The Joseph Ratzinger-Benedict XVI Vatican Foundation and the Universidad Francisco de Vitoria jointly honored , McGrath-Cavadini Director, along with three leaders of the McGrath Institute's , for innovation expanding horizons of reason in the spirit of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI.

The foundation and the Madrid-based university bestow two Expanded Reason Awards in the teaching category and two in the research category. Each annual award, which carries a prize of 25,000 Euros (approximately $30,000), seeks to build what the organizations call an “expanded reason community” embodying the integrated vision of truth expressed by Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI.

“We are humbled to receive this award and very grateful for the recognition of our work,” said Cavadini, past chair of Notre Dame's Department of Theology, following the announcement in July. “We will pursue our work with renewed vigor and dedication.”

The three additional recipients — professional specialist Christopher T. Baglow and program co-directors Patricia Bellm and Jay Martin — implement the Science and Religion Initiative’s unique seminars and workshops. These approaches have helped secondary school teachers and others around the nation cultivate students’ understanding of science and Catholicism as complementary.

Baglow, Bellm, Cavadini and Martin will receive their Expanded Reason Award on Sept. 24 at the Pontifical Academy of Sciences on the Vatican grounds. Their award is one of four that will be presented as part of an international symposium exploring the dialogue between science, philosophy and theology in academia today.

The Science and Religion Initiative, now conducting its fifth year of programs, provides week-long seminars on the Notre Dame campus, as well as day-long seminars hosted by dioceses. Presentations by experts in scientific disciplines and matters of faith culminate in planning sessions that invite the teachers in attendance to think about their high school classes in new ways. 

“Modern culture prompts many students to see scientific rationalism as incompatible with religion,” says Bellm, “but the McGrath Institute’s goal is to illuminate how different fields of study can transcend their separate boxes in light of humanity having been created in the image of God.”

This Science and Religion Initiative’s mission to pursue religious and scientific understanding in an integrated way has also attracted support from the Templeton Foundation, which continues to provide funding for the initiative.

Cavadini is professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame, where he also serves as McGrath-Cavadini Director of the McGrath Institute for Church Life. He teaches, studies and publishes in the area of patristic theology and in its early medieval reception. He has served a five-year term on the International Theological Commission and recently received the Monika K. Hellwig Award from the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities for Outstanding Contributions to Catholic Intellectual Life.

Baglow, a full professional specialist with the McGrath Institute who holds a doctorate in theology from Duquesne University, has worked on the integrative mission with students for more than a decade. He authored a high school textbook, "Faith, Science, and Reason: Theology on the Cutting Edge," and has been a presenter and planner for Science and Religion Initiative seminars.

Bellm is co-director of the Science and Religion Initiative for the McGrath Institute. Before earning her master’s of divinity at Notre Dame, she worked as a chemical engineer.

Martin, co-director of the Science and Religion Initiative, is a doctoral candidate in systematic theology at Notre Dame. His research connects Catholic theology, contemporary philosophy, psychoanalytic theory and politics. He served in Catholic secondary education before earning his master’s degree in theological studies.

Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, a member of the Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI Vatican Foundation, will preside at the Sept. 24 celebration for all winners of the Expanded Reason Awards. He is president of the Pontifical Council for Culture.

The 2018 competition for the awards also yielded an honorable mention for , the Dorothy G. Griffin Professor of Early Modern European History at Notre Dame. He was lauded for his recently published book, "The Unintended Reformation: How a Religious Revolution Secularized Society."

Originally published by William G. Schmitt at on July 31.

A comprehensive review of the research assessing charter schools as the fastest growing area of school choice reforms has uncovered a need for studies that take a different tack, according to University of Notre Dame sociologist .

Charter schools have gained increasing attention in recent years as school choice laws have made them an alternative to traditional public schools. In the past decade, a number of studies have examined the effects of these schools to assess their impact on student achievement.

Researchers are questioning whether the 6,000 charter schools now operating deliver on the promise of school choice laws to shrink achievement gaps. However, the question demands deeper probes of schools’ qualitative conditions, not merely metrics such as test results, Berends wrote in an article, “,” published in mid-August in the journal .

Mark Berends

Berends, director of Notre Dame’s (CREO), notes that the explosive growth of charter schools in the past decade, with total enrollment now exceeding 2.5 million children, has benefited from claims in the public arena that are not thoroughly examined.

“It’s time to go beyond the horse race between charter and traditional public schools based primarily on test scores,” Berends said in summarizing the Annual Reviews article. “More helpful research — how schools and classrooms are organized and an examination of school mission and goals, principal leadership, professional development and parent involvement — will help us understand whether charter schools are truly effective or not.”

