Senator and former Gov. Evan Bayh of Indiana will be the principal speaker July 13 (Saturday) at the seventh annual graduation ceremony for teachers in the University of Notre Dame’s Alliance for Catholic Education (ACE) program.p. The ceremony will begin at 2 p.m. in the Jordan Auditorium of the Mendoza College of Business on campus. It will be followed by a Mass at 6:30 p.m. in the Basilica of the Sacred Heart. Notre Dame’s president, Rev. Edward A. Malloy, C.S.C., will preside and Rev. Timothy R. Scully, C.S.C., Notre Dame’s executive vice president and the founder of ACE, will give the homily.p. Bayh will address 76 ACE graduates who are receiving master of education degrees from Notre Dame after completing academic requirements and two years of teaching in under-resourced Catholic schools across the United States.p. A two-term governor of Indiana from 1989-97, Bayh was elected in 1998 to the Senate, where the performance of our nation’s public schools and tax relief for college tuition have been among his legislative priorities. He serves on four Senate committees: Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, on which he is the chairman of the Subcommittee on International Trade and Finance; Energy and Natural Resources; the Select Committee on Intelligence; and the Special Committee on Aging.p. As chair of the Democratic Leadership Council and a member the Senate Centrist Coalition, Bayh is considered a leader in bipartisan efforts to find common ground between the parties on key legislative issues.p. As governor, Bayh stressed fiscal responsibility, lower taxes, job creation and lean government. His economic policies, including no tax increases for eight years, helped create more than 375,000 new jobs and the largest budget surplus in state history.p. Bayh was born in Shirkieville, Ind. He graduated with honors in business economics from Indiana University in 1978 and received his law degree from the University of Virginia in 1981. After clerking for a federal court judge and entering private law practice in Indianapolis, he was elected Indiana’s Secretary of State in 1986.p. Bayh and his wife, Susan, are the parents of twin 6-year-old sons. His father, Birch, served as an Indiana senator from 1963-81.p. Founded in 1994 by Father Scully and Rev. Sean McGraw, C.S.C., ACE is a service through teaching program that gives college graduates the opportunity to earn master of education degrees while serving as full-time teachers in under-resourced 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.p. More than 80 recent college graduates enter ACE each year. Coming from a wide variety of educational disciplines, the students take courses and engage in teacher-training projects at Notre Dame during their two summers in the program, then are assigned to full-time teaching positions at schools in some 30 cities in 14 states during the school year. Within each city, the ACE students also live in community, sharing the rewards and challenges of teaching.p. After two years, the students graduate with a master of education degree, and, although not obligated to remain in education, 75 percent stay in the profession in both public and private elementary and secondary schools through the country.
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