Catholic School Teachers and Leaders Prepare for Graduation at Notre Dame

The University of Notre Dame will advance its role as the nation’s leading provider of Catholic school leaders on Saturday, July 13, when more than 110 graduates from the Alliance for Catholic Education (ACE) receive master’s degrees at the 2013 ACE Commencement exercises.

The Commencement, to be held in the Leighton Concert Hall of the DeBartolo Performing Arts Center, is an important milestone for the teachers, principals, and leaders of the ACE ACE Teaching Fellows and the Mary Ann Remick Leadership Programs who have spent the last two and three years respectively living out ACE’s mission to sustain, strengthen and transform Catholic schools while completing their coursework within ACE’s innovative instructional models.

Master of Education (M. Ed.) degrees will be conferred upon 85 graduates within the 18^th cohort of ACE Teaching Fellows, which sends forth young teachers to serve in under-resourced Catholic schools in 26 dioceses across the country. The Remick Leadership Program, an initiative that prepares Catholic school educators for roles as principals and other leadership roles in Catholic schools, will award 26 graduates in cohort 10 with Master of Arts degrees in educational administration.

The keynote speaker for this year’s exercises will be Senator Joe Donnelly, United States Senator of Indiana and Notre Dame alumnus.

Representing the University of Notre Dame will be Christine Maziar, Ph.D., who is Vice President, Senior Associate Provost, and Acting Dean of the Graduate School. Also addressing the group of graduates, parents, and friends of the Alliance for Catholic Education will be ACE’s founder, Rev. Timothy Scully, C.S.C., director of the Institute for Educational Initiatives at the University of Notre Dame.

The Commencement ceremonies, a ticketed event scheduled to begin at 3:30 p.m., will also feature the presentation of awards for distinguished service in support of Catholic schools. The Michael Pressley Award for Excellence in Catholic Education and the Michael Pressley Award for a Promising Scholar in the Education Field annually go to outstanding ACE graduates who have continued their careers enhancing ACE’s mission.

The Pressley awards are named for the prodigious and world-renowned scholar Michael Pressley, who served as the inaugural academic director of ACE’s teacher preparation program.

At the Commencement luncheon, Father Scully will present the Maureen T. Hallinan Award for Excellence in Catholic Education to Katie Baal, a graduate from the first cohort of ACE teachers, who assembled at the initiative’s founding almost 20 years ago. She went on to earn a Ph.D. in educational leadership and policy studies at Loyola University Chicago and pursued a distinguished career as a science teacher and administrator in Jesuit and public education. Dr. Baal has been principal of Loyola Academy in Wilmette, Ill., since 2011.

ACE presents the Hallinan Award for Excellence in Catholic Education in honor of Dr. Maureen Hallinan, the founding director of the Institute for Educational Initiatives, a world-renowned scholar and deeply beloved colleague who continues to inspire with her love of learning and truth. The annual award is bestowed in her honor upon an ACE graduate whose life and work reflect Dr. Hallinan's lifetime of service to the Gospel through the field of Catholic education.

The public events of ACE’s Commencement day will conclude with a Mass in Notre Dame’s Basilica of the Sacred Heart at 6:30 pm.

Watch the live stream at http://ace.nd.edu/livestream