Macaluso Named Teaching Fellows Academic Director
Kati Macaluso, an assistant teaching professor in the Institute for Educational Initiatives at the University of Notre Dame, has been named the academic director of the ACE Teaching Fellows program at the University’s Alliance for Catholic Education (ACE).
As academic director, Macaluso will lead the formation of nearly 200 teachers each year as they teach in pre-K-12 Catholic schools across the United States and earn a master’s degree in education.
“We are truly blessed to have Kati play this critically important leadership position in the formation of ACE teachers,” said John Staud, ACE’s executive director. “Her commitment and witness to excellence in teaching and scholarship for the greater good of Catholic education is unsurpassed.”
ACE Teaching Fellows recruits and forms recent college graduates to teach in some of the nation’s most under-served Catholic schools. It is a two-year, fully integrated formational program that weaves together graduate coursework, full-time teaching, and supervision from expert faculty across grade levels and subject areas nested in a peer community and continual spiritual growth.
“I am thrilled that Kati has accepted this appointment,” said Mark Berends, the Hackett Family Director of the Institute. “She brings a deep understanding of Catholic education and the vital role it plays in our Church, communities, and nation. Her passion for our mission will serve as a wonderful example to our ACE teachers.”
Macaluso has served as interim academic director of ACE Teaching Fellows since January 2022, after coming to Notre Dame in 2016 to direct ACE Advocates – ACE’s network of graduates and supporters committed to strengthening Catholic pre-K-12 education. She was chosen after a national search for the position.
“It is an honor to be charged with the formation of the next generation of Catholic educators,” Macaluso said. “I see this directorship as a ministry of hope: preparing teachers to bring the young people entrusted to their care to wholeness in the image of the loving God who created them.”
Macaluso also taught several courses in the master’s degree program and supervised ACE teachers each year, observing them in their classroom and coaching them as developing teachers.
Macaluso earned a Ph.D. from Michigan State University in curriculum, instruction and teacher education and a bachelor’s degree from Notre Dame. She will draw on her own experience as an ACE teacher, as she earned a master’s degree in education from Notre Dame after teaching English language arts at Ascension Catholic High School in Donaldsonville, Louisiana, as a member of ACE Teaching Fellows’ 12th cohort.
After earning her master’s degree, Macaluso taught high school English for four years and directed the Writing Center at Fenwick High School, a Catholic high school in Oak Park, Illinois, before attending Michigan State.
ACE was founded in 1993 to provide high-quality teachers to understaffed Catholic schools in the southeastern United States. Since then, it has grown to include two degree programs, two licensure programs, and more than a dozen other efforts to strengthen Catholic schools through forming talent, expanding access, enhancing school vitality, and conducting research on school improvement.
