News

A “running of the green” as part of South Bend’s recent celebration of St. Patrick’s Day brought new financial support--and media attention--to the work of Play Like a Champion Today ®, an initiative of Notre Dame’s Alliance for Catholic Education.

An inaugural “Leprechaun Chase on the Race” 5K run held on March 16 helped raise money for Play Like a Champion Today’s work with coaches, parents, and school administrators around the country, helping to promote students’ character development through sports.

The participation of more than 150 runners assisted the “Champions for Children” efforts that make youth sports accessible to underprivileged children around the country.

The route of the race followed the St. Joseph River and the East Race as they flow through downtown South Bend.

TV coverage of the race can be found at:

http://www.wsbt.com/videogallery/74865172/News/Michiana-celebrates-St-Patrick-s-Day

http://www.wndu.com/home/headlines/South-Bend-celebrates-St-Patricks-Day-all-weekend-long-198603921.html

http://www.wndu.com/home/headlines/Downtown-St-Patricks-Day-parade-fun-for-all-198616301.html

Video update: Tony Hollowell reading March 12 at the Conclave Mass.

Audio update: Hollowell interviewed March 14 on Son Rise Morning Show.

An ACE graduate who has pursued a new vocational path, that of seminarian, was privileged to participate in the Conclave Mass this week that was an important step toward electing Pope Francis.

When the Catholic Church’s College of Cardinals assembled on Tuesday for the task of electing the next Pope, they began with Mass, and Tony Hollowell—seminarian, Notre Dame alumnus, and former Alliance for Catholic Education (ACE) teacher—served as lector, reading a passage from Isaiah.

Tony, who graduated from Notre Dame in 2004 and again in 2006 when he received his M. Ed. degree from ACE after teaching in a Catholic school in the Diocese of Biloxi, Miss., has been studying for the priesthood in Rome. As reported in The Indianapolis Star, he was selected to ed to read the first reading at the March 12 Mass for the Election of the Pontiff.

ACE congratulates this prayerful student and bold supporter of Catholic education. For more details of his past adventures as a teacher and cross-country cyclist, see Notre Dame Magazine’s story about him, plus a new reflection about Tony's journey provided by Catholic journalist Sean Gallagher. 

                Media have turned their attention to the Alliance for Catholic Education recently in writing and referencing stories and commentaries that reflect hope for Catholic schools.

                The Catholic School Advantage campaign, in which ACE is partnering with dioceses to help increase Latino enrollments, was featured Feb. 28, 2013, not only in the Washington Post “On Faith” section, but at Religion News Service online, as well..

                John Schoenig, director of ACE’s Program for K-12 Educational Access, was quoted in a “State Impact” story aired on National Public Radio stations in Indiana, as he helped a reporter explore implications of Indiana school voucher policies.

                Rev. Ronald Nuzzi, senior director of ACE’s Mary Ann Remick Leadership Program, wrote a reflection in late February on Pope Benedict’s support for U.S. Catholic schools. That reflection was linked by the Catholic School Chronicle blog, Sam Rocha’s Patheos Catholic blog, and National Catholic Reporter’s morning briefing.

The Year of Faith is a celebration of our calling to follow Christ and our journey to know Jesus better through our commitment, as the ACE community, in Catholic schools. We pray that we'll learn to find Jesus in the ordinary moments of our lives.

We can start by walking with Jesus in extraordinary moments of his life—as he approached his passion and death. We will hear details of those moments proclaimed from Luke's Gospel on Palm Sunday and John's Gospel on Good Friday. These details are central events in salvation history. They're a powerful way to connect to Jesus.

An ACE teacher tells the story about his first year of teaching. He had been successful throughout his life. He had a life plan that would continue to bring him success. But during senior year of college, he began thinking that it would be good to step away from his studies and do service for a year or two. He learned about ACE, applied, and was accepted to teach middle school.

He never thought he would have a problem; he had always done well in tasks he undertook. After all, how could middle school students not accept him? He was confident—until he started teaching. Soon he began to think he was a failure. He dreaded going to school every day because he just knew it would be another miserable day. This went on for a couple of months. Everyone knew there was something wrong, but he never asked for help. He was in complete denial that he was not doing well. But deep down, he did not know how he would survive.

The turning point came on the worst day of his teaching career. Everyone had left the classroom; he stood up to leave and noticed the cross on the wall. He looked at it and began to cry. He thought about how he was called to be successful and do well, and he was "a failure." He stood looking at the cross, and his mentor teacher happened to walk into the room. He was embarrassed that he was crying, but in this vulnerable state he asked, "Why has God left me alone when I needed him most?"

His mentor said to him, "Look at the cross." When she said this, the ACE teacher realized the most important lesson he would ever learn. He was being called to carry the cross with Jesus.

The cross reminds us of the greatest love ever known. The cross is the way to a deeper relationship with Jesus. It enables us to accept what is going on in our lives. Our suffering is what brings us to the foot of the cross. We need to take some time to reflect on our sufferings and see the invitation to embrace the cross.

The rest of Lent and Holy Week is our opportunity to connect our lives with the passion and death of Jesus. Let us say yes to being "there when they crucified the Lord." In doing so, may we discover "amazing grace"!

Since thousands of Catholic schools around the United States have closed in recent decades, scholars at the University of Notre Dame’s Alliance for Catholic Education (ACE) are asking a difficult but important follow-up question: What is being done with all those vacated buildings?

The goal is to manage those important assets in a way that bolsters existing schools, according to a new book published by those scholars. Led by Catholic schools expert Rev. Ronald Nuzzi, Ph.D., senior director of the Mary Ann Remick Leadership Program in the University of Notre Dame’s Alliance for Catholic Education (ACE), the authors provide informed, common-sense guidance to dioceses for whom the legacy of vacant schools causes management dilemmas.

Building Assets: The Strategic Use of Closed Catholic Schools is an unprecedented aid for diocesan leaders exercising careful stewardship for the schools of yesterday and tomorrow, strengthening Catholic education as an instrument of the new evangelization. Leaders need to determine whether to lease or sell vacated assets, for example, and whether the new tenants, such as charter schools, risk making other local Catholic schools less sustainable.

"This book reveals the first major step in answering questions that have grown in urgency as the number of Catholic schools in the U.S. has sadly and sharply declined,” says Father Nuzzi. “Today’s decisions about re-purposing former schools need to take into account the Church’s overall mission, the diocese’s educational goals, and the unique circumstances of each location.”

Nuzzi and co-authors Jim Frabutt, Ph.D., and Anthony Holter, Ph.D., uncover statistics that could be representative of nationwide trends—and missed opportunities—worthy of consideration by supporters of Catholic education. The number of U.S. Catholic schools peaked at 13,292 in 1965 and was nearly cut in half by 2010, when it totaled 7,094       

The book, just released by ACE Press, reports the results of an unprecedented study that focused on ten Catholic archdioceses and dioceses. In these areas that had suffered significant closures between 1965 and 2010, only 25% of the former school facilities had been sold. Even more notably, 24% of the facilities were designated as “unknown,” meaning that diocesan officials could not verify or produce valid information regarding the current status of buildings listed in their prospectus of sites. Many assets, as the authors put it, have fallen “off the radar.”

Findings like this were made possible through surveys with which diocesan officials generously cooperated, but they also emerged from a complex investigatory process. Research for this book drew upon multiple information sources, including publicly available directory listings as well as numerous interviews and site visits around the country.