News

Rudy Vargas, a New York City-based field consultant with the University of Notre Dame’s Alliance for Catholic Education (ACE), has received the 2013 William Sadlier Dinger Award for Ministry in the Hispanic Community.

Vargas, who works directly with Catholic schools to increase Latino enrollments in the Archdiocese of New York through ACE’s Catholic School Advantage campaign, accepted the award Aug. 28 from publishing executive William Sadlier Dinger. The presentation occurred during the annual conference of the National Catholic Council for Hispanic Ministry.

The award recognizes Vargas’ numerous “contributions to the Hispanic community in America during the past 25-plus years,” said Dinger, president of William H. Sadlier, Inc. He told Vargas, “Your deep faith and many skills have made you a source of blessing to so many people.”

Vargas joined ACE in 2010 to help advance the nationwide Catholic School Advantage campaign to boost Latino access to Catholic schools. He is the executive director of the Northeast Hispanic Catholic Center, serving 34 dioceses in the Northeast United States.

His previous work in ministry included service as executive director of the Center for Catholic Lay Leadership. He was also president of the National Catholic Association of Diocesan Directors for Hispanic Ministry.

He serves as a board member of Georgetown University’s Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA).

His contributions to ACE’s partnership with the Archdiocese of New York include the advancement of an innovative “madrinas” initiative in archdiocesan schools, encouraging respected family members in Latino neighborhoods (such as madrinas, or godmothers) to spread the good word about Catholic schools among local families.

Vargas commented that his years of experience with Hispanic ministry “helped give me a good understanding of how to organize the madrinas program” for the Catholic School Advantage campaign. He said he has benefited from a “network of support” among Hispanic Catholic leaders at the local and national level, helping him to develop new leadership through the madrinas.

ACE’s Catholic School Advantage campaign is a nationwide effort to double the enrollment of Latino children in U.S. Catholic schools. Insights from the campaign, such as inviting the support of madrinas, are being implemented in schools around the country as a growing number of principals embrace the financial, cultural, and managerial strategies for increasing Latino access to Catholic schools and helping to keep inner-city Catholic schools open.

Dinger is president of William H. Sadlier, Inc., a publisher of print, digital, and online educational materials and of Catholic catechetical materials. A Notre Dame alumnus, Dinger is known for his support of K-12 education and Catholic education in particular.

The William Sadlier Dinger Award for Ministry in the Hispanic Community, established in 2009, recognizes an individual or organization for outstanding leadership strengthening the Church in the Latino community.

Rodolfo Vargas IV holds a bachelor’s degree from the State University of New York (SUNY) Empire State College and a master’s degree in pastoral leadership from Fordham University.

Photo courtesy of William H. Sadlier, Inc.: At the award presentation, William Sadlier Dinger (left) and Rudy Vargas.

Catholic schools make unique contributions within the U.S. educational system—with the help of expertise and engagement from diverse sources. That theme emerged from recent media coverage of educational issues that incorporated voices from the Alliance for Catholic Education (ACE).

Clark Power, Ph.D., director of the Play Like a Champion Today ® program, talked recently about his team’s work with coaches and parents to help make school athletics an important resource for moral formation. He was interviewed in August on “Blessed 2 Play,” a show about sports and spirituality heard nationwide on the EWTN radio network. (Click on the link, then click on the Clark Power audio track.)

Rev. Tom Doyle, C.S.C., an Institute for Educational Initiatives leadership specialist who brings his management skills and zeal for education to Catholic dioceses through the ACE Consulting program, offered a checklist of strategic steps to help Catholic schools flourish. (Click on the link and scroll down to the sidebar in this Aug. 25 feature in Our Sunday Visitor.) The steps spell out important roles for leaders at the diocesan and local level.

Christian Dallavis, Ph.D., who directs the Notre Dame ACE Academies initiative for in-depth partnerships with under-resourced Catholic schools, was quoted in an Aug. 29 article in National Catholic Register. The newspaper examined challenges to Catholic school enrollment posed in some places by the growth in charter schools. Dallavis noted that policy makers can play a role in increasing low-income families’ access to high-quality Catholic education through states’ parental choice programs. Dallavis now serves ACE as senior director of leadership programs.

