Some 185 Notre Dame graduating seniors who are embarking on a year or more of service in this country and abroad will be honored during the University’s annual Senior Service Send-Off ceremony at 10 a.m. Saturday (May 15) in Washington Hall.p. Notre Dame’s president, Rev. Edward A. Malloy, C.S.C., will address the seniors and their families on the Universitys commitment to service in education and throughout the lifetimes of its graduates.p. Reflections on postgraduate service will be offered by Colleen Knight-Santoni, director of student outreach for service and social action at the Center for Social Concerns and a 1996 Notre Dame graduate. Following her graduation, Knight-Santoni taught in Notre Dames Alliance for Catholic Education (ACE) program at All Saints Catholic School in Fort Worth, Texas, and earned a masters degree in teaching in 1998. She is married to Frank Santoni, a 1997 Notre Dame graduate who now works in the Universitys Campus Ministry office. They have two children.p. At the ceremony each of the participating seniors will be recognized by name and service program, and each will receive a journal with favorite quotations and advice from various members of the Notre Dame community.Large maps of the United States and the world will be displayed illustrating the vast geographical reach of the domestic and international programs in which the seniors have enlisted.p. A blessing of the seniors will be led by Rev. William Lies, C.S.C., executive director of the Center for Social Concerns, and Andrea Smith Shappell, the center’s director of senior transition programs.p. Among the 45 service programs this year’s Notre Dame graduates will join are the UniversitysHoly Cross Associates, which serves the poor in six U.S. cities and Chile:ACE, which provides teachers for understaffed parochial schools in dioceses across the United States; and the new Faith Formation Leadership Program in which 13 graduates will work in catechetical positions in three U.S. dioceses while earning a master’s degree in theology.Many of the seniors became involved in serviceand social action through the Center for Social Concerns, in whose programs and courses some 2,000 students annually participate.p. Music for the ceremony will include songs chosen by the graduates and led by the Notre Dame Folk Choir. Following the ceremony there will be a reception at the Center for Social Concerns.p. The ceremony will be shown live on the University’s Web site http://www.nd.edu
Contact: Andrea Smith Shappell at 574-631-5779 or shappell.1@nd.edu
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