For many businesses and organizations, slogans are simple taglines or stated goals to shoot for.

For Marquette University High School, the words “Faith, Scholarship and Community” are truly active and alive in the deep connections God forms between himself and the students who attend, and the connections he molds between them.

MUHS Vice President of Communications and Marketing Tim Cigelske says that at the 167-year-old all-boys school, they call it a genuine “brotherhood.”

“It just creates a unique environment where we can teach to the unique sort of needs, temperaments, styles of young men and really mold and shape them as they go from boys to young men and future leaders, just really finding themselves,” he said.

The “faith” part of the school’s three-word phrase comes alive through the Jesuit school’s programs of three, often life-changing, retreats that include Kairos for upperclassmen, and through powerful service experiences like Senior Shared Life — a two-week service commitment throughout the city.

But it also comes through many other methods, including theology program with educators far beyond the standard.

“Our theology department chair, Tom Jackson, was actually named one of the Catholic Educators of the Year from the Archdiocese. He’s a Harvard-educated theologian who really brings thoughtfulness,” said Cigelske.

“He just really draws these questions of faith, and discussions of faith.”

These same young men apply the same challenging scholarship across the academic board, with six National Merit finalists, continual accolades for the school’s Advanced Placement program and the kind of students who discover how to integrate excellence into all they do.

“Our valedictorian last year, Jude Ballinger, is a captain of the rugby team, a state champion in rugby and football, a select national football scholars team member, and he qualified to attend the Naval Academy this year,” said Cigelske.

God forms these young individuals’ minds, and forms them to know him, through community — a broad and richly diverse community.

“We’re just becoming a melting pot of greater Milwaukee,” he said about the school whose population is 75 percent Catholic and 40 percent students of color. “There’s not many institutions in Milwaukee, maybe even in the state, that pull so many people from so many different walks of life.”

He says Marquette High molds these individuals into a community with incredible bonds. As he puts it, “brothers for life.”