The Official Journal of the National Catholic Educational AssociationFebruary/March 2010

Featured Inside:National Catholic Colleges Week

Inside!

The Regis School

of the Sacred Heart

— Responding to the

Needs of Others.

Volume XLI No. 1 • February/March 2010

Editorials 4 Impulse:SincereQuestionsfromaSemi-Luddite—andaFew

Answers Karen Ristau

Special Theme: Technology

16Teacher Leaders Are Key to Success of 1:1 Laptop

ProgramMaryNosekAcademyofHolyAngelsstaffdevelop-mentprogramensuredthatteachersbecamemoreefficientwithlaptopsthantheywerewithoutthem.

10Online Courses Can Enhance Your Curriculum

LizPapeandMaryEllenBarnesCatholicschoolsareturningtoonlinecoursestobridgethebudgetgap.

14Web 2.0 Opens Worldwide Possibilities in EducationThomasHancock

TheWebisnolongerjustasit-and-getrepositoryofinformationandproducts.

16From the Field: Building an Alumni Community on FacebookJessJankoviak

Baltimore’sMountSt.JosephHighSchoolFacebookpageunitesalumni,facultyandfriends.

18Adopting 21st Century Technology for 21st Century ParentsTeriCullen

St.DominicSchoolneededtobridgethedigitaldividebetweentheschoolandparents.

22Combating Student Cheating in the Digital Era

StephenBrownClassroomcheaterstodayoftenutilize“JamesBondtype”devices.

24From the Field: Marketing Catholic Schools Using Technology

NicolePascarelliO’BrienDirectorofadmissionsdecidedtogowheretheparentsare—online.

Features

26 “Inherit the Wind” Production Sparks Theological Reflection on Faith and Sci-enceJosephAlexander

29 School’s In for Summer — Summer Catechetical Programs ScottAlessi

32 A Baptist President & a Catholic High SchoolDanHorn

34 Crafting a Culture of Discipline: Lead-ing with HeartMaryMullaly,FMA

40 Little Steps Can Make a DifferenceNancyO.TaylorandPriyankaAgarwal

Vocations44 Groundbreaking Study Reaffirms Schools’ Key Role in VocationsCarolSchuckScheiber

Departments

46AssociationNews48CapitolInfo.WhataDifferenceaYearMakes • DaleMcDonald,PBVM50TechnologyTrends&DREDirections.NavigatingtheDigitalCultureasaDRE:Inch-byInch • AngelaAnnZukowski,MHSH

National Catholic Colleges Week 53

54 Special Week Highlights Beneits of Catholic Higher EducationCatholicCollegesWeekobservancesscheduled

Feb.21through27.

56 College Allows Students to Cre-ate a Worldview for Themselves MonsignorFrankCasale

60 Catholic Colleges Offer a Purposeful Engagement of the Head, Heart and Hands with the Love of ChristFatherKenPaulli,OFM

64 Catholic Colleges and Universities Step Up to Educate a New Generation of Lay Ecclesial MinistersMarkErdosy

70 A Dream Becomes a Reality: Assump-tion College for Sisters Educates Women for Worldwide ServiceJosephSpring,SCC

74 Catholic Colleges and Universities in the United States

Special Supplement: NCEA 2010 Convention, Expo & NPCD Convocation 77

40 Reprinted with permission of Momentum, official journal of the National Catholic Educational Association February/March 2010

“There are two ways of spreading the light;to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it”—Edith Wharton

At The Regis School of the Sacred Heart in Houston, Texas, our way of spreading the light always will focus on teaching our school community to be compassionately aware of the needs of others and to be people of

action. For the past 18 years, our students, parents, faculty and staff have dedicated themselves passion-ately to making a difference as we live the mission of all Sacred Heart schools. We desire to reflect God’s love for us by sharing it with those around us.

The social awareness commitment at Regis is grounded in the ethos of the Society of the Sacred Heart and the timeless values of charity and mercy instilled by Foundress St. Madeleine Sophie Barat and brought to the United States by St. Philippine Duch-esne. Intrinsic to the Society of the Sacred Heart is the firm belief that the only way to truly discover God is to see him alive in others.

To be responsive to the needs of others and to be generous and courageous in service becomes a way of life for Sacred Heart schools. “At a school of the Sacred Heart you will learn to take little steps and big steps in order to set God’s Kingdom right” (Excerpts from” Life at the Sacred Heart,” 1985). The little steps and the big steps are made by living the five Sacred Heart goals and their accompanying criteria.

These little steps taken to serve others are embod-ied in Goal III of the Sacred Heart education: Schools of the Sacred Heart commit themselves to educate to a social awareness that impels to action. This is one of the five goals that bind Sacred Heart communities to-gether. Encouraged by this goal, we strive to develop our students into conscientious individuals driven by

Little Steps Can Make a DifferenceRegis School of the Sacred Heart students reflect God’s love by sharing it with those around them

NancyO.TaylorandPriyankaAgarwal

THEREgISSCHOOLOFTHESACREDHEARTPHOTOS

Little Brother Zachary Amelang and Big Brother Mateo Camacho hold a Shoebox which the duo had wrapped to be given to local charities.

