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The University of Notre Dame’s Alliance for Catholic Education (ACE) sent forth 254 Catholic school teachers and leaders to serve in more than 175 schools around the country, capping a summer of intensive study, community formation and spiritual fellowship on campus.

ACE’s annual missioning Mass, held at 9:30 a.m. Friday (July 25) in the Basilica of the Sacred Heart, served to celebrate and bless the teachers and leaders as they return to the communities they serve across the country.

The Most Rev. Thomas J. Rodi, archbishop of Mobile, Alabama, presided at the Mass as well as the missioning ceremonies that were held at 8:30 p.m. Thursday (July 24) at the Grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes. He joined Rev. Timothy Scully, C.S.C.; Rev. Sean McGraw, C.S.C.; and Rev. Lou DelFra, C.S.C., founders of ACE, in sending forth 178 teaching fellows, 54 participants in ACE’s Mary Ann Remick Leadership Program and 22 teachers in the English as a New Language program.

The missioning Mass marked the close of ACE’s summer programs of graduate-level coursework; leadership formation for Catholic school principals, superintendents and pastors; and professional and spiritual rejuvenation for Catholic educators on Notre Dame’s campus. During its first 20 years, ACE has gained national recognition as a leading provider of talent and resources to sustain, strengthen and transform Catholic elementary and secondary schools.

ACE teaching fellows earn a master of education degree after two summers of coursework and two academic years teaching in under-resourced Catholic schools. Most are also members of the ACE’s partner organization, AmeriCorps. Remick Leaders also earn a master of arts degree in educational leadership in a 25-month program, while ENL teachers earn ENL/ESL/ELL certification in their respective states.

Mobile, led by Archbishop Rodi, is one of 27 dioceses and archdioceses around the country that have invited ACEteachers to serve locally in their schools. A product and strong supporter of Catholic education, Archbishop Rodi attended Catholic elementary and secondary schools in his hometown of New Orleans before receiving a bachelor’s degree from Georgetown University and a law degree from Tulane University. In 2008, the National Catholic Educational Association awarded the archbishop the St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Award for his work in rebuilding Catholic schools after Hurricane Katrina in the Diocese of Biloxi, where he served as bishop.

As a part of the missioning events this year, ACE also presented the 2014 Notre Dame Award for Outstanding Service to Catholic Education to Scott Malpass, vice president and chief investment officer at Notre Dame.

Malpass received the award in recognition of his lifetime commitment to Catholic schools and to the mission of the University of Notre Dame, and for his support of the Alliance for Catholic Education since its founding. Inspired by the call made by the Notre Dame Task Force on Catholic Education in its 2006 report, Malpass has been the driving force to create Catholic Investment Services, a fund offering Catholic organizations the opportunity to invest with a world-class organization committed to Catholic values.

The Alliance for Catholic Education impacts the lives of several hundred thousand children nationwide by preparing highly talented teachers and school leaders, while offering research and broad support for Catholic Schools in the United States — the world’s largest private school system. ACE works in partnership with hundreds of schools to ensure that the students in their communities, many of them from low-income families in high-poverty communities, have access to a high-quality education.

AmeriCorps engages more than 75,000 members in intensive service annually to serve through nonprofit, faith-based and community groups at 25,000 locations across the country. This year marks the 20th anniversary of AmeriCorps. Since 1994, more than 830,000 Americans have provided more than 1 billion hours of service addressing critical challenges from poverty and hunger to disasters and the dropout crisis.

Contact: Bill Schmitt, 574-631-3893, 

The Alliance for Catholic Education has been forming teachers more more than a decadeusing the methods outlined in Dr. Tom Doyle’s “Planning and Assessment: Essentials for Learning.” Revised each summer with new updates and strategies, “Doc” Doyle gears his work toward new teachers, particularly in Catholic schools. Now published as an ebook on iTunes, “Planning and Learning” serves as an excellent introduction or refresher on ACE’s classroom methods formation.

