Remick Leadership Program Summer Begins
The Mary Ann Remick Leadership Program in the Alliance for Catholic Education welcomed its newest cohort of Catholic school principals and administrators to the Notre Dame campus last weekend to begin their first summer of coursework toward a Master of Arts in Educational Administration. These 25 men and women, known as ALP 8, will now share three years of their journeys as Catholic educators, beginning with the next six weeks of courses and prayer experiences and culminating in a Missioning Mass on July 24 at Notre Dame’s Basilica of the Sacred Heart.
ALP 8 is an experienced and diverse cohort in the Remick Leadership Program; participants are bound to learn as much from one another as from the material they will study. Seven members of the cohort are sitting principals, and six currently serve as assistant principals in their schools. Over 30 different dioceses throughout the country are represented by ALP as well as the private Catholic school networks, NativityMiguel and Cristo Rey. The Big Shoulders network of Chicago also has three administrators in ALP 8. Perhaps the most notable distinction of ALP 8, however, is that it includes the first international student in the Remick Leadership Program, Paul Nalli of Ascension of Our Lord Secondary School in the Duffer-Peel Catholic District School Board in Ontario, Canada.
“We’re delighted to have new students from coast to coast and from so many different types of Catholic schools. The experience these students bring to class enriches the learning environment immediately, and they eventually develop a strong and far-reaching professional network that is characteristic of Notre Dame programs,” reflects Fr. Ron Nuzzi, director of the Remick Leadership Program.
Before classes began for ALP 8 this week, they attended an overnight orientation retreat along with the 2nd-year participants, ALP 7, in Laporte, Indiana at the Holy Cross retreat center. The retreat sessions, led by Remick Leadership Program faculty and staff, were designed to give participants opportunities for personal reflection and social time with classmates. The weekend also included overviews of the summer requirements and the ACE programs in general. An important goal of the retreat was to provide program participants with a sense of their place in the ACE mission to sustain and strengthen Catholic schools, and to make them aware of all that ACE has to offer them and their school communities. The ACE Fellowship network of ACE alumni and the ACE Consulting services are especially worthwhile resources for principals.
“The men and women in ALP 8 are so entrepreneurial,” says Emmeline D’Agostino, assistant director of the Remick Leadership Program. “They were so excited to hear about all of the ACE resources we have available to them.”