Director, ALMA Initiative; Assistant Teaching Professor, ACE Teaching Fellows
About ALMA
"Indeed, everything possible must be done, in cooperation with the wider community, to ensure that [Catholic schools] are accessible to people of all social and economic strata. No child should be denied his or her right to an education in faith, which in turns nurtures the soul of a nation."
– Pope Benedict XVI
Mission
EMBRACE
We strive to embrace the immigrant and multicultural Church as both the great legacy of Catholic education and a path to future vitality.
EDUCATE
We work to serve multilingual students by forming educators and leaders to employ research-based practices that promote student success.
EMPOWER
We seek to empower multicultural communities as sources of expertise, wisdom, and faith.
History
In 2009, with the publication of To Nurture the Soul of a Nation, the University of Notre Dame’s Alliance for Catholic Education (ACE) renewed its commitment to Catholic education's great legacy of service to immigrant and historically underserved populations by giving special attention to the fastest-growing school-age population in the United States—Latino children. Since 2010, the Catholic School Advantage Campaign (CSA), through a number of different innovative outreach programs, has sought to catalyze a vibrant national movement guided by two distinct objectives:
- Promote the unique value of Catholic schools to Latino families
- Help schools respond to the unique needs of Latino families
In a similar vein, ACE's English as a New Language Program (ENL) has been working since 2005 to ensure that multilingual students are afforded the same benefits of a quality Catholic education by preparing educators to meet the needs of English learners. ENL's three-strand approach helps educators develop expertise in the following: second language acquisition, research-based instructional strategies, and culturally sustaining pedagogy.
Today, we continue to build upon the great legacy of Catholic education in the U.S. through the formal partnership of the CSA and ENL programs as the ALMA Initiative. We believe linguistically and culturally diverse students deserve to benefit fully from the legacy of Catholic education, which is uniquely positioned to serve their academic and cultural needs.
Through this work, we have seen that our Church and schools not only serve multicultural and multilingual communities—they are transformed by them. We firmly believe that by helping schools leverage the linguistic assets and cultural richness of students and families, they become places to work through differences, encounter others, and prepare the next generation to be a powerful force for good in our world today.
Impact
People
Meet the Team
Associate Director, ALMA Initiative
Administrative Assistant
Program Coordinator, ENL Hernandez Fellows
Associate Director of ENL Educational Outreach
Dual Language Program Coordinator
Assistant Clinical Teaching Professor; Coordinator, Latino Enrollment Institute; Coordinator, Latino Educator and Administrator Development Program
Educator Formation Program Coordinator
Our Partners
The ALMA Initiative is proudly part of the Alliance for Catholic Education (ACE) and the Institute for Educational Initiatives (IEI) at the University of Notre Dame and has an established reach and impact across the nation in Catholic education. As such, the ALMA Initiative is profoundly grateful for and strengthened by a multitude of expert and committed partners in this work (University of Notre Dame: 2033 Strategic Framework). Thank you to our collaborators in this important mission.