As commencement approaches, several Notre Dame seniors are preparing to begin postgrad service programs, carrying lessons from their time at the University into classrooms, parishes and new communities across the country.
Patrick Dolan, Evelyn Van de North and Jack Nelson will serve through the Alliance for Catholic Education, a two-year teaching program that places graduates in Catholic schools. Maddie Colbert will serve through Jesuit Volunteer Corps, working in faith and justice ministry at St. Vincent’s Parish in Baltimore.
This year, ACE will welcome its 33rd cohort of teachers, who will serve in 91 Catholic schools across 37 dioceses and archdioceses, according to Michael Comuniello, senior associate director for recruitment for ACE Teaching Fellows, who wrote in an email to The Observer. The cohort includes 93 teachers from 46 colleges and universities across the United States, as well as three international students. Comuniello wrote that ACE received about 380 applications this year and had a 28.2% admit rate.
ACE will also begin a new partnership with the Diocese of Columbus, where four ACE teachers will serve. Two of those teachers, Emily Williams and Max Feist, are current Notre Dame students.
For Dolan, an economics major with minors in data science and sociology, ACE will take him to Oakland, California. He will teach high school math. Dolan said he first became interested in ACE after participating in PATH, a teaching internship in Tucson, Arizona, where he taught rising sixth-grade math students.
“The first day I was in the classroom, I loved it,” Dolan said. “It felt so natural to be up there working with students.”
Dolan said the program appealed to him because it allows him to bring more than his academic skills into his work. He said ACE felt like a place where he could bring his faith, personality and full self to his postgrad plans.
“I thought everything that makes me me was able to be brought to ACE,” Dolan said. “That’s really what sold me on it the most.”
Van de North, a biochemistry major with minors in science, technology and values and musical theater, will teach high school science in St. Petersburg, Florida. She said she had considered teaching before, but became more serious about the possibility after years of working with kids and tutoring at the Robinson Community Learning Center.
“I would be having the worst day ever, and then I’d get there, and I’d see my kid,” Van de North said. “I was like, ‘This impact. I want to keep having this.’”
Van de North said her own science teachers helped shape her decision to pursue teaching. She said she hopes to help students see science as something exciting and accessible.
“I kind of wanted to be like, ‘Look, this is something that can be cool,’” Van de North said. “Maybe there’s that one kid who’s never been exposed to it before but really likes it.”
Nelson, a neuroscience major with minors in compassionate care in medicine and musical theatre, will teach high school chemistry and math in Los Angeles through ACE. He said his interest in the program began freshman year, when ACE Executive Director John Staud encouraged him to consider teaching before medical school.
“Ever since then, there’s always kind of been a little bit of that voice in the back of my head,” Nelson said.
Nelson said ACE connects to his Notre Dame experience through a call to serve others. As a resident assistant, he said service has already been an important part of his time at the University.
“ACE just feels like another big way to give back,” Nelson said. “I’ll be [in] a place that I don’t know very well but a place that I’m excited to get to know and become a part of.”
For Colbert, a global affairs and theology major with a minor in peace studies, postgrad service will take a different form. Through JVC, she will work at St. Vincent’s Parish in Baltimore, primarily with the parish’s faith and justice ministry. Colbert said her work will include doorbell ministry, helping receive homeless people and connect them with services such as food, clothing, furniture donations and community meals.
Colbert said she became interested in JVC through professor Jerry Powers’ peace-building and theology class. She said she was drawn to the program’s emphasis on simple living, community and accompaniment.
“They really emphasize accompaniment with people,” Colbert said. “That is something that is very important to me.”
Colbert said her decision to pursue a year of service was deliberate, not a placeholder because she was unsure what to do after graduation.
“I think there is this idea that a year of service is just like, ‘Oh, I don’t know what I want to do with my life, so I’m going to serve,’” Colbert said. “I don’t think that’s it, because for me, it was a very deliberate decision.”
Colbert said she hopes JVC will help her learn how to accompany people without trying to solve every problem.
“I want to learn from experience, on the ground, how to properly accompany people that are leading such different lives than I have,” Colbert said.
For the students entering ACE, teaching emerged as both a professional path and a form of service. Dolan said he is most excited to meet his students in Oakland.
“All I’m doing is for them,” Dolan said. “The main reason here is for the students.”
Van de North said teaching is service because teachers accompany students through both academic and personal experiences.
“It’s both physically serving, like you’re physically there, you’re engaging your students, but also, on an emotional level, you’re supporting them,” Van de North said. “You are walking with them as they go through whatever they’re going through that year.”
Nelson said he hopes to be remembered not only for what he teaches but for how he helps students grow.
“I don’t necessarily care if I’m remembered as a teacher of someone who’s like, ‘Oh yeah, I remember chemistry super well,’,” Nelson said. “I want to be the teacher who the kids think back on in a few years, like, he was tough, but he was fair, and he pushed us to be better people.”
All four students said Notre Dame shaped their decisions to pursue service.
Dolan said that hall Mass in Duncan Hall helped him understand faith as communal, which he hopes to bring into Catholic education.
Nelson said the University pushed him to become a better version of himself.
While each student expects challenges, including moving to new cities, living in community and entering unfamiliar service settings, they also described those challenges as part of what drew them to their programs.
Van de North said she expects teaching to include hard moments but hopes to learn how to push through them.
Colbert said she is nervous about living in Baltimore, a city she has never visited.
Still, the seniors said they are looking forward to entering new communities after graduation.
“I think overall I just want to be taken out of my comfort zone,” Colbert said.
For students considering postgrad service, Colbert said they should not be afraid to take the step.
Nelson said teaching can be a vocation worth discerning.
“Don’t immediately count it out,” Nelson said. “Give it some time. Give it some thought.”
