News

John Staud, ACE's Senior Director for Pastoral Formation and Administration, offered a fast-paced, wide-ranging introduction to the Alliance for Catholic Education on WNIT-TV's "Experience Michiana" show Wednesday, July 18. You can go to the archived video of the show and advance to the ACE segment about nine minutes into the show.

Just a reminder that "Experience Michiana" has hosted ACE and Institute for Educational Initiatives leaders a couple of other times in the past several weeks. ClarkPower, director of Play Like a Champion Today, talked about the Play Like a Champion hosted conference on character-building in sports. Karen Morris, who directs the IEI's program bolstering Advanced Placement science and math courses, talked about the recent STEM teaching conference.

ACE’s Commencement exercises, held Saturday July 14, can be seen on You Tube at http://youtu.be/WeNdBPeF86A. You can check out a news story describing the event and a Notre Dame Magazine blog talking more about our Commencement speaker Dr. Teresa Sullivan, President of the University of Virginia. 

Catholic school principals and diocesan school superintendents from around the country came to Notre Dame's campus in late June to probe strategies and leadership techniques for strengthening their respective schools.

Approximately 65 participants in the annual Principals Academy (June 25-59) and nearly 30 participants in the annual Superintendents Conference (June 24-27) engaged with speakers and participated in discussions, hosted by ACE Consulting, a unit of the Alliance for Catholic Education (ACE). Attendees represented arch/dioceses as widely dispersed as Brooklyn and Los Angeles, Milwaukee and Palm Beach.

"We gathered to study, pray, and learn together," said Stephen Perla, senior director of ACE Consulting. Principal Academy presentations focused on serving students more effectively by building a "culture of continuous improvement" based on explicit root beliefs, an animating principle and a shared purpose. The superintendents' agenda spanned topics from the religious mission of Catholic schools and "creating a culture of hope" to enrollment growth, financial strategies, and parental school choice national trends.

_{Discussions of the past, present, and future of Catholic schools marked the fifth annual Remick Leadership Conference, held at Notre Dame's DeBartolo Performing Arts Center on Friday, July 13.}

_{The future was represented by 23 students of the Mary Ann Remick Leadership Program, a formation initiative of the Alliance for Catholic Education (ACE). They were completing their studies for a Notre Dame Master of Arts degree in educational administration and planning for careers as principals and other leaders in Catholic K-12 education.}

_{These members of the ninth class to be graduated from the Remick Leadership Program used the conference to present the results of "action research" projects they had undertaken as part of their 26-month course of study. Their individual poster displays, exhibited for classmates and members of the South Bend region's community of K-12 educators who were welcome to the conference free of charge, outlined findings and proposed solutions regarding present-day challenges faced by Catholic schools around the country.}

_{"The action research conference and the poster session is really the zenith of our program," said Rev. Ronald Nuzzi, senior director of the Mary Ann Remick Leadership Program. Speaking to the conference attendees, he said of the soon-to-graduate class, "You see clearly the contributions they are making to the future of Catholic education and how well they already demonstrate the capacity to lead."}

The University of Notre Dame bestowed 104 graduate degrees Saturday, July 14, upon a next generation of Catholic school teachers and leaders who completed their periods of formation with the Alliance for Catholic Education (ACE).

ACE's annual Commencement exercises, held at the DeBartolo Performing Arts Center, drew encouragement from keynote speaker Dr. Teresa Sullivan, President of the University of Virginia, who praised the graduates' "ethic of service." A good teacher-student relationship is the basis for transforming lives, she said, regardless of how much technology or pedagogical theory might change.

"What will remain is the essential thing—the eager student working under the careful guidance of a dedicated teacher," said Sullivan, whose research as a sociologist has probed educational opportunities for inner-city students among other subjects.

A total of 81 graduates from ACE's ACE Teaching Fellows program, who had pursued their studies while teaching in Catholic K-12 schools in underserved areas around the country, capped their two-year formation by receiving the Master of Education (M. Ed. degree).

Twenty-three graduates from ACE's Mary Ann Remick Leadership Program (RLP), whose 26 months of formation prepared them to be principals and other leaders in Catholic education, received the M.A. degree in educational administration.