Berends is a fellow of the , which advances Notre Dame’s multidisciplinary research of K-12 schools, public and faith-based.

Contact: Bill Schmitt, Institute for Educational Initiatives, 574-631-3893, wschmitt@nd.edu

The University of Notre Dame’s (ACE) will send forth 272 Catholic school teachers and leaders to nearly 200 Catholic schools across the country in the annual Missioning Mass, capping two months of professional formation and spiritual renewal. The ceremony, scheduled for 9:30 a.m. Friday (July 24) in the Basilica of the Sacred Heart, will celebrate and bless the next steps on the educators’ journeys back to their respective schools and classrooms.

The , bishop of the Diocese of Peoria, will preside at the Mass as well as in missioning ceremonies at 8:30 p.m. Thursday (July 23) at the Grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes. He will join ACE’s co-founders, , and , in sending forth 187 participants in ACE Teaching Fellows, 57 participants in the Mary Ann Remick Leadership Program and 28 participants in the teacher licensure program for English as a New Language.

, an initiative founded in 1993, forms outstanding college graduates to teach in elementary and secondary schools in 30 dioceses, including Peoria. ACE Teachers earn a Master of Education after two summers of coursework and two academic years teaching in under-resourced Catholic schools. Most are also members of the ACE’s partner organization, .

The is a 25-month graduate program, delivered over three summers and two academic years, for educators seeking to develop skills to become transformational leaders in their Catholic school community. Upon completion of the program, participants earn a Master of Arts in Educational Leadership from the University of Notre Dame and can be eligible for K-12 administrative licensure.

, a one-year licensure program that responds to teachers’ growing need to assist English language learners in their classrooms, advances those skills through ongoing coursework and mentoring while those educators remain in service in the schools that employ them.

As part of the missioning events this week, ACE will also present the to two ACE graduates who have gone on to careers of special distinction. Jennifer Ehren, who taught science at St. John High 91��Ƶ in Biloxi, Mississippi, later earned a Ph.D., and, amid her own successful fight with cancer, has contributed to important therapeutic advances at the Jonas Salk Institute for Biological 91��Ƶ. Greg Gomez, who taught science and religion at St. Malachy 91��Ƶ in Los Angeles, later continued graduate studies at Columbia University and served as special liaison to the inner-city schools of the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston before accepting a principal’s post at St. Francis of Assisi 91��Ƶ in inner-city Houston.

The Alliance for Catholic Education impacts the lives of several hundred thousand children nationwide by preparing highly talented teachers and school leaders, while offering research and an array of resources for Catholic schools in the United States — the world’s largest private school system.

Bishop Jenky of Peoria is a member of the , which founded the University of Notre Dame and in which ACE founders Father Scully and Father McGraw are priests and scholars. Father Scully is the Hackett Family Director of Notre Dame’s . Holy Cross is known internationally for its mission of education to help make God known, loved and served.

Contact: Bill Schmitt, Alliance for Catholic Education, 574-631-3893, wschmitt@nd.edu

To celebrate its 20 years of service, the University of Notre Dame’s (ACE) is launching the Fighting for Our Children’s Future National Bus Tour, a cross-country effort to raise awareness of the profound impact that K-12 schools have on the future of our nation’s children and to celebrate the unique role that Catholic schools play as agents of human formation and social transformation.

Visiting nearly 50 cities during the 2013-14 academic year, the tour will begin in Dallas on Oct. 5 (Saturday) in conjunction with the Notre Dame Fighting Irish football game against Arizona State University at AT&T Stadium. It will continue, from there, to the Midwest and East Coast in the fall, and the South, Southwest and West Coast in the spring.

At each stop along the route, the Fighting for Our Children’s Future National Bus Tour will feature a variety of events, ranging from conversations and panels with city mayors, state senators and education reformers to visits at partnering Catholic schools. ACE founder , and other Notre Dame experts will meet with civic, diocesan and education leaders to discuss concerns such as the formation of the next generation of school leadership, the role Catholic schools play in the future of the American education system and the right of every child to have equal access to an outstanding education.

In addition to engaging these topics, the tour aims to celebrate local school successes, honor educational partners and entrepreneurs, and promote the message that Catholic schools are good for America.

“We want to draw greater attention to the amazing legacy and bright future of these schools that form engaged citizens and advance the common good,” says Father Scully, who co-founded ACE 20 years ago. “Our themed ACE bus will promote the message that access to a high-quality education is a basic civil right, inspiring all those who have joined Notre Dame in fighting for our children’s future.”

