Personal Counseling

It is our mission to guide each student in the formation of his whole self, and to facilitate the development of his God-given talents and a deepening of his personal faith so that he might live joyously and in gratitude, justly and with humility, as he makes his journey with God.

Bellarmine’s Personal Counselors advise and guide the academic, personal and early college admission planning for their counselees during their first three years at Bellarmine. Assigned in the freshman year, counselors develop a personal relationship with their students in order to more effectively advise and guide them as they navigate their teen years and the college preparatory curriculum. Counselors also work closely with Bellarmine parents to facilitate the maturation process of their sons and to guide the parents through challenges of college preparatory requirements.

Within the Jesuit tradition, students are guided and supported in finding their own unique path toward living their lives as men of conscience, integrity and character. We are determined to support our students through a collaboration of educational professionals whose goal is to develop young men who will be happy and effective adults in the wider world community.

In the second semester of the junior year, students are assigned to a College Counselor who guides the student and his family through the processes of college search, college application and matriculation from Bellarmine. 

Counselor's Profiles

The Bellarmine Counseling Department is staffed with six counselors who have an average of more than twenty years working with Bellarmine students. With our experience both as Bellarmine parents and Bellarmine counselors, we are in a unique position to understand, guide and empathize with the young men who spend four years here.

Because of our personal experiences and our formal training in counseling-psychology, our counseling staff is knowledgeable about adolescent development and the many challenges that arise during this phase. We see and understand how our boys negotiate their way through the different stages of their development as they simultaneously go through freshman, sophomore, junior and senior years at Bellarmine. Each counselor remains with their respective counseling group for the entire four years, allowing for a personal relationship to develop where students feel free to discuss the unique academic and personal challenges of each year.

Each of the counselors also has wide-ranging involvement with our boys in all important areas of school life.

• Bellarmine counselors teach sophomore P.E. classes on the topics of Drugs and Alcohol and Human Sexuality.
• Each counselor has spent significant time moderating or coaching sports or other activities during our time here.
• All of us have gone on retreats with the boys; a number of us have gone on immersion trips with them as well.
• All of us are regular fixtures at school events such as games, plays, robotics tournaments, speech tournaments, etc.

Our know-how in all of these different facets of school life gives us, as counselors, an exceptional opportunity to know, appreciate and hopefully enhance the experience of our Bellarmine students. We are their advocates and their allies. We know when to lend a sympathetic ear and when to engage them in a “reality check” type of conversation.