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On April 12, Sister of Our Lady of Mount Carmel Camille Anne Campbell, president/principal of Mount Carmel Academy, accepted the 2012 Catholic Schools for Tomorrow “Innovations in Education” award at the National Catholic Educational Association conference in Boston. The award is sponsored by Today’s Catholic Teacher magazine.
Mount Carmel Academy was one of 12 Catholic elementary and secondary schools to receive this year’s award for “exemplary innovative programs to improve the teaching and learning of their students, faculty and staff.” It was the sole recipient in the Archdiocese of New Orleans.
Mount Carmel was commended for its long-running summer Cubs in Action Service Learning Camp where students work with the elderly, disadvantaged preschool students, abused animals and others.
Over the past eight years, the program has grown from 14 students to 120 each summer, said coordinator Jackie Favaro, with students returning the following summer. Volunteer hours have amounted to 74,000 since its inception, and the program has been used as a model for others area agencies to follow.
“The work that the girls are doing is truly service work,” Favaro said. “It’s good to know that it is acknowledged. The award recognizes that the girls are in the community doing whatever they can. Every place that we go, they say the girls are so wonderful.”
Sister Camille Anne said service is not taken lightly at Mount Carmel Academy.
“We’ve made it that every organization, every club has to have a service-learning component as part of that,” she said.
Received earlier recognition
This is not the first time Mount Carmel has been recognized for Innovations in Education. In 1998, MCA was lauded for integration of technology in the classroom, the same year Sister Camille Anne earned the Outstanding Educator nod.
But, Sister Camille Anne sees a difference in the two honors. She said technology is required in the classroom. Service learning builds character.
“This is something that the girls will create into a lifetime habit of giving service to others, just as Jesus did,” she said. “The personal reports (that the participants write after completing the program) told us it taught them respect for life, compassion to love and not to fear those who are different.”
Included Katrina account
Sister Camille Anne said the award was presented at a dinner held at the Harvard Club of Boston. She said the award presentation included a moving account of how Mount Carmel Academy recovered from the levee breaches during Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
Accompanying Sister Camille Ann to the three-day conference were faculty members Beth Ann Simno, vice president; Sue Buras, director of student activities; Tannya Aguilera Taulli, director of professional development; and Deanna Cheramie, administrator for eighth and ninth grades.
Sister Camille Anne said the convention reinforces the value of having a strong Catholic identity in each school through academics, activities and technology.
“It’s all how you combine the Gospel of Jesus Christ and social justice principles – that the church has become so dedicated to – in your school community,” Sister Camille Anne said. “Whatever we learn will help us when we go back as educators and as Catholic educators.”
Dr. Jan Lancaster, superintendent for schools in the archdiocese of New Orleans also attended the NCEA conference and expressed her elation that a local school was honored.
“How proud I was of Mount Carmel Academy,” she said, “and what a difference the school makes in our community.”
Christine Bordelon can be reached at [email protected].
Tags: innovations in education, Mount Carmel Academy, service, Uncategorized