ACE Teaching Fellows

Plenty of fans came to Notre Dame on the weekend of April 20-22 for a preview of next fall's Fighting Irish football season, but the annual Blue-Gold Game was hardly the only campus event introducing a mix of friends to a future of opportunity and teamwork.

This was the weekend of the traditional April Retreat hosted by ACE Teaching Fellows, the signature teacher-formation initiative of Notre Dame's Alliance for Catholic Education (ACE). Some 87 members of the recently selected ACE 19 cohort came to taste what it will be like to be an ACE teacher for the next two years.

"It's really the start of the whole ACE experience," says Chuck Lamphier, director of ACE Advocates, who remembers his own attendance at an April Retreat when he was a new member of ACE 10. The schedule of events is traditionally a dynamic mix of the three pillars of ACE formation—professional service, spiritual growth, and community life.

A highlight of the retreat focused on the ACE community that each new teacher will join in the diocese where he or she has been assigned to serve in a local Catholic school. Fellow members of ACE 19 who have been assigned to the same community, soon to be sharing a house and offering each other moral support in their formation, are introduced to each other.

The bonds of fellowship established at the retreat will extend through the two years of the ACE Teaching Fellows experience—and often for the rest of the community members' lives.

Additional important relationships were initiated over the weekend because participants also included superintendents and other leaders from the dioceses where the new ACE teachers will serve. No fewer than 46 diocesan and school administrators came to campus from all around the country to meet the ACE teachers they will be hosting and overseeing.

Tom Doyle, senior director of the ACE Teaching Fellows M.Ed. degree program, gave the ACE 19 newcomers an overview of the academic rigors set to start this summer.

Many of these ACErs are poised to receive their undergraduate degrees from the University of Notre Dame or Saint Mary's College this spring, just before they start their first ACE summer. But the cohort consists of graduates from over 40 different colleges and universities, including Dartmouth, Duke, Fordham, Gonzaga, Harvard, Marquette, and the Congregation of Holy Cross institutions St. Edward's University and King's College.

"Some ACE 19 members are entering their two-year commitment to ACE Teaching Fellows after a year or more of post-graduate international service," adds Sarah Greene, associate director in the ACE Teaching Fellows pastoral team. "Two came to the April retreat shortly after returning from post-graduate service-teaching in Japan and Korea, respectively. One is finishing a year of service in a medical clinic in Costa Rica, and one served with the Peace Corps in Benin. We also welcome two new ACE 19s from Ireland."

The April Retreat, which also offered opportunities for Mass and other prayer, ended on Sunday in time for many of the participants to head back to their usual Monday workload in various dioceses and schools. Whether they resided far away or elsewhere on campus, they closed their weekends better connected to ACE's past, present, and future.

Students entering grades 2 through 8 in the South Bend and Elkhart areas will have expanded opportunities this year to extend their learning into the summer months through a partnership of local Catholic schools and the University of Notre Dame's Alliance for Catholic Education (ACE).

The "Catholic Schools Summer Camp Educational Program," co-sponsored by the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend and ACE, will offer day camp-like learning experiences at five schools—two more than last summer. Students are being invited to register at St. Jude Elementary School in South Bend and at St. Vincent de Paul School in Elkhart, in addition to last year's lineup of South Bend schools: St. Adalbert, St. Anthony de Padua, and Our Lady of Hungary.

Each school will offer two sessions, one spanning three weeks in June and the other spanning three weeks in July. Different grades will have different focus areas, generally covering math or language arts. The sessions are mornings only.

Registration for the sessions is open to students from all schools and backgrounds, with one entire session costing $80 and both sessions costing $150. There are discounts for registration by May 7, and financial aid is available. Information about financial assistance comes from the individual school where a student is enrolling.

In addition to these sessions, the partnership is again offering its "Catholic Schools Summer Science Educational Program," which is specifically for students entering 6th, 7th, and 8th grades. This program also offers June and July sessions but is based at Christ the King School in South Bend.