“Planning and Assessment” is a technical guide to ACE’s process of planning and assessing lessons and units. It also provides methods for evaluating oneself as a teacher along the way, and incorporating these methods into a specifically Catholic classroom. Readers can benefit from Doyle’s decades of experience teaching in and forming others to teach in Catholic school classrooms. The 2014 version of “Planning and Assessment” is now available for download on iTunes.

The University of Notre Dame’s Alliance for Catholic Education (ACE) bestowed master’s degrees on 108 Catholic school educators and leaders at 3:30 p.m. Saturday (July 12) at the DeBartolo Performing Arts Center. U.S. Sen. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania was the featured commencement speaker.

Notre Dame granted master of education degrees to 83 ACE Teaching Fellows who have served the last two years in 30 different communities across the nation in the innovative program that was founded in response to a call for talented, recent college graduates to serve as instructional leaders for children in under-resourced Catholic schools. Twenty-five educators received a master of arts in educational leadership from the Mary Ann Remick Leadership Program. The initiative is the largest program of its kind, providing world-class formation to passionate Catholic school leaders.

This year’s graduates continue Notre Dame’s 20-year legacy of fueling Catholic schools with passionate leaders. These men and women bring a new imagination and zeal to help strengthen Catholic schools and empower marginalized children. The cohort of graduates brings the total number of ACE Teaching Fellows to more than 1,300 alumni who have served as classroom teachers in one of ACE’s partner schools nationwide. Seventy percent of them have continued their careers in K-12 education.

Since its inception in 2002, the Mary Ann Remick Leadership Program has embraced a vision of leadership that promotes strong Catholic school culture, applies executive management skills and fosters academic excellence. More than 250 Remick Leadership graduates serve Catholic schools in 38 states and 82 dioceses around the world.

Casey offered the commencement address as a member of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. Before his distinguished career in law and public service in Pennsylvania and his first election to the U.S. Senate in 2006, Casey performed a year of voluntary service as a fifth-grade teacher and eighth-grade coach in inner-city Philadelphia.

Notre Dame Vice President and Senior Associate Provost Christine Maziar conferred the degrees on behalf of the University. The annual Commencement exercises also featured remarks by Rev. Timothy R. Scully, C.S.C., the Hackett Family Director of the Institute for Educational Initiatives, who founded the Alliance for Catholic Education in 1993 along with Rev. Sean McGraw, C.S.C.

“We are blessed with talented and faith-filled graduates seeking to extend the gift of a great Catholic school education to as many children as possible. Their tireless commitment provides a witness of hope for Notre Dame, the Church and our nation,” said Father Scully. “They remind us that every child, especially the most vulnerable, must have the opportunity for a quality education. We are deeply grateful for their service and the support of their families.”

Contact: Bill Schmitt, Alliance for Catholic Education, 574-631-3893, 

Sarah Perkins and Drew Clary welcomed Gordy Young from "Experience Michiana" to campus to discuss the Fighting for Our Children's Future National Bus Tour. 

“Why do Saint Peter and Saint Paul share a feast day?  Saint Polycarp has his own feast day, and whoever heard of him?  I thought he was a fish!”

From the grand ambo of the Basilica, Father Joe Corpora, C.S.C. (here pictured speaking at the Latino Enrollment Institute), juxtaposes two leaders of the early Church: Peter, the uneducated fisherman who thrice denied his best friend; and Paul, the eloquent spokesman for a Messiah he never met and whose followers he had persecuted.  It is difficult to imagine two men more different.  Why, asks Father Corpora, does the Church celebrate two such contradictory characters on the same day?

According to Father Corpora, the answer lies in a central similarity between Saints Peter and Paul: complete dependence on God.  Both great sinners who experienced even greater forgiveness, Peter and Paul remind us that the Church is vast enough to embrace paradox.  The Church celebrates contradiction so that we, too, can rejoice in the diverse ways that Christians live out the Gospel with complete dependence on God.

In my first weeks as a summer intern, I have encountered this truth through the remarkably diverse ministries of ACE.  United by complete dependence on God, ACErs carry out their shared mission to Catholic schools in wonderfully paradoxical ways.