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Colleen Richards named Director of School Services

Dear friends of ICLE,

I am pleased to inform you that Colleen Richards has been named the Director of School Services at the Institute for Catholic Liberal Education. After a successful tenure as Headmaster of St. John Bosco Schools and Chesterton Academy of Rochester (NY), Colleen will assume the position August 1. 

With demand surging from schools across the country, the Director of School Services position is more important to our work than ever before. As Director, Colleen will be the principal contact for school leaders interested in transitioning their schools to the Catholic classical

liberal arts philosophy of education, offering various forms of consulting services and on-site workshops tailored to each school’s needs. The essence of this ministry of Catholic liberal arts education is relationship on every level – teacher with student, family with school, and of course, each of us individually and collectively with Christ, the Logos Himself. Colleen has been intentional in building a Logos-centered environment in her classroom, as a headmaster and school founder, and in her work as a part-time consultant with ICLE. She brings great experience and insight to the Institute, and we are excited to be able to better meet the increasing demands from pastors, principals, and faculties across the country.

Colleen spent nearly two decades in the classroom working with students from grades 2-12 before assuming leadership at St. John Bosco Schools, which has been a pioneer in Catholic liberal arts education. This breadth of experience proved invaluable when, just three years after taking the helm, Colleen was tasked with overseeing the launch of the high school component of St. John Bosco Schools, Chesterton Academy of Rochester. Under her leadership of the combined school, enrollment has more than doubled to the current total of 170.

“This change is bittersweet – I find it difficult to leave St. John Bosco Schools~Chesterton Academy of Rochester. It is here that I learned what Catholic liberal education is and had the opportunity to nurture those seeds and watch them grow and blossom. They will bear their fruit, and I am blessed to have been a part of it,” Colleen said. In her new role, she will have the opportunity to apply her experience to helping more schools make the transition to what many consider to be the greatest sign of hope in Catholic education today. “The mission of ICLE-supported schools is the full expression of what a Catholic education should be. I’m thrilled to be a part of sharing that mission with teachers and parents around the country,” Colleen added.

Working for the Institute will not be entirely new to Colleen. She has been a speaker at the ICLE National Conference on several occasions, and she has served as a part-time consultant to a number of schools during the past year. As one workshop participant noted, “I found that Colleen’s example as a teacher to us was most helpful. She led us through seminars, a rendering, and a geometry discovery so that we experienced being students again. These experiences evoked wonder and awe and thus reminded me how to teach and with what goals in mind.” This success, coupled with her track record as an academic, spiritual, and community leader, makes Colleen uniquely suited for her new role as Director of School Services.

Please join with me in prayers of thanksgiving for this great blessing upon our mission. As we look toward the future, we are humbled to be given the opportunity to greater glorify God through the ministry of Catholic liberal education. 

In Christ the Teacher,

  

Michael Van Hecke 
President