Principal 1974

Br Kevin Roland Tuck was appointed Principal in 1974.

Br Tuck was born in Warrnambool and attended the Christian Brothers' School there before investigating the Brothers' life at Strathfield. He completed his novitate and teacher training in New South Wales and was then posted back to Victoria, where he attended the University of Melbourne. He combined full time teaching and sports coaching with evening studies at the University. By his own admission, he was too involved in sport, so he dropped out of University and went to St Patrick's Boarding College at Ballarat for ten years, where he got all the sport he could imagine and more.

He was appointed first Principal of Trinity College in Colac in 1966 where he served for three years. Then he was ready for what he described as "real study" and he completed two years of part time study at Monash Univerisity while at Aquinas College Ringwood. He graduated after two more years of full time study before becoming Principal at St Joseph's.

His first impression was that St Joseph's was a large, but friendly, ethnically diverse and admirably family oriented school. Students were more easygoing than he was used to after experiencing more regimented activity in Ballarat, he found it testing when some of his ideas were challenged at St Joseph's. With the decline of in numbers of Christian Brothers, more lay-teachers were appointed to the College, that combined with the government funding changes saw some challenging changes to the College. Br Tuck also urged that 'a more disciplined approach in the teaching of basic skills and homework testing wold develop a confidence in students that would motivate them to better achievement'.

Community service ranked high on Br Tuck's agenda, after the fall of Saigon in 1975, St Joseph's students sponsored several Vietnamese refugees, an unusual project in such troubled times.

When the College reached its 20th Century high of 900 students, Br Tuck became concerned. In his view the school was too big, being more concerned with quality rather than quantity, he declared a policy to reduce class sizes, however the school still experienced growth with the completion of the new Brothers House and Administration building and the extensive refurbishment of facilities.

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