Career Journeys Earn Founders Prize for ACE Grads

“We don’t make the invitation,” Rev. Lou DelFra, C.S.C., said of ACE’s mission while addressing an awards ceremony July 22 featuring the Scott C. Malpass Founders Prize. “The Holy Spirit invites [ACE graduates] to come and see: Come and see what the Lord has prepared for you to serve His children.” 

His words were remarkably fitting for the journeys of the two winners of the 2015 award, Jennifer Ehren and Greg Gomez. The Founders Prize is presented annually to two graduates of ACE Teaching Fellows whose personal embodiment of the three pillars of ACE has inspired them to make a high-impact contribution to their communities. The lives of these two award recipients—one a brilliant researcher, the other a vibrant community leader—had proceeded in dramatically different directions, yet both resonated deeply with the central tenets of ACE.

Jennifer Ehren was the valedictorian of the class of 1999 at the University of Notre Dame. As a chemistry major, she had earned a Fulbright Scholarship, allowing her to conduct research abroad for a year. Following that, she had her pick of lucrative job offers. One major pharmaceutical firm had offered her $50,000 a year, right out of college. Another career possibility loomed that year—Notre Dame’s Alliance for Catholic Education (ACE), which promised a slim stipend in return for teaching high school, far from home.

Ehren chose ACE.

“I never thought I’d be challenged so much,” Ehren recalled. She looked back at the vibrant and values-driven journey that began with her 1999 ACE assignment. Ehren taught math and science for two years at an under-resourced Catholic high school in Biloxi, Miss. In the process, she discovered that she had changed forever.

“Service will be a part of my life, no matter what,” she said, recalling the commitment that emerged from her teaching experience.

After receiving her Master of Education degree, Ehren went on to earn her doctorate in chemical engineering from Stanford University in 2008, and she now works as a medical researcher. She’s mindful of her dynamic vocation and her gifted colleagues, of course, but she also holds a special motivation: her own battle with cancer.

Ehren discovered that she had breast cancer just eight weeks before her wedding. Her successful fight against the disease became yet another opportunity to become a stronger person.

"Breast cancer has made me a better researcher,” she said. “Being a patient made me understand it a little bit more, and it makes me ask creative questions that help my research.”

Ehren currently serves as a postdoctoral research fellow at the Jonas Salk Institute for Biological Studies. This award-winner has come far indeed, but her life remains an embodiment of the call she discovered in her years at ACE: a mission of service through teaching and learning, a community-centered focus on others, and a habit of hope inseparable from spiritual growth.

Greg Gomez, the second recipient of the Founders’ Prize this summer, has also proven himself as a servant to God and his community. His interpretation of the ACE mission is perhaps best expressed in his own pithy words:

“Man does not live on bread alone…but it sure as heck helps to have some.”

For Gomez, a high school principal, education has always consisted of more than the development of the mind or of some abstract, distant “soul.” It is about permeating the entire reality—and addressing the practical needs—of his students’ often difficult lives.

Gomez has spent his entire career working with some of our nation’s most disadvantaged and underserved students. He began his work in education with ACE 11, where he first worked with inner-city kids as a middle school teacher at St. Malachy School in South Central Los Angeles.

Gomez has gone on to spend most of his professional life serving the urban communities of Houston, Texas. He was one of the founding faculty members, and a director of professional development for teachers, at Cristo Rey Jesuit College Prep—Gomez helped shape the new school into an institution with some of the highest college-acceptance rates among inner-city schools in Texas.

In 2013, Daniel Cardinal DiNardo of the Galveston-Houston Archdiocese appointed Gomez special liaison for inner-city schools. There, he worked with pastors, principals, and archdiocesan leaders to maintain the sustainability of struggling Catholic schools for underserved communities. This past year, Gomez accepted an appointment as principal of one such inner-city school: St. Francis of Assisi in Houston.

Throughout eleven years of service in under-resourced Catholic schools, Gomez has exemplified the mission of an ACE Teacher to improve and transform educational opportunities for kids from all backgrounds. He has proven again and again his ability to connect with the struggling and disadvantaged around him—perhaps through that persistent belief that “man does not live on bread alone…but it sure as heck helps to have some.”

Jennifer Ehren and Greg Gomez have pursued and achieved incredible success in their respective fields. Their careers are studded with great achievements, yet permeated with a spirit of care and service to the communities around them. They have not only touched, but transformed the lives that have crossed their paths—exemplifying the spirit of ACE.