SHA-Cordecho-Winter-21-22

AMessage from the Head of School ach year they assemble: girls from across Western New York who are excited and a bit nervous to turn the page as they continue writing their own stories. They come to us full of curiosity, boundless energy, and mouths full of braces. With open minds, they are ready to take on the challenges of this new chapter called high school. Not certain where this adventure will take them, they are often distracted by trying to get the right answer. Our mission as educators is to encourage them to move beyond the answers and bring their focus to asking the right questions. Over their four years at Sacred Heart, they start to think more creatively and critically about how they will study, address, master or rewrite those questions. As a result, our young women become lifelong learners, equally prepared to take on the roles of teachers and learners. Bearing witness to and actively facilitating this four-year transformation is highly satisfying and one of the reasons why working in education is such a fulfilling profession. As this pandemic continues, I encourage you to take pause and truly celebrate our teachers. They have been exceptional at moving learning forward for our students. Modeling the lifelong learning they seek to kindle in their students, our educators mastered new technology and teaching methods to rise to the challenges posed by this pandemic. They spent much of last year envisioning how to engage the students sitting in front of them and those sitting at a desk at home connected only through a computer screen. Often, they had to lean on their savvy students for solutions to technology glitches and workarounds. They also have navigated the pace of this novel approach to teaching, wisely using pit stops to refuel along the way. Self-care and a sense of humor have been vital to combat the outside forces along this bumpy, pandemic road. With such extraordinary mentors introducing our students to the transformational power of education, it is not surprising to me that so many of our graduates choose this noble profession as their own career path. In fact, 15% of those employed by our Academy call SHA their alma mater. Many point back to their time and experiences at the Academy as their inspiration to pursue a career in education. During this very unusual time, I was curious about how our alumnae in higher education were addressing challenges on their campuses. In this issue, we share with you the stories and wisdom we uncovered when interviewing some of our alumnae working in colleges and universities. To educators everywhere, thank you. To the mom who struggled to support her child in distance learning while keeping her own head above water with her day job, we honor you. To the elementary school teacher who has patiently told her student for the 10th time that hour to put that mask back up over the nose, we are grateful. To the middle school teacher who has refused to let students check out and has found real world connections to teach necessary academic concepts, we appreciate you. For those who have stayed on Zoom calls with high school students to gauge how they are doing - spirit, mind and body - your efforts don’t go unnoticed. And for those who created multiple check-in times for your college students learning in time zones from Syracuse to San Francisco to Shanghai, we applaud you. There are some real heroes in this pandemic, and you are among them! 2 C O R D E C H O S P I R I T . M I N D . B O D Y . ONTHECOVER Sacred Heart Academy congratulates the Class of 2021 for successfully making it through an unprecedented and challenging year. Students pictured are (top row, left to right) Grace Martin - University of Notre Dame, Sa’Ron Ogden - University at Buffalo, Caroline Carlson - College of the Holy Cross, Brigid Christ - Boston College, (bottom row, left to right) Eliza Podlas - Colgate University, Nadia Dabney - John Carroll University, Alecia McGruder - Syracuse University, and Megan Del Regno - University of Rochester. S P I R I T. M I N D . B O D Y.