ACE Teaching Fellows

It was a Wednesday. At school. Last period. 

As the students entering her classroom were commiserating over the news that the NCAA Tournament had just been canceled, Fiona Williams (ACE 26 - Jacksonville) was trying to process an email from Notre Dame that said campus would be closing down for the foreseeable future. 

“Never underestimate the power of the Notre Dame family.”

That’s how Reagan Mulqueen '20 began to describe the capstone project for her sustainability minor at Denver’s Assumption Catholic School, an elementary school located 1,076 miles from campus.

“My job is to help your children become saints.”

Several times over the past 12 years, Kelly Foyle has stood in front of Catholic school families and offered these words on Back-to-School Night. 

Kelly has made this declaration as an elementary teacher, a middle school teacher, a campus minister, and a school leader. She has stated it in a classroom at St. John Vianney School in Goodyear, Arizona; the cafeteria at Immaculate Conception-St. Joseph School in Chicago’s Old Town neighborhood; and in the gymnasium at St. Barnabas School on Chicago’s South Side. No matter where she serves or what her role happens to be, the goal remains the same: help kids become saints. 

The University of Notre Dame’s Alliance for Catholic Education (ACE) will hold its first virtual commencement ceremony on Saturday (July 11).

With large gatherings limited because of the threat of coronavirus, the ceremony will be streamed at 3 p.m. on ace.nd.edu/commencement. The ceremony will feature short remarks from Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C., the president of Notre Dame.

Two graduating Teaching Fellows from the Alliance for Catholic Education have been awarded Fulbright grants. Alexis Larios and Meghan Santella will be English teaching assistants abroad during the 2020-2021 academic year.