ACE Teaching Fellows

A White House initiative saluting educational excellence for Hispanics has announced its recognition of the innovative Notre Dame ACE Academies as a “Bright Spot in Hispanic Education.”

On December 12, 2008, the University of Notre Dame commissioned the Notre Dame Task Force on the Participation of Latino Children and Families in Catholic Schools. The purpose of this task force was to explore the issues surrounding the Latino achievement gap, the Catholic school advantage, and the demographic imperative to improve educational opportunities for Latinos. Seven years later, the University of Notre Dame and ACE are being recognized for closing the Latino achievement gap.

ACE’s widely respected model for strengthening and sustaining existing inner-city Catholic schools is listed in the White House’s just-published “Bright Spots in Hispanic Education National Online Catalog.” The catalog identifies enterprises “helping ensure the educational attainment for the country’s Hispanic community, from cradle to career.”

Notre Dame ACE Academies, an innovative model created by the University of Notre Dame’s Alliance for Catholic Education (ACE) has increased access to educational excellence for Latino students. Partnerships with eight Catholic elementary schools in the dioceses of Orlando, St. Petersburg, and Tucson are demonstrating academic gains; students have experienced significant growth in both math and reading achievement.

The White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanics published the online catalog listing more than 230 Bright Spots nationwide.

Rodney Pierre-Antoine, the Gary and Barbara Pasquinelli Family Director of the Notre Dame ACE Academies, said the Notre Dame ACE Academies initiative and all of ACE are honored to be recognized by the White House. “We’re blessed to be in partnerships with teachers, principals, and dioceses totally committed put Latino students—and students from every background—on the path to college and heaven,” he said.

Contact: Bill Schmitt  / 574.631.3893

May Stewart came to Notre Dame as an undergraduate three years ago after growing up in a sparse Louisiana landscape of, as she tells it, “plantations and churches.”

Thanks largely to ACE teachers at Ascension Catholic School in nearby Donaldsonville (population 7,000), her worldview and her sense of life’s possibilities grew, too. This prompted her to study at Notre Dame, May said—and to pursue an ACE internship preparing her to follow in her own teachers’ footsteps.

The junior, now earning a major in history and an Education, Schooling, and Society minor, wants to pass along her bolder, broader vision of hope and faith to the next generation. She’s already using extracurricular activities to exercise lessons she learned about compassion and service to those in need.

“I’m the evening child care coordinator at the Center for the Homeless downtown,” May said. “I feel like we students have a responsibility to the community of South Bend.”

Ascension Catholic, a preK-12 school located along the Mississippi River in the Diocese of Baton Rouge, helped build this awareness with help from ACE Teachers who have been commuting daily to the school for years from their home in Plaquemine, La.

May can recite a litany of ACE Teachers who changed her life, one-by-one, in different ways, spanning sixth grade through her senior year of high school.

“From early on, I clung to the ACE Teachers,” she said “I was always interested in meeting different people, and these teachers represented a world I didn’t ever get to see—until now.”

She encountered them as homeroom teachers and teachers of English and science, quiz-bowl leaders and sports coaches, or as confidants in after-school conversations about local, personal concerns or complex international issues. Such discussions were rare in this low-income area, in which few residents ever dreamed of colleges or jobs outside Louisiana, May said.

By seventh grade, May had made her college decision.

“I decided I was going to go to Notre Dame,” May said. “[One of my teachers was] very deep in her faith and incredibly smart, and I said, ‘that’s what I want to be.’ She was always so encouraging. All the ACE Teachers were just so excited to be in the classroom.”

ACE Teachers helped her in numerous ways, from transforming her writing to helping her plan her future.

“[One teacher] reassured me and encouraged me that I could actually go to Notre Dame, that this was a thing that actually could happen.”

Choir practices in the chapel allowed May to see one ACE Teacher regularly enter a pew and pray, a teacher who has now gone on to study for the priesthood.

“[ACE Teachers] emphasized the Catholic part of my education. I tried to emulate how important faith was to my ACE Teachers. It had to be what made them so awesome. I saw the value of the ACE Teachers to my school, as well as how much they influenced my life. That’s such a beautiful thing, and it’s something I would want to give to someone else in some capacity.”

The next plan comes naturally. May said she definitely wants to apply to be a part of ACE Teaching Fellows, perhaps starting with an internship during her senior year.

Is she concerned about where in the country she might be assigned if she were accepted? No, because an ACE Teacher at Ascension once addressed her fears that Notre Dame might not accept her application.

“She told me that God has a greater plan to find the right fit for me,” May said. “It’s not really about my plan all the time.”

Nothing is more important for the future of our nation and our Church than the quality of our schools, and nothing is more important for the quality of our schools than the formation of the next generation of teachers and school leaders.

In particular, Catholic schools need teachers with the talent, imagination, and zeal worthy of the children whom they serve - teachers who are willing to do whatever it takes to help change the future and unlock the full potential of every child in their care.

Become an ACE teacher. Lead the change.

