Nashville Dominican Sister Named Head Of USCCB Education Office

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usccb.org/news/2012/12-091.cfm
May 29, 2012
WASHINGTON—Dominican Sister John Mary Fleming, a member of St. Cecilia Congregation in Nashville, Tennessee, has been named executive director of the Secretariat of Catholic Education of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). Sister Fleming currently is principal of St. Dominic School, Bolingbrook, Illinois.
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She succeeds Marie Powell, who announced her retirement earlier this year.
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Msgr. Ronny Jenkins, USCCB general secretary, announced the appointment May 29.
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“I am delighted that Sister John Mary will soon join the USCCB and am grateful to her religious community for allowing her to accept this appointment,” Msgr. Jenkins said. “Both she and her religious community have shown a commitment to Catholic education that resonates with our conference and which has been a hallmark of the Catholic church in this country.”
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He thanked Marie Powell for her years at the bishops’ conference and commended her both for her generous service at the bishops’ conference and for her outstanding career in educational leadership.
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“Marie served well for many years as a strong advocate for Catholic schools and as a leader in the education community,” Msgr. Jenkins said. “She can be proud of her contributions, as we are proud of her.”
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Sister Fleming holds a licentiate in canon law from The Catholic University of America, a master’s degree in theology from Franciscan University of Steubenville, a master of education degree in educational leadership and supervision from the University of Southern Mississippi and a bachelor’s degree in education from Belmont University, Nashville.
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Prior to her term as principal at St. Dominic’s, 2010-present, Sister Fleming was director of education for her religious congregation, 2000-2007; interim vice president of operations at Aquinas College, Nashville, 2000-2001; and coordinator of her congregation’s $46 million motherhouse building project, 2000-2006.
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She served on the board of Aquinas College, 2000-2007, and currently is a board member of Providence Academy, Minneapolis. In 2012, she also served on the 10-member team to develop a program for the year of Faith for the Diocese of Joliet, Illinois.
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A solid appointment from all appearances. I have heard of nothing but good things coming out of the Dominicans of Saint Cecilia in Nashville.
 
How so? I’m not familiar with the person previously in that position.
 
She’s a Dominican from the St. Cecilia congregation, which is good news. They’re orthodox and noted for their teaching. She has a licentiate in canon law and a degree in theology, to go with her educational leadership training. It’s likely she understands the needs of the Church, as well as education and management.

The reason I said that this was a big change: I can’t imagine that someone from the St. Cecilia Dominicans could have been nominated for this position 10-15 years ago. We, as a Church, were very much into trying to compete with the public schools completely on their turf then, as if our theology was an afterthought. A lot of Catholic schools still are in that mode. Maybe she can turn this around.

I didn’t know much about Marie Powell and did not mean to say anything negative about this person. I do know what the climate teaching in the Catholic Schools was like 10-15 years ago because that’s when I was teaching in them. This is my reference point.

I also don’t know if things have changed with the NCEA either, the National Catholic Education Association. They used to have wild and crazy speakers. 😃
 
Catholic schools, as you know, don’t have unions. But we had the NCEA, a pro-Catholic-school organization, and we could belong to it. They had conventions every year.

One year we were requested not to attend. I’m not in PA, but it was a pretty big deal, all but forgotten now. 😛 Here’s a news clip from that year…

nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_product=ET&p_theme=et&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&p_topdoc=1&p_text_direct-0=0EB92E81B25386F7&p_field_direct-0=document_id&p_perpage=10&p_sort=YMD_date:D&s_trackval=GooglePM
 
She’s already worked in the educational system in the diocese of Joliet. Having much less familiarity with that bureacracy than she does, I’m pretty sure she doesn’t need suggestions from me. 🙂

But the authors of certain catechesis programs (which I refer to as “fuzzy bunny catechesis” programs) could use some knuckle cruises, IMO.

Those who have gutted catholic education of the pervasively catholic character they once had are a plentiful set of candidates. People gasp in shock when they hear that my kids attend mass at school every morning, confession once a month, pray the rosary, have May crownings, pray novenas, learn about saints. This should be routine, not freaky in catholic school systems. Far too many catholic schools are just low budget private schools with a religion class once a week and a monthly all-school mass tacked on like afterthoughts.

There are superb curriculums out there that have not been scrubbed of the profound impact faith has had on history, sociology, literature, even language. So why are we using the same de-facto atheist texts as the public schools in so many catholic schools? Misguided credentialism. Administrators think they are doing a better job choosing the more common programs that they hear about in the latest secular onging ed. seminars. Time to stop being ashamed of our identity and legacy and stand up for the truth of how christianity in general and catholicism in particular lies at the foundation of Western civilization.
 
iloveangels said:
You must be home-schooling or enrolled in an SSPX school.
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Sad, but typical response. Nope, Rockford, IL diocesan school in good standing with the bishop. holycross-batavia.org/hccs/index.php/curriculum

The best part is that there is nothing remotely extreme about it. It’s just the way catholic education should be done, once was done, and is starting to be done again in some places.

I should mention also that in an era when catholic schools close or generally struggle to survive, this one is only 4 years old, is full to the gills and studying ways to expand. Coincidence? Nope. 😉
 
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