Young teachers earn graduate theology degrees in diocesan schools

Good teachers don’t grow on trees. They need to be nurtured and cultivated, guided to sprout new shoots, and that’s just what happens with the University of Notre Dame’s ECHO Graduate Service Program, hosted by the McGrath Institute for Church Life.
    
ECHO participants, all of whom hold bachelor degrees, spend two years taking intensive short-term summer courses at  ND to earn a Master of Arts in Theology while serving during the academic year in a Catholic parish or school in one of the ECHO partner dioceses located throughout the U.S. and Ireland, and taking courses online.
      
ECHO students benefit from a robust formation program that integrates their work, study and faith life in order to serve the Catholic Church and to explore a career in ministry, all while growing as a disciple and a leader in catechesis and evangelization.
      
For the next two years, three of ECHO’s best and brightest will be serving in the Diocese of Gary’s three high schools while engaging in intellectual, human, and spiritual formation. They are also living in community at St. Mary of the Lake parish in Gary.
    
“The Diocese of Gary schools are called to offer academic excellence that is inspired by faith in action,” said Dr. Colleen Brewer, superintendent of diocesan schools. “To fulfill this mission, it is essential that we have religion teachers and campus ministers who not only possess a deep understanding of the Catholic tradition but also inspire our students to live out their faith.
    
“These ECHO teachers are exemplary role models for our high school students as young adults who are living in a faith community, generously sharing their gifts to support the needs of the Church and giving back to the community,” she added  “Through their presence, they remind all of us of our baptismal call to keep learning about our faith, to nurture our own personal faith communities, and to offer our gifts to the service of the Church and the world however possible.”
    
Jacqueline Milkowski is teaching theology at Marquette High School in Michigan City, Dena Neville is teaching theology at Bishop Noll Institute in Hammond and Gianna Niece is a campus ministry apprentice at Andrean High School in Merrillville.
      
Milkowski is a Hammond native who attended St. John the Baptist School in Whiting, her home parish. She graduated from Bishop Noll in 2020 and recently earned a bachelor of arts in Elementary Education, with a minor in Theology, from Holy Cross College in South Bend.
      
“During a retreat while I was at Noll, I did a lot of discerning, praying and asking God what I was being called to do,” Milkowski recalled. “I got a great sense of clarity, and I went to Holy Cross for an education degree, because while I knew my faith, if I don’t know how to teach it, I can’t share that knowledge.
      
“I see ECHO as two years of service learning, and I knew 100% that I would love the program, because it gives me an opportunity to achieve my goal and pursue my passion,” she added.
      
She is teaching a course titled Foundations in Catholicism to freshmen, and said she has been warmly welcome by the Marquette staff. “They have been awesome, helping with practical things like fire drills and email, and my mentor, theology/social studies teacher Anne Larkin, has been very helpful in teaching me classroom management skills,” explained Milkowski, whose background includes experience shadowing and student teaching in a number of South Bend and Mishawaka private and public schools, serving as a resident assistant and honor society social concerns co-chair at Holy Cross, and working as an administrative assistant and optician at the St. Joseph County Veterans Clinic.
      
“I learned so very much from all ages of people I worked with – kindergartners to the elderly – from management skills to how to fit eyeglasses,” she said. “I also learned that everyone has a story to tell, outside of book learning. I’m more open-minded now, and know that community and communications include the ability to listen.”
      
An only child who grew up in Hegewisch, Ill., Milkowski hopes to continue teaching in the Diocese of Gary after ECHO. Her mother, Joanne Vetroczky, lives in Hammond, while her father, Richard Milkowski, passed away in 2020.
      
Neville, a native of Columbia Station, Ohio in the Diocese of Cleveland, attended her parish elementary school, St. Mary of the Falls, and Magnificat High School in Rocky River. She earned a bachelor of science in Adolescent to Young Adult Education Integrated Language Arts from the University of Dayton last May.
      
This semester, she is teaching a vocations course to BNI seniors, and will switch to a Social Justice course in the spring. Her mentor is theology teacher Kevin Driscoll.
      
“As an undergrad I had already decided that I wanted to teach, but I also had a greater love to serve the Catholic Church and give back to the Catholic school community,” Neville said of her decision to apply to ECHO. “I’m looking for a career in Catholic education, and getting my master’s within two years is a bonus.”
      
“In ECHO, I hope to gain the understanding of what it means to lay down one’s life in service to Christ and the Church,” added Neville, daughter of Jim and Colleen Neville, a teacher, and the sister of Dominic and Sean, a transitional deacon in the Diocese of Cleveland. “I am hoping to learn how to create a positive learning environment in which students feel drawn to Christ and can build a relationship with Him based upon the teachings within class.
      
Neville mentioned “bringing creativity to the classroom” by “explaining vocations not only through the textbook, but by having a priest talk to the students, for instance, and by having students care for a flour sack ‘baby’ to experience parenting.”
      
Neville has had her own experience with parenting by working as a nanny for eight summers, working with children ranging from two-year-old twins to a 10-year-old boy. “I definitely learned patience, and how to be specific when giving directions, and that’s something that can apply when dealing with high school students, too,” she said.
      
In college, Neville shadowed teachers of freshmen and sophomores at Dayton Early College Academy, offered English grammar lessons to seventh graders in an urban environment at Northridge Middle School and completed her student teaching as an English teacher at Beaver Creek High School.
      
Niece, whose hometown is Harrington Park, New Jersey, landed at Andrean as the apprentice campus minister after earning a bachelor of science degree in Psychology, with a minor in Special Education, from Liberty University in Virginia. She is the daughter of Betty Ann and Joseph Niece and has two older brothers, Joseph, a lay missionary with Maryknoll Missions, and Micah, serving with the U.S. Army in Taiwan.
  
After public grade school, she attended Immaculate Heart Academy in Washington Twp., NJ and had jobs as a food server at Harvey Cedars Bible Conference in NJ and at a senior living community while in college, a lifeguard for the Lacy (NJ) Department of Recreation and an assistant teacher for summers since 2016 at the Valley Program Foundation for Children with Autism in Norwood, NJ.
      
“This is my first experience in campus ministry, but my mentor, theology teacher Dara Behdazi, is awesome. We meet weekly and he’s very optimistic, like me,” Niece noted. “We talk about the past week and he has a great perspective.”
       
“Every day looks different,” she said a month into the school year. She hosts Bible study classes in her classroom on Tuesdays and Thursdays before school, leads daily prayer, recites a Rosary with students on Mondays and Fridays, and plans monthly service projects for the entire school.
      
“In August, we held a school supply drive – glue sticks, copy paper, pencils and crayons – for Aquinas Catholic Community School in Merrillville, and for September we are assisting the Northwest Indiana Cancer Kids Foundation for childhood cancer,” Niece explained. “Students can bring in gift cards, make bracelets and/or sell the bracelets at our home football games, with all proceeds going to the foundation.”
      
“I heard about ECHO from my campus ministry staff in college,” Niece said. “My hope is to be a light to everyone I meet in ministry. I hope to expand my leadership skills … and learn from my mentor how to build a cohesive community” which to Niece means “a Christ-centered group working to glorify God in all things. The gifts I hope to bring to serve the Church are positivity, joy, passion, warm heartedness and patience. It is important to me that everyone understands their value and the love that Christ has for them.”

 

Caption: The Diocese of Gary has welcomed three educators this fall from the two-year ECHO program through the University of Notre Dame's McGrath Institute for Church Life, (from left) Jacqueline Milkowski at Marquette High School, Gianna Niece at Andrean High School and Dena Neville at Bishop Noll Institute. (Provided photo)