Scholarly Journal Sees ACE Model Responding to Schools' Needs

            The Alliance for Catholic Education's ACE Teaching Fellows model for sending forth college graduates to teach in Catholic schools, now in place at 15 colleges nationwide, is an "enterprise that has hallmarked the contours of Catholic education in the last decade." That's a description by historian Timothy Walch, whose article in the latest issue of American Catholic Studies surveys major responses to the challenges facing Catholic schools in the United States.

"Collaboration among and between Catholic universities across the nation," beginning with ACE at the University of Notre Dame in 1993, led to establishment of the University Consortium for Catholic Education (UCCE), Walch points out. He praises the UCCE as "a locus for collaboration and experimentation" in his article, titled "An Honest Response to Serious Losses: Recent Initiatives in American Catholic Education."

The author emphasizes that the three pillars embodied in the ACE model—academic preparation, community, and spirituality—make the Consortium experience unique. He quotes Rev. Ronald Nuzzi, senior director of ACE's Mary Ann Remick Leadership Program, as saying: "While the participants of Consortium programs are not members of a religious community, nor do they limit acceptance to specifically Catholic applicants, they are historically linked to the original mission [represented by professed religious who were the majority of teachers in an earlier era]."

"In the Consortium program's three pillar model, new teachers view their work through the lens of service," Father Nuzzi continued.

American Catholic Studies, published by the American Catholic Historical Society, is the oldest continuously published Catholic scholarly journal in the United States. Walch's article appears in the fall 2012 issue—volume 123, no. 3.