ACE Advocates News

Throughout Catholic Schools Week 2020, we'll be sharing some of our favorite Catholic Schools Week reflections that ACE graduates, team members, and friends have submitted over the years. The below reflection is from Deacon Nick Senger and was originally published in 2013. 

An empty Catholic school is a lonely place, and when students go home for the summer the atmosphere changes drastically. It's quieter, of course. There are no screaming kids at recess, no buzz of conversation down the halls, no tramping of feet before the beginning of daily Mass.

For 27 years, students have applied to ACE’s Teaching Fellows program from the comfort of their dorm rooms or the solitude of a campus library. Few have felt the call to become an ACE teacher while serving in the U.S. Armed Forces, but that is exactly where Ryan Hinton found himself in July of 2003.

ACE teachers wholeheartedly commit themselves to teaching, coaching school sports, and above all, sharing Christ’s love with their students. Dr. Max Engel has taken those attributes above and beyond to the college classroom – earning him recognition as the 2019 recipient of the Michael Pressley Award for a Promising Scholar in the Education Field.

What makes Catholic education distinctive?

This question has long intrigued Maura Shea, a member of ACE 18 (Plaquemine) and Catholic educator and writer.

“It’s a question I’m continually asking myself,” she says. “I realize more and more what a complicated question it is. We’re claiming that we’re doing something different, and I want us to be better able to articulate and understand that difference.”

Welcome to spACEs: An ACE Podcast Adventure! Our episodes feature stories about the unexpected things that happen to you and around—shared through a Catholic lens.