ACE Teaching Fellows

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. 

Katie Ward, a Notre Dame senior and future member of ACE 26, was recently awarded the 2019 Frabutt Prize for Outstanding Community-Based Research in recognition of her research on the intersection of Catholic identity and Native spirituality in three Native American Catholic schools.

Ward, an Education, Schooling and Society (ESS) minor, traces her interest in Native American education as far back as high school, during which she spent a week in an experiential learning course at Red Cloud Indian School in South Dakota. Her experiences in the third-grade classroom began to shape her academic interest in Native American education systems.

Take it from someone who knows–Kevin Donohue (ACE 17, LA South Central), who appeared
last week on the famed television quiz show hosted for over 30 years by the inimitable
Alex Trebek.

Rob Smith passed away on April 14 after a two-year battle with cancer. Rob was deeply committed to service, and he left a promising engineering career to join ACE as part of our 11^th cohort. Rob was a member of the Los Angeles East community, and he taught at Cantwell-Sacred Heart of Mary High School.

Mystery . . . clues . . . suspense . . . riddles . . . decipher . . . unlock . . . success.

Who knew math could be so intriguing?

“I’ve noticed sometimes students in class lack a little bit of motivation or excitement toward math specifically. They know it’s important, but it’s hard for them to get too excited about it,” says AmeriCorps member Thomas Clark (ACE 25, Jacksonville). “That’s where I got the idea of an escape room.”