Reprinted with permission of Momentum, official journal of the National Catholic Educational Association February/March 2010 41

a lifelong commitment to service. In all aspects of our Social Awareness Program, the boys are engaged in ed-ucational, service outreach, spiritual and reflective components. The edu-cational component helps members of the Regis community to be active, informed and responsible citizens locally, nationally and globally. The service outreach component gives the Regis family an opportunity to serve others, develop a reciprocal relation-ship with the local community and instill a sense of bonding among Regis community members. The spiritual and reflective aspect enables our boys to pray for those in need, to reflect on the root causes of a particu-lar need and to consider what they can do to affect change in the world. These reflections and experiences are captured in journals maintained by Regis boys until graduation.

Analyze Issues and Be Proactive

Through the Social Awareness Pro-gram students become aware of is-sues that impact us and others in our society. The essence of our program is found as we analyze the impact of the issues and the difference that we can make by being proactive. More importantly, we do not just describe projects or talk about needs and problems, we actively engage. In re-cent years, we have examined topics dealing with environmental issues, homelessness, hunger, immigration, poverty, war and religious acceptance and diversity.

In the Early Childhood division, these themes are discussed in class and, subsequently, the young boys often offer prayer during morning assemblies. One year the preschoolers led their Big Brothers in an amaz-ing project entitled “Operation Regis Cares.” The school collected 47 boxes of goods to be sent to U.S. marines and sailors stationed at Camp Fal-lujah, Iraq. Regis families responded generously to fill the marines’ wish list with energy bars, hand wipes, DVDs, sweets and even a yoga mat. In the tradition of the U.S. military, our care packages included vitamins, medicines, shoes and toys for the

Iraqi children whom our military forces protect.

In Lower and Middle School, cur-rent events are discussed and ana-lyzed as to causes and effects. Last year’s learning linked our Social Awareness Program to the United Nations Eight Millennium Develop-ment Goals. Themes centered on the global issues of water and food short-ages, the education of girls, maternal health and especially the challenges faced by African children. The educa-tional aspect of the initiative included teaching the boys about the people of Africa and their cultures through a week-long International Festival dedicated to learning and appreciat-ing this continent.

Partner School in Uganda

The service outreach aspect al-lowed the Regis community to co-host a concert by the internation-ally acclaimed African Children’s Choir with St. Francis Episcopal Day School. Funds raised were donated to support the education, care and emergency relief of more than 7,000 children in African countries. This concert raised more money than the touring group had ever before received. Members of the choir also

Nancy O. Taylor is headmistress of The Regis School of the Sacred Heart. A grad-uate of Towson University in Maryland, she earned a master’s degree in education from the University of Virginia and a certificate of advanced study in education from The Johns Hopkins University. In 1998, she received a doctorate in private school administration from the Uni-versity of San Francisco’s Institute for Catholic Educational Leadership. Prior to coming to Regis, she served as the direc-tor of St. Albert Day School, principal of St. Francis de Sales School and, most recently, as principal of St. Laurence School in Sugar Land, Texas. Priyanka Agarwal works in advance-ment and communications at the school. She is currently pursuing a master’s degree in public relations from the University of Houston. In 1998, she received a bachelor’s degree in sociology from the University of Delhi, India. Prior to joining Regis, she worked as a public relations consultant in India consult-ing for Fortune 500 companies such as Microsoft, EMC and Hewlett-Packard (pagarwal@theregisschool.org).

Members of the African Children’s Choir have fun with Regis student Thomas Behan at the school campus.

42 Reprinted with permission of Momentum, official journal of the National Catholic Educational Association February/March 2010

spent a day at our school and inter-acted with our students.

Regis also has an ongoing rela-tionship with a Sacred Heart school at Kyamusansala Hill, Uganda. In partnership with other Sacred Heart schools, we have sent monies for a water filtration plant, a classroom building and tuition. Our boys so care for their sister school that many birthday parties are held with re-quests for no gifts for the celebrant but rather a request for donations to support the Uganda school.

Regis traditional projects include the annual Thanksgiving food drive for the Houston Food Bank. What is unique about this project is that our students actually perform service at the food bank’s facility. The words of an enthusiastic fourth grader who was busy packing beans at the facility last year, embody the spirit of this ini-tiative: “I like doing this. It’s fun and it’s good.” This year, we expanded our active Thanksgiving service to in-

clude preparing and serving lunches to homeless individuals supported by the Lord of the Street’s Active Home-less Outreach Program. Fifth and sixth grade boys worked alongside church volunteers to prepare and serve sandwiches to homeless men, women and children.

Another cherished Regis tradi-tion occurs at Christmas time when Big Brothers and Little Brothers pack shoeboxes with essential items, to be given to local agencies that distribute them to the people they serve. The shoeboxes, wrapped with comics or holiday wrap, make their way to migrants, handicapped and homeless people.