The Alliance for Catholic Education (ACE) has announced the members of its newest cohort of teaching fellows – a group of ninety-five recent college graduates whose record of academic achievement, dedication to serving marginalized communities, and zeal for empowering children through Catholic schools was described by the Program’s founder, Fr. Tim Scully, CSC as “a truly extraordinary sign of hope.” Fr. Scully, who also serves as a Fellow of the University and a Professor of Political Science, notes that this class, ACE’s 21st, was selected from one of the most competitive applicant pools in the Program’s history.

ACE 21 includes graduates from colleges and universities throughout the United States and abroad, including Notre Dame, Georgetown, the University of Wisconsin, Ateneo de Manila University, New York University, and St. Patrick’s College of Dublin. Through their two-year teaching fellowship, each member will earn a fully-funded graduate degree from Notre Dame while serving as a classroom teacher in one of ACE’s partner schools and living in intentional community with other ACE teachers. ACE now partners with more than 100 Catholic schools serving marginalized populations in 31 cities throughout the country. Since the Program’s launch in 1993, ACE has formed more than 1,200 such teachers – approximately 70% remain in K–12 education, while others have gone on to successful careers in business, engineering, medicine, law, and the academy.

“The cornerstone of our work in ACE is forming talent – that is, supporting aspiring teachers and leaders with the aptitude, imagination, and zeal to help strengthen and transform Catholic schools and empower marginalized children” said John Schoenig, ACE’s Director of Teacher Formation and Education Policy. “We couldn’t be happier with this new group of ACE teachers. In so many ways, they represent precisely what we aspire to as a program."

This story is written by Mrs. Joanne Horne, who received the University of Notre Dame Sorin Award for Service to Catholic Schools during our National Bus Tour's visit in Denver. She is the grandmother of Meghan Hanzlik (ACE 13) and Gillian Hanzlik (ACE 18).

 The idea of the Ambassadors of Hope Program was sparked twelve years ago as I sat at a Seeds of Hope luncheon. Seeds of Hope is a charitable organization that funds over 1,000 disadvantaged children a year to attend a Catholic school in the Archdiocese of Denver, Colorado. 

As a proud grandmother of two ACE graduates, I have watched as the men and women of Seeds of Hope work tirelessly to raise money for this cause, and I thought there had to be something people of my age (50-80) could do.  What we have is time to donate.  With the help of the director of Seeds of Hope at that time, and our own St. Thomas More Parish, the idea of volunteering in these Catholic schools had its beginnings.

Twelve ladies from St. Thomas More visited St. Rose of Lima and St. Francis de Sales schools. We decided in one afternoon to send six of our group to St. Rose of Lima and six to St. Francis de Sales the following week as volunteers. Ambassadors of Hope was born!

Today, we have approximately 100 volunteers in seven of our area’s twelve inner-city and underprivileged schools!

We started with the idea that we would do anything the schools needed, and we have not wavered from this commitment.  Today we are librarians, teachers’ aides, math and reading tutors, office helpers, and anything else these schools need that we can provide!  Jeanne Courchene, who was principal at St. Rose of Lima when the Ambassadors began, says, “The Ambassadors of Hope are loving and caring and willing to do whatever is needed. They gave extra help to struggling students, graded papers, read to students, and in general became "Grandmas" in the classrooms.  The children loved the volunteers and were loved in return.  It's hard to say who benefited the most–the students or the volunteers. The program was a smashing success, and it didn't stop with classroom aides. These savvy volunteers saw other needs in each school and stepped up to solve them. St. Rose of Lima's beautiful library is the direct result of this program.”

We are there to serve and in “no way to be served.”   We have gained much! Of the original twelve volunteers, ten are still volunteering, while the other two have stopped only due to health constraints.  As Lee Murphy, one of the original twelve volunteers said, “I understand that the schools feel we are helping them, but no one can express how much these children, teachers and principals have done for us.  It is a wonderful feeling to know in our later years we still have something to give, which is our time and love to these dear children.”

Ambassadors of Hope costs nothing to join, for either the volunteers or the schools.  It is a win-win proposition!  We love the children and they love us, and we feel like we are doing something worthwhile in our later years for future generations. The only requirements needed are the love of the mission of Catholic schools and time. We are inspired and feel called to serve by the Gospel of Matthew 19:14:  “Let the children come to me, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.”

Seeds of Hope has estimated that our Ambassadors have provided over $250,000 of volunteer hours to these schools annually.  What these schools have provided to us in return is priceless! Find some volunteers, contact your local Catholic school, and Ambassadors of Hope can be serving your schools too!

Gillian Hanzlik (ACE 18) is currently a kindergarten teacher at St. Rose of Lima Catholic Academy in Denver. “The ambassadors are the perfect expression of St. Therese's 'small things with great love,'" she commented. "These volunteers are here to do anything we need, with the greatest love in their hearts for our children. Each ambassador is a blessing to our school.”

Photo: Educators Gillian Hanzlik (ACE 18) and Meghan Hanzlik (ACE 13) are granddaughters of Joanne Horne, our University of Notre Dame Sorin Award for Service to Catholic Schools winner. Horne is seen holding the award, in front of Father Lou DelFra, director for spiritual life in ACE.