Barbara Howard: This is All Things Considered, I’m Barbara Howard. For the first time in its 154-year history, the all-boys Boston College High School has chosen a woman, Grace Cotter Regan, as president. She replaces William Comesa, who is retiring. For five years, Cotter Regan has been head of school at St. Mary's, a coed middle and high school in Lynn, and she has earlier administrative experience in the nonprofit sector. She was both an undergraduate and a graduate student at Boston College. Cotter Regan joins us in the studio. Thanks for coming in.

Grace Cotter Regan: Thank you for having me.

BH: Your last name, Cotter, will be familiar to many alumni of Boston College High School. Your father, Jim Cotter, he was a football coach and athletic director at the school for what, about 40 years? Is that about right?

GCR: Forty one years.

BH: OK. Well, we spoke with alumnus Tom Kenza of Newton. He played football for your dad and he says that while your credentials do speak for themselves, it sure doesn't hurt to be a Cotter.

(Tom Kenza on tape)

Tom Kenza: “Her family legacy is going to make anyone who doesn't know her or maybe might not have been as open to a woman … because the fact that she's Jim Cotter’s daughter, I think everyone's going to trust her believe that she has BC High in her blood and will do the right thing for it.”

BH: And your father, of course, is not the only connection you have to Boston College High School. Your father in law was a student there. Your son, also?

GCR: Bartley, he graduated in 2012.

BH: OK, so given all these connections, are you at all worried about the alumni? Because quite a few alumni and some parents last spring were very outspoken against a proposal that was later scrapped to admit girls to this all-boys school, Boston College High School. Are you worried about that at all?

GCR: No, I'm actually not. I have a long, storied history with BC High. I literally was born the day my father started there in academics, Sept. 8 1960. So I have had 57 — close to 57 years of relationships with alumni, parents and friends. And I think we have credibility in our history and our legacy there. And my dad was very open about the school in the mission and I'm really committed to the mission of single-sex education at BC High. And that's what the board wants right now.

BH: The idea of admitting girls was floated as a possible answer to steeply declining enrollments according to the Boston Globe. BC High expected 280 new students this fall. Last fall the number was 336. So without going coed, how do you plan to deal with these kinds of declines?

GCR: Well, it's interesting. As a leader of a Catholic school in Lynn right now, we have exactly the same conversations at the board level. How do you keep a school in Lynn or Dorchester relevant? What's the draw to a Catholic or a Jesuit Catholic education? And I think all of the schools have to ask those questions, and you'd be irresponsible not to ask what does BC High or St. Mary's Lynn look like in 2025.

BH: Cardinal O'Malley reportedly was said to have been worried about going coed at B.C. High School, worrying about what it would do to the Catholic all-girls schools in the area. What do you think?

GCR: Well, I think he's right to worry on the one hand, but I do think the conversation is not around coed. I think it's around collaboration. So I think in a collaborative spirit, all of the schools are going to have some conversations over the next few years, because not everyone is going to survive and a lot of schools are struggling with economic issues. So I think no matter what, there's a bigger conversation, I think, in the archdiocese around what does Catholic education look like for Boston and for the Archdiocese of Boston.

BH: Well, after the pushback from alumni and from many of the parents, the idea of going coed was quickly abandoned and there were lots of resignations, then, on the board — including the president, John McQuillan, who had floated the original idea. Now the board — it once numbered about three dozen people, and looking at your web site, it looks like it's fewer than a dozen today. Is that a problem?

GCR: While that happened, I think it's going to be a really good thing for BC High, and I will tell you, as someone who's in the field, many schools looked at that and kind of stepped back and looked at their own governance. So actually, I think it's going to be a good thing.

BH: Well, have you had any chance to reach out to any of the board members who resigned or, of course, Mr. McQuillan, who had floated this idea of making it coed to try to mend the rift? I think there were some sore feelings.

GCR: There are a lot of people who are — just need to be heard. I think people kind of got divided, and in my mind, they lost sight of the mission. And that's not a criticism, but I think when you get passionate about something, sometimes you can lose sight of the real work at BC High. And I think that's one of my gifts, I think I can bring people back to the table and have those hard conversations. We may agree to disagree, but it's going to be exciting.

BH: Well the school you're leaving, St. Mary's of Lynn, is coed. I'd love to hear your thoughts on coed versus single-sex education, because you're going now to an all-boys school.

GCR: Well it's interesting, you know, I'm a product of single-sex education. I went to Notre Dame Academy in Hingham. Both of my boys are single-sex educated, they went to BC High and St. Sebastian’s, and my husband went to Catholic Memorial, so we’re all single-sex education folks. Working at a coed school, I see the benefits of both. I love the single-sex model, I really do. I have loved my experience at St. Mary's. All of the models have their own set of complications with students, and I actually have experienced the beauty as a parent of a BC High education. I think my son really developed as a young man, and I really value what we have at BC High.

BH: So you don't see yourself revisiting the question of going coed?

GCR: I would say that's a board decision, but I think we're committed right now — I know we're committed — to being a single-sex education opportunity for students, for young men in the city of Boston the greater surrounding area.

BH: Given the alumni backlash against admitting girls, do you have any concerns about being the first woman to head Boston College High School from the alumni, or the parents or the students?

GCR: I think that there will be, or there has been, a little bit, a perception of ‘It’s a woman. She's going to take it coed.’ That is not the intention. I think I'm a great leader and my leadership is collaborative. It's distributive. I listen to people from an alumni perspective. I don't think being a woman is going to be a problem. I mean, I've had a very successful career in very difficult conversations, in difficult roles, being often a change agent. Not that I'm planning to be a change agent at BC High, but I will continue the conversation about what does BC High look like in 10 or 15 years.

BH: And that could mean coed, you’d entertain that if it came up?

GCR: If the board and the school, with the right model, decided that's the way to go, then, of course, I mean whether you're a university or high school, you're going to have those conversations. But for the time being, we're a single-sex boy’s school.

BH: There's been criticism of lack of diversity among the board of trustees, and looking at the web page, to my eye, it looks like it's mainly white males. Is that a problem?

GCR: I think it's an opportunity. So I think that that will be a priority for me and for the board to look at who we need in terms of talents, that we should reflect the diversity of our school, which is important to us, and to add some women and persons of color. I think that's critical.

BH: OK, thank you for coming in.

GCR: Thank you for having me.

BH: That's Grace Cotter Regan of West Roxbury, named as the first woman president in the history of Boston College High School, which is 154 years-old. This is All Things Considered.