The Regis community also en-thusiastically supports recycling and understands its relationship to stewardship of the earth’s resources. We have been active champions of “Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle” since September 2007 and were the first Houston school to support the city’s

former mayor’s favorite project. On a daily basis, while the boys proud-ly hold one another accountable for recycling and the cautious use of resources, they also articulate that a major reason for reuse and recycling is because the earth is a “Gift from God.” Last year, during Earth Week, students demonstrated the message “We can be the change!” through their participation in several off-campus and on-campus environ-ment conservation activities. For instance, preschoolers and kinder-gartners decorated 100 grocery bags with Earth Day messages to be used at a neighborhood grocery store. This was done to support the Earth Day Groceries Project, a non-profit organization dedicated to creating environmental awareness.

In both the Lower and Middle Schools, teachers delve more deeply into the subject matter in an inter-disciplinary approach and with particular emphasis in religion class

Preschoolers and kindergarten students were happy to collect supplies for Operation Regis Cares.

Reprinted with permission of Momentum, official journal of the National Catholic Educational Association February/March 2010 43

discussions. Students are educated about the principles of Catholic social teaching that are to be promulgated and lived by all Catholics.

In a major departure from always being faculty-driven, a steering com-mittee now comprised of more than 25 parents, faculty and staff worked throughout the summer to develop a comprehensive program based on the Corporal Works of Mercy that would drive our Social Awareness Program for this school year. The focus is to provide students with meaning-ful experiences that allow them “to feed the hungry, to give drink to the thirsty, to clothe the naked, to shelter the homeless, to care for the sick, to visit the imprisoned and to bury the dead.”

While some traditional favorite projects remain, Regis now looks for projects within the local community where we can involve our students

Themes Set the Tone for the MonthThe Corporal Works of Mercy serve as the monthly themes for service learning projects specific to the development ages of Regis students.September EldersOctober Drug Awareness/Animal

Well-BeingNovember Military Families/Respect

for Dead/ Food BankDecember ImmigrationJanuary Social Tolerance/Disabled February Poverty/HaitiMarch Education/UgandaApril Environment

with a realization that “candles need to be lit” closer to home. We are all learning together the ways to make a difference in the City of Houston.

Monthly ThemesEach monthly theme is tied to a

national holiday or school event in order to teach and experience all of the Corporal Works of Mercy. These themes set the tone for service learn-ing projects specific to the develop-ment ages of our students. (See box on this page).

To extend an understanding of this year’s initiatives, we began with our celebration of Grandparents Day at the school where grandsons hosted their grandparents for a prayer service and classroom visits. To reach beyond our school families, seventh and eighth graders visited with the residents of an assisted liv-ing facility, presenting hand-made cards and interviewing the residents. This visit generated lasting impres-sions of life stories and precious experiences. So moved were some of the boys with their interaction with the residents that they pledged to visit the facility on a regular basis.

In October, the program director of S.E.A.R.C.H, a local non-profit organization that helps individu-als and families that are homeless, appealed to the Middle School boys to assist the organization’s efforts to raise funds for food for the home-less. He educated them about how drug usage can ruin families. In response to his appeal, one boy took it upon himself personally to raise funds to provide food for several homeless people supported by the organization.

For November, we embarked on a unique journey to reflect our respect for the dead. We partnered with

Project R.E.S.P.E.C.T., a local non-profit organization committed to preserving abandoned and neglected African American cemeteries here in Houston. We worked with members of the organization and local pro-fessionals such as geologists, geo-physicists and artists to preserve the Historic Harrisburg Jackson Cem-etery. Seventh and eighth graders used GPS technology to designate grave locations, used GIS systems to register gravesites for public use, did landscaping and learned how to do grave rubbings. Thrilled by their ex-perience at the cemetery, many boys want to return and also look for cem-eteries in their own neighborhoods that they could help preserve.

This unique service-learning proj-ect also had an educational dimen-sion as students learned how tech-nology can be applied to integrate multiple disciplines such as geology, archeology and even art for service to the community. For many boys, it was a first-time experience pushing a lawn mower and pulling weeds.

As a Christian community, we are called to perform acts of kindness and compassion with open minds and hearts. Through written reflec-tions and oral discussions, students truly learn why we are Christians and how we are called to be com-passionate friends and stewards of our earthly home. We hope that the lessons learned at Regis will make an impact on our students and their families for the rest of their lives. Our Social Awareness Program is our own special way to extend the loving message of Christ, “By the love you have for one another, everyone will know you are my dis-ciples.” Using metaphors of “candle lighting” or “steps taken” really doesn’t matter. For us at Regis, ser-vice is a way of life. n

“The essence of our program is found as we analyze the impact of the issues and the difference that we can make by being proactive. More importantly, we do not just describe projects or talk about needs and problems, we actively engage.”

Sean Rossettie (left) and Miguel Amaya (right) of The Regis School visit with a resident of The Hampton, an assisted living facility in Houston.