Stories of hope among Catholic schools are multiplying, and the latest edition of National Catholic Register focuses on St. John the Evangelist School in Tucson, Ariz., to tell one of those stories. This inner-city school serving disadvantaged children in a predominantly Hispanic community has seen its enrollment nearly double in a few years. The Alliance for Catholic Education (ACE) has been blessed to generate good news for students and parents through the school’s distinctive Notre Dame ACE Academies model.

Reporter Brian Fraga talked with Dr. Christian Dallavis, who has served as director of the Notre Dame ACE Academies initiative since its inception in 2010. St. John the Evangelist is one of five schools—three in the Diocese of Tucson and two in the Diocese of St. Petersburg, Fla.—where ACE’s unique model of whole-school transformation has been implemented, engaging local school communities, dioceses, and resources from Notre Dame in a multi-faceted partnership.

Besides enrollment gains, student academic progress has jumped sharply, recent statistics show. The Register report on St. John credits “changes in the school’s management structures and philosophy, a greater sense of professionalism, a new understanding of its Catholic identity, a collaboration with the University of Notre Dame, and a tax scholarship-credit program that helps families afford private education.”

Dr. Christian Dallavis has been appointed to the new position of Senior Director of Leadership Programs, for the University of Notre Dame’s Alliance for Catholic Education (ACE).

Dallavis, who has directed the Notre Dame ACE Academies initiative since its inception in 2010, will assume leadership of the Mary Ann Remick Leadership Program (RLP) and a new Center for Transformative Educational Leadership (CTEL). He will also continue to oversee the ongoing development of the Notre Dame ACE Academies, a program that has recently published important data about its expanding impact.

“Christian has a compelling vision to forge deeper connections among these related programs,” said Rev. Timothy Scully, C.S.C., co-founder of ACE and director of the Institute for Educational Initiatives at Notre Dame. “During more than a decade of service with ACE, Christian has contributed in so many ways to our growing initiatives.”

Dallavis welcomes this opportunity: “Since joining ACE as a teacher in 1997, I have discovered that my vocation is to play a role in providing a Catholic education of the highest quality to as many students as possible. I am excited about this opportunity to contribute to the transformation of schools through leadership formation, and I believe that combining the efforts of the Remick Leadership Program, ND ACE Academies, and the new Center for Transformational Educational Leadership will result in powerful synergies for the good of our mission.”

Dallavis’ ACE experience began in the fourth cohort of the ACE teacher formation program, during which he served as a middle and high school teacher in Biloxi, Miss. After earning his M.A. degree, he spent a year teaching with the Congregation of Holy Cross in Bangladesh and then returned to ACE as a member of the pastoral team for the formation program, now called ACE Teaching Fellows.

Doctoral studies in English and Education at the University of Michigan followed, and he then returned to Notre Dame to teach and supervise ACE formation program participants. He was named director of the Notre Dame ACE Academies when the initiative was established in 2010. In this role, Dallavis works closely with diocesan school superintendents and principals to lead transformations of at-risk schools into communities of growth and academic progress.

He will succeed Rev. Ronald Nuzzi, Ph.D., who has served as Senior Director of the Remick Leadership Program, forming principals and other leaders for Catholic schools since its founding in 2002. Dallavis will also oversee the launch and initiatives of ACE’s Center for Transformative Educational Leadership, which will equip school leaders with the skills they need to transform school culture and improve student learning.

Father Scully, in announcing the appointment of Dallavis, offered special thanks to Father Nuzzi for his role in the growth of the Remick Leadership Program. “His passion for Catholic schools is unsurpassed, and we are fortunate indeed to have him directing his energies to ACE’s Renewing Identity Strengthening Evangelization (RISE) initiative.” Father Nuzzi will lead the new ACE RISE program to make a signature contribution to the Catholic character of schools across the nation.