Notre Dame will join with children, teachers, parents and other stakeholders in these hometown visits as the Alliance for Catholic Education looks toward the next 20 years of its commitment to sustain, strengthen and transform Catholic schools.

Weekly blog posts, multimedia and commentary will be published on as news unfolds along the route. For more information about the tour, the role of Catholic schools in the American education system and Notre Dame’s commitment to the future of children and schools, media representatives can visit ACE’s media room.

About the Alliance for Catholic Education
The University of Notre Dame’s Alliance for Catholic Education impacts the lives of several hundred thousand children nationwide by preparing highly talented teachers, principals and school leaders, while offering an array of professional services for U.S. Catholic schools, the world’s largest private school system. ACE works in partnership with hundreds of schools to ensure that the students in their communities, many of them from low-income families in high-poverty neighborhoods, have access to a high-quality education.

About Catholic schools
Catholic elementary and secondary schools in the United States have helped generations of immigrant communities achieve a better life since the mid-19th century. Today, these schools educate more than 2 million students, many from disadvantaged populations in under-resourced communities. Despite limited budgets, Catholic schools provide a remarkable, often transformative education to children of all faiths and save American taxpayers billions of dollars each year.

Catholic elementary school principals, speaking out in a major nationwide survey, report faithful commitments alongside acute challenges in the operation of their schools, and they identify financial management, marketing, Catholic identity, enrollment management and long-range planning as their schools’ top five areas of need.

The study, completed by the University of Notre Dame’s and its , is a rare, comprehensive glimpse of these principals’ views on what they need in order to do their jobs better and how they describe the state of Catholic education today.

“It is difficult to read the responses of Catholic school principals in this study and not sense both their commitment to this ministry and the overwhelming responsibilities that are associated with it,” say the authors of “Leadership Speaks: A National Survey of Catholic Primary 91��Ƶ Principals.” They paint a picture of many principals as faith-filled individuals confronting unusually challenging expectations, worthy of new forms of support, such as their own national association.

The study has not yet been published, but the authors — , senior director of the Mary Ann Remick Leadership Program, along with two members of the Remick Leadership Program faculty, and — presented an overview of their work during the National Catholic Educational Association annual convention in Boston and at the American Educational Research Association annual meeting in Vancouver, Canada, both held in April.

A total of 1,685 Catholic school principals representing all areas of the country and all types of school locations and organizational structures participated in the survey during 2010, answering nearly three dozen questions.

When invited to give open-ended answers, the participants narrowed down the five top areas of need to the two they called most important — enrollment management and financial management — which together often capture the most basic goal of survival: keeping a school open.

Based on the data obtained, “the Church seems to have hired well, attracting mission-driven and loyal individuals to the overarching goals of Catholic education,” according to the study. But these principals live daily with what has been called “the tyranny of the urgent,” hungering for more support — “emotional as well as financial.”

“A Catholic school principal has job expectations that go beyond what can be found in secular educational literature,” the authors note, pointing out that the work of a chief executive officer and a chief operating officer is combined with the school’s overarching religious purpose: “the sanctification of all its stakeholders.”

The study provides enormous amounts of data describing today’s Catholic school principals and outlining their views, and the authors conclude with four recommendations:

• Develop “new models of governance for Catholic elementary schools” that shift the panoply of principal responsibilities “into a more manageable and realistic position description.”
• “Develop a program of ongoing professional development and renewal for principals” that address their needs, both professional and personal.
• Organize a national association of Catholic school principals as a means “to give voice to their leadership concerns at every level and to promote advocacy for Catholic schools at the national level.”
• “Convene multiple groups of national and international stakeholders to advance the understanding of Catholic schools as instruments of the new evangelization.”

Contact: Rev. Ronald Nuzzi, rnuzzi@nd.edu

The University of Notre Dame’s Hesburgh Libraries and undergraduate and graduate students in the Mendoza College of Business are among the beneficiaries of a distinctive gift that Notre Dame received this year from a generousand anonymousalumnus.

This benefactor says he wanted to make a special expression of his gratitude to Notre Dame for the education he received and for the"vast professional alumni network which has helped me immensely in various business and professional communities.“As a result, the libraries now have an”entrepreneurial spirit endowed business librarian"position supporting the ever-increasing needs at Mendoza and at the college’s Mahaffey Business Information Center (part of the Hesburgh Libraries).

The endowed business librarian position carries no benefactor’s name, but it does reflect the anonymous donor’s recognition of changing times in the professional world, where he says"information is power"and there is a torrent of data available.

“Librarians are unsung heroes to a certain extent,”says this unsung benefactor, who decided to bestow funding that would help both the libraries and business students.“I felt it was important to do something with respect to business students who need to be able to process a tremendous amount of information”as part of"a practical approach to business education.“For motivated students teamed with a highly skilled guide to the universe of facts and databases,”it can be a very collaborative situation,"he points out.

