Brother Martin’s Greg Rando one of NCEA’s ‘President’s Award’ recipients

NEW ORLEANS – At an April 18 dinner held on the eve of the formal opening of its conference in New Orleans, the National Catholic Educational Association (NCEA) handed out five President’s Awards to individuals and organizations that have made significant contributions to Catholic education.

One of the five honorees is the president of an Archdiocese of New Orleans high school.

“Catholic school communities nationwide are blessed to have individuals and organizations such as our honorees as devoted and faithful servants to the Gospel values we hold dear and a deep commitment to Catholic school education,” current NCEA President/CEO Lincoln Snyder said of the five recipients.

The five award winners, and the achievements for which they were recognized, are:

• Greg Rando, president of Brother Martin High School in New Orleans, received the Msgr. John F. Meyers Award, presented to an individual who has provided substantial support for Catholic education through contributions in the areas of development, public relations, scholarship programs, financial management or governmental relations.

Rando spent more than 35 years as a teacher and administrator while educating young men for life. Prior to serving as president, he was principal from 2006 to 2017. An alumnus himself – the first ever to lead the school as president – Rando has made it his personal goal to increase scholarship endowments and planned giving so that a Brother Martin education can be affordable to all families through generous financial-need and academic-merit scholarship programs.

Rando also initiated innovative programs that have propelled Brother Martin to even greater mission success, including advances both inside and outside the classroom. He has led the restructuring of the curriculum and extracurricular programs to help to form young men to be leaders in the community as students and alumni, always placing a strong emphasis on the formation of the faculty and staff in the traditions and spirit of the Brothers of the Sacred Heart and the teachings of the Church, while maintaining the charism of founder, Father Andre Coindre.

In addition, Rando has helped oversee a capital campaign improving the school’s facilities for increasing enrollment while meeting the needs of a changing world. He is currently leading the school through a strategic planning process that will design improvements and secure financial stability for the future.

“Throughout COVID-19 and during other trying times, Rando has continued to lead while modeling adaptation, proving that with challenges there can be great success,” write Rando’s colleagues in his letter of nomination for the award. “He embodies a prime characteristic of the Brothers of the Sacred Heart, the religious institution that has been governing the school and its predecessors for the last 153 years: fidelity through change.”

• The Order of the Most Holy Trinity and of the Captives (the Trinitarians), operators of DeMatha Catholic High School in Hyattsville, Maryland (Archdiocese of Washington, D.C.), received the C. Albert Koob Merit Award, honoring an individual or organization that has made a meaningful contribution to Catholic education in teaching, administration, parish religious education, research, publications or educational leadership.

Since its founding in 1946, the high school has been committed to its socioeconomic diversity and the opportunities it affords students and families in academics, the arts and athletics. The college preparatory curriculum includes extensive honors and advanced placement classes.

Known nationwide for its music and athletic programs, the school also provides extensive Christian service opportunities locally, nationally and internationally. The school’s robust service program includes local service projects addressing homelessness, poverty and work with the physically challenged. Service programs also include opportunities to study and remediate rural poverty through a partnership with Nazareth Farm in West Virginia and to work on international issues related to immigration and housing through Esperanza International.

Trinitarian priests, who do not belong to a traditional “teaching” order, work in partnership with committed lay people to carry out their mission.

• The Leonard F. DeFiore Parental Choice Advocate Award, recognizing a person or organization that has demonstrated outstanding leadership in promoting full and fair parental choice in education, went to School Sister of Notre Dame Sister Rosemarie Nassif, Ph.D., executive director of the Center for Catholic Education at the Loyola Marymount University (Los Angeles) School of Education.

Sister Rosemarie previously worked at the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, serving as program director for the Catholic Sisters and Catholic Schools priority areas from 2012 to 2017; was president of two universities: Notre Dame of Maryland in Baltimore and Holy Name University in Oakland, California; and was president of the Fund for Educational Excellence.

Sister Rosemarie is a consistent, vocal advocate in support of parental choice programs. While at the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, she devised a new funding strategy geared at providing grant support to the Alliance for School Choice at the University of Notre Dame, the American Federation for Children Growth Fund, and the Alabama Opportunity Scholarship Fund. She led the granting of $90 million to Catholic Sisters in 23 countries and $25 million to Catholic schools in the U.S.

As the current executive director of the Center for Catholic Education, Sister Rosemarie serves on the board of directors for the American Federation for Children Growth Fund, where she continues to expand parental choice models in states where funds are available and bringing parental choice to states where it does not exist.

• The Catherine T. McNamee, CSJ Award, presented to an individual or institution that offers exceptional leadership in promoting a vision of Catholic education that welcomes and serves cultural and economic diversity or serves students with diverse needs, was presented to St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Catholic School (SEAS) in Palm Coast, Florida (Diocese of St. Augustine).

Founded in 1997, SEAS is a nurturing school community that offers academic excellence coupled with faith formation to help students develop spiritually, intellectually and emotionally.

SEAS recently partnered with its home parish and St. John the Baptist Church in Crescent City, Florida, to participate in the Rural Educational Initiative. As part of the initiative, SEAS welcomes students of migrant workers whose parents deeply desire a Catholic education for their children, providing free bus transportation, uniforms and tuition for participants with 24 students in the first cohort. Students also benefit from a resource teacher who provides extra educational and English language support.

SEAS, which is committed to promoting a vision of Catholic education that welcomes and serves cultural and economic diversity, is currently evaluating how to expand the program and provide additional support to students over the summer.

• Steve Hamersky, the STEM teacher and robotics coach at Daniel J. Gross Catholic High School in Belleview, Nebraska (Archdiocese of Omaha), received the Dr. Karen M. Ristau Innovations Award, given to an individual, school or program that has furthered the mission of Catholic education through an innovative program or approach.

In his 46 years at the school, Hamersky has taught mathematics, science, engineering, technology and computer science, has moderated several co-curricular teams, and has led the robotics team to finishes in the top-16 alliances at the world championship. The team will participate in the VEX Robotics World Championship this May in Dallas.

“When alumni visit the school, Mr. Hamersky is the first teacher many want to see,” the award letter said.

Hamersky was instrumental in inaugurating Gross Catholic's STREAM Cup Challenge, in which regional Catholic high schools compete against each other in a series of six, seven-day virtual challenges and interface with businesses seeking young people with an informed moral compass to bring innovation to their companies. Each challenge week, the companies supply real, pressing industry challenges, with one of the problems focusing on social justice.

Hamersky also actively works in his local education community to increase student interest in STEM education. He consults with the University of Nebraska on the use of robots in seventh- through 12th-grade classrooms and on how to use body movement as a STEM motivator. He has consulted with the AIM Institute to raise awareness and interest among high school age students in computer programming through the development of smartphone applications.