On the scorching summer afternoon of July 24, 2022, Boston College welcomed high school students for its first Ever to Excel in three years. Not only was it the first Ever to Excel post-COVID-19, but it was the first time ever that the program would run for two sessions. With director James Thibodeau, assistant director Elizabeth Campbell, and graduate assistant Matt Davis at the helm, undergraduate mentors spent the weekend prior preparing for the imminent arrival of students from across the world. The most-asked questions from mentors, students, and parents were, “So, what is Ever to Excel? What are we going to do here?”
Ever to Excel is based on the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola, and is the brainchild of Fr. Casey Beaumier, S.J., Karen Kiefer, the Church in the 21st Century (C21) Center, and the Institute for Advanced Jesuit Studies. The program first ran in the summer of 2018. The unexpected success that followed was a welcome surprise, and the team was determined to keep its momentum going. The mission of the program, as per its website, is to help students “discover new interests, deepen [their] faith, make friends from all over the world, and have fun,” all while experiencing much of what Boston College has to offer as a Jesuit, Catholic university.
The day-to-day experience of the program included early wake-ups (often accompanied by a small army of mentors carrying iced coffees from Dunkin’ Donuts), meals together, small group discussions, lawn games, group activities, the occasional off-campus outing or concert, and guest talks from Boston College Jesuits, alumni, staff, program directors, and others with a story to tell. Every day, no matter the schedule, the group ended with a candlelight Mass together—sometimes in the basement of St. Ignatius Church on Lower Campus, and other times in front of the St. Ignatius statue outside Higgins Hall. St. Ignatius is clearly a figurehead for the program—the Spiritual Exercises he created and Jesuit values form the basis of nearly every activity that happens during the course of the week. The default answer to the questions about what the program was eventually became, for many of the mentors, something along the lines of “a cross between a spiritual retreat and summer camp.” Between water balloon fights, reflections, trips into Boston, and deep discussions about personal experiences, the program certainly seems to live up to that designation.
Ever to Excel has attracted high school students from across the United States, Ireland, and Japan with varying levels of understanding of the program’s outline, but, as Fr. Casey and Kiefer often reminded mentors this summer, by the program’s end it had them hooked. There were several mentors this summer, including Alice O’Connell, MCAS ‘24, who participated as high school students in the first years of the program and returned in the mentor role. O’Connell treasures the “beautiful discoveries” she made about herself and her relationship with her faith at Ever to Excel as a high schooler, and “wanted to give those back … as a mentor.”
The mentors formed an unbreakable bond with each other and the participants over the course of each week, and many felt that they had received and learned just as much from the students as they had hoped to give them. James Thibodeau, the new director of the program, saw and felt this himself, saying that he was “able to witness how Christ worked” in the lives of the students and mentors through the undergraduates, and that he “[hopes this] has a lasting positive impact on both the … participants and the … mentors.”
During mentor orientation, Fr. Casey told the group that everyone should come out of the program with more questions than they had before. However, he said, they could not just be ordinary questions. They had to be questions concerning how human beings can live better lives, how we can better learn to be people for others, and how we can connect with our own faith.
Elizabeth Campbell, the assistant director of the program, noted that throughout each week, “[staff] watched [the participants] cultivate an authentic community of friends and mentors to explore their important life questions with,” which is exactly what the creators of Ever to Excel were hoping for when they started it. Not only did each week explore life’s big questions, but it brought people from all over the world together with a bond that cannot be forged anywhere else. The bonds formed at Ever to Excel are forged by agapic love and held together by a collective desire to love the people and the world around oneself, all while constantly looking to find the answer of how to live a better life. Ever to Excel has far surpassed all initial expectations about the breadth and impact of the program, and its love, genuineness, and faith are certain to continue in the two sessions scheduled for the summer of 2023.
- Ever to Excel: BC’s Best Kept Secret Returns - September 29, 2022