The generous individual behind the new position is anonymous, but the holder of the new position is not. He is Stephen M. Hayes, the former"business services librarian,“who has overseen the Mahaffey Center since it opened in 1995 and who has become known at Mendoza as an expert in and teacher of what he calls”competitive intelligence.“He also has been part of teams teaching case studies in business research and a new”research challenge"initiative for undergraduates.

Hayes calls the endowment of a business librarian position"visionary,“recognizing and nurturing a connection between the development of entrepreneurial skills and the mastery of information that supports good judgment. This collaborative approach to research goes way beyond merely”answering a question"with the limited knowledge gleaned from an Internet search engine.

The endowment will immediately support the expansion of the libraries’ business resources in support of Mendoza’s aspirations. Hayes says he will be involved in a number of collaborations to stay at the cutting edge of corporate responsibility, sustainability, and the role of information in those pursuits as they are conducted in the realms of corporations, entrepreneurship and academia. An endowed business librarian can contribute to"producing the best-quality students as well as moving the college forward and the University forward in support of its mission,"he says.

TopicID: 31027

Can you define the American dream? Is the dream evolving? Is it different for every individual? Is it an exclusively American idea or does it resonate around the world? Where in the library would one go to do research about it, and what materials would one look for? Has this dream become an obsolete concept? Or is it timeless? Is its study more timely than ever, helping to examine our identity, our actions and our shared global future?

Gay Dannelly, associate director for resources and collection services at the University of Notre Dame’s Hesburgh Libraries, points to recent studies and other documents, most of which reveal different definitions of the American dream; alternatively based on the ability to lift one’s family to new levels of prosperity, or one’s freedom from the shackles of prejudices and unjust restraints, or access to the rewards of one’s talent and hard work.

Dannelly points out that the American dream, as experienced by various generations and groups of Americans, is a helpful lens through which to examine the stories of immigrants in today’s world, at a University that has served and celebrated the hopes of this nation’s newcomers.Many academic disciplines offer complementary, international perspectives on the phenomenon.

So how can the Hesburgh Libraries expand their resources to explore the American dream more comprehensively and compellingly? That question has been answered in large part by a recent, generous endowment that gave birth to the Joe and Gina Prochaska Family Initiative on the American Dream.

The Prochaskas’ gift arises from an appreciation of their own roots in this"nation of immigrants"and a desire to use the American dream as a lens through which people today can understand each other’s visions and values better, says Dannelly. Students are hungry for this understanding, and Notre Dame has a growing number of courses about groupsfrom the Irish of yesterday to today’s Hmong people of Southeast Asiawhose journeys speak volumes, and the Prochaskas want to facilitate such studies.

“There’s a lot of potential for this endowment enabling the libraries to support the kinds of classes that are dealing with immigrant issues,”Dannelly says.

Financial support is going first to collaborations between the libraries and the College of Arts and Letters, which may lead to new collections, courses, summer experiences or speaker events in the social sciences and humanities.

How will the libraries take full advantage of the breadth of the topic and the many potential choices of resources?

“We’re trying to get our hands around the concept,”Dannelly says.Likely first steps will include acquisitions of DVDs and newspapers showing"slices of life"in America. A collection of historical U.S. newspapers, many of them detailing the immigrant experience, has already been purchased.

“The concept of the American Dream has multiple meanings, mythically and realistically,”says Robert Schmuhl, Walter H. Annenberg-Edmund P. Joyce Chair in American 91��Ƶ and Journalism.“Understanding those meanings within their historical and contemporary context requires both a variety of perspectives and a multitude of sources. The Prochaska Endowment is a significant, most-welcome, first step for faculty and students at Notre Dame — and the wider academic community — to come to terms with this fundamental ideal and yearning at a critical time.”

The plan for studying the American Dream is still taking shape, and input from faculty and students will help to guide the initiative’s agenda. That plan is likely to expand beyond the College of Arts and Letters to include a much wider range of courses and research opportunities, from business to science and beyond.

One of the many ways in which the Prochaska gift complements Notre Dame’s mission and goals is the interdisciplinarity of the subject matter. That is a win-win for the campus community and the Hesburgh Libraries, whose work spans virtually all realms of knowledge by design.

“The Prochaska Family Initiative will let us bring together interest from a number of departments across campus,”comments Dannelly.

_ Contact: Gay Dannelly, 574-631-3282,_ " dannelly.1@nd.edu ":mailto:dannelly.1@nd.edu

TopicID: 30828