Sara Martinez Tucker, president and chief executive officer of the Hispanic Scholarship Fund, will be the principal speaker Saturday (July 9) at 2 p.m. at the 10 th annual graduation ceremony for 82 volunteer teachers in the University of Notre DamesAlliancefor Catholic Education (ACE) program.
Notre Dames president, Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C., will preside at the graduation ceremony.
J. Patrick Rooney, chairman emeritus of the Golden Rule Insurance Company, will receive the 2005 Notre Dame Award for Outstanding Contributions to Catholic Education during the ceremony, which will be held in the Leighton Concert Hall of theDeBartoloCenterfor the Performing Arts.
Prior to assuming her present position in 1997, Tucker, a native ofLaredo,Texas, worked for many years at AT&T and was the first Hispanic female to reach that companys executive level.In 2001, she was appointed by President Bush to the Board of Directors of the Student Loan Marketing Association (Sallie Mae).She received an honorary degree from Notre Dame in 2001.
Rooney founded the Educational Choice Charitable Trust in 1991 inIndianapolisto provide privately funded vouchers for grade-school children of lower-income families.The program has become a model for similar efforts nationwide.
Founded in 1994 by Rev. Timothy R. Scully, C.S.C., and Rev. Sean McGraw, C.S.C., the ACE program provides college graduates an opportunity to earn master of education degrees while serving as teachers in understaffed Catholic schools nationwide. In exchange for a modest stipend and a tuition-free graduate program, ACE participants make a two-year commitment to teach in these schools.
More than 80 recent college graduates from a wide variety of educational disciplines enter ACE each year.They take courses and participate in teacher training projects at Notre Dame during their two summers in the program before being assigned to full-time teaching positions at schools in some 30 cities in 14 states during the school year.After two years, the students graduate with a master of education degree and 75 percent elect to stay in the teaching profession.
* Contact: * _Mary Jo Adams Kocovski, senior associate director of ACE, at 574-631-5157 or Adams.76@nd.edu _
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