CISTERCIAN COLLEGE, Roscrea, Co Tipperary, is to appoint its first lay head of school. The position has been advertised publicly in Ireland and Britain, as well as internally in the college.

A lay person is being sought on the basis that it is unlikely that someone who has been head of a well regarded monastic secondary boarding school, and who has presided over its change to lay management, will be found.

The new head will be the chief executive officer of the college. He will have responsibility for all aspects of management "in the context of its commitment to its monastic ethos, traditions and adherence to the Catholic ethic".

The college is a seven-day boarding school for boys, founded in 1905, and today it is one of two monastic schools in the State, catering for about 300 students each year. It has a teaching and residential staff of over 50.

As part of a programme to enhance and extend facilities, a new block has just been completed at a cost of over £1.5 million. It will provide new boarding accommodation and sports changing rooms. A second development phase started at the beginning of the year.

Since 1990, under a new constitution, the administration of the college has been the responsibility of a board of governors.

The lay head job is a new executive position. Father Kevin Daly, the current president of the college, will be returning to the Mount Saint Joseph monastery next June. Father Daly himself attended Roscrea as a student, entered the monastery in 1959 and was ordained in 1965. He was named college president in 1984, and in 1990 was made secretary to the Cistercian College board of governors.

Further information and application forms are available from Laurence F Branigan, chairman of the board of governors, at 22 Lower Baggot Street, Dublin 2.