fax: 305.227.2565 | email: webmaster@belenjesuit.org
Belen Jesuit Preparatory School was founded in 1854 in Havana, Cuba by Queen Isabel II of Spain. The task of educating students was assigned to the priests and brothers of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits), whose teaching tradition is synonymous with academic excellence and spiritual discipline. In 1961, the new political regime of Cuba confiscated the School property and expelled the Jesuit faculty. The School was re-established in Miami the same year, and over the next decade, continued to grow. Today, Belen Jesuit sits on a 30-acre site in western Dade County, only minutes away from downtown Miami.