In the Spotlight: Rachel Hamilton

This spring, Rachel Hamilton said yes. "Yes" to the ACE Teaching Fellows program, and "yes" to God.

The recent Notre Dame graduate just started her first summer as a teacher in ACE Teaching Fellows. And she speaks eloquently about how two weeks' experience in the program is already beginning to shape her.

"If there is one thing that stands out to me...it is the idea of 'saying yes.' This is not simply because we hear the ACE faculty and staff repeatedly saying 'Thank you for saying yes to ACE.' It is more than that. It is about agency. It is about affirmation.

We are not thanked for 'accepting' a place in ACE, and I think that distinction is crucial. A simple acceptance is passive; saying yes is active. By saying yes we have committed to continue saying yes for the next two years: to our professors, to our supervisors, to the stresses of daily life, to our students, and to God. Saying yes means that we are actively choosing to give of ourselves over the next two years to serve the needs of our nation's children, and that this choice is a response to our calling manifested through our gifts, talents, and virtues."

I know the next two years will be filled with obstacles and moments of great stress. The ACE staff has been honest about that the entire time. Yet, hopefully, this continued affirmation of our own agency in choosing to serve and choosing to give and choosing to follow God's call will sustain us as we embark on our teaching journeys.