The morning sessions in June will emphasize ecology and life sciences. The sessions in July will feature forensics and early engineering concepts. Lab periods are built in, with lots of hands-on learning. Student experiences will include building a roller coaster, launching your own rocket, and growing your own plants.

Registration costs for the science program are the same as for the broader educational program.
More information and a downloadable registration card for the general camp program are available at http://ace.nd.edu/summercamp. You can also contact Caitlin Cameron of ACE at 574-631-9332.

The Alliance for Catholic Education forms college graduates to be teachers serving in Catholic schools around the country. These teachers in formation, studying at Notre Dame during the summer as part of the highly selective ACE Teaching Fellows program, serve alongside current Catholic school teachers to lead the summer camp experiences, yielding an optimal teacher-student ratio and frequent individual instruction.

Over the past three summers, ACE Summer Camp Programs have served more than 1,100 students in the greater South Bend area.

America's K-12 schools, both public and Catholic, are in crisis, said NYU historian and education scholar Diane Ravitch in an April 10 address at the University of Notre Dame. But she pointed out that both have their enduring strengths, and she warned against some of the most popular solutions being proposed to their current problems.

Ravitch, whose talk entitled "Is There a Crisis in Public Education?" was part of the year-long "Notre Dame Forum" series exploring issues in K-12 education, expanded on the arguments in her best-selling book, The Death and Life of the Great American School System.

Pointing out that public education has come under sharp attack by a movement pushing privatization and free-market disciplines for schools and "de-professionalization" for teachers, Ravitch acknowledged that schools need to solve a range of problems today. But "they are not declining and they are not failing."

The Alliance for Catholic Education (ACE) is honored to be part of the career stories of three educators who were saluted by the White House on Jan. 25 as "Champions of Change." A fourth educator who was spotlighted is another supporter of ACE, as seen in the formation for leaders in her diocese. ACE is pleased to join in thanking all ten of the champions of Catholic education who were spotlighted in the Washington, D.C., ceremony. They share in ACE's commitment to offer all young people, especially the disadvantaged, the opportunity for a high-quality Catholic education.

Among the honorees was Joseph Womac, a graduate of ACE’s ACE Teaching Fellows program. In recent years, he has served as executive director of the Fulcrum Foundation, a Seattle-based organization whose fund-raising has helped more than 10,000 low income students attend Catholic schools.

Sister Rosa Maria Ruiz, C.F.M.M., superintendent of schools for the Diocese of Tucson in Arizona, was also one of the honorees. She noted that her purview includes an in-depth partnership with the Notre Dame ACE Academy initiative, in which ACE and Notre Dame are working with local educators to strengthen three diocesan schools.

A third honoree was Yvonne Schwab, principal of St. James the Less Catholic School in Columbus, Ohio.  As the White House press release noted, “Mrs. Schwab and her staff have worked closely with the University of Notre Dame’s Alliance for Catholic Education. This connection has provided the staff with necessary training for the new population” of her school, which is largely Latino. A recent news story posted at ACE’s website described the school’s adoption of ideas from the ACE Catholic School Advantage campaign.

Annette "Mickey" Lentz is chancellor of the Archdiocese of Indianapolis. Among the steps leading to success in this honoree's schools, the Archdiocese has built partnerships with higher education institutions to help teachers earn advanced degrees. "Reflecting Mickey's ardent support of ACE, her archdiocese has sent more candidates to the Mary Ann Remick Leadership Program (RLP) —preparation for a principal's duties and other leadership roles—than any other diocese," said Rev. Ronald Nuzzi, senior director of the RLP.

The salute to the ten educators included individual comments and panel presentations giving voice to the honorees' love for Catholic education. Womac, in his reflection, said that preserving the American dream for millions of American families involves preserving Catholic education.

"I saw this first-hand teaching in Catholic schools in Louisiana as a part of the University of Notre Dame's service program, the Alliance for Catholic Education," Womac told the White House audience. "I see it first-hand every day at work in the hopeful lives of thousands of students attending school with Fulcrum's assistance."