Ursuline Academy of Dallas
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| Ursuline Academy of Dallas | |
| Image:Ursuline Dallas Seal.PNG | |
| Serviam | |
| Established | 1874 |
|---|---|
| School type | Ursuline, Private, Catholic, Single-Sex |
| President | Sr. Margaret Ann Moser, O.S.U. |
| Principal | Ms. Elizabeth C. Bourgeois |
| Location | Dallas, Texas, USA |
| Students | 800 girls |
| Faculty | 82 |
| Athletics | 11 sports |
| Mascot | Bear |
| Campus | 27 acres |
| Website | www.ursulinedallas.org |
Ursuline Academy of Dallas (commonly referred to as "Ursuline" or "UA") is a Catholic high school for girls located on Walnut Hill Lane by the intersection of Inwood Road in North Dallas, Texas. Ursuline Academy was founded in 1874 and is credited with being the oldest school in the city that has been in consistent operation since its founding. Ursuline Academy's mission is based on that of the Ursuline Sisters.
Ursuline enrolls approximately 800 students every year and employs approximately 80 faculty members. Approximately 80% of the student body is Catholic and approximately 25% are minorities.
Ursuline provides its students with a rigorous college preparatory curriculum.
Ursuline shares close ties with its brother school down the road Jesuit College Preparatory School of Dallas.
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[edit] Mission statement
Founded in 1874, Ursuline Academy of Dallas is an independent Catholic college prepatry school for young women sponsered by the Ursuline Sisters.
The mission of Ursuline Academy is the total development of the individual student through spiritual formation, intellectual growth, service to others and building of community.
Ursuline Academy educates young women for leadship in a global society.
The Latin Serviam, which translates to, "I will serve."
[edit] Campus and School Administration
- President: Margaret Ann Moser, OSU
- Principal: Elizabeth Bourgeois
- Chief Financial Officer: Jim Koehler
- Facilities Director: Tom Kelly
- Communications Advisor: Valerie Oates
- Director of Technology: Susan Bauer
- Academic Dean: Birgitt Lopez
- Dean of Students: Jennifer Kolling
- Director of Admission: Michele Synder
- Director of Student Affairs: Daniel Schmeltz
- Dean of Diversity and Global Educatioin: Cecilia Nipp
[edit] Uniforms
The Ursuline uniform consists of a red, white, and navy plaid skirt. Freshman, Sophomore, and Junior students wear white shirts, navy sweaters, and white socks. Seniors are given more uniform choices: navy shirts, white sweaters, and navy socks. All students wear saddle shoes with white laces every day. Blazers with the official school crest are worn on days when the school attends mass or for other important school assemblies.
Also on the blazer are school pins, which are given out to all students at Freshman Convocation and the Sophomore Serviam celebration, and also to student members of organizations such as National Honor Society, ambassadors and the Eucharistic Ministers.
[edit] Traditions
[edit] Big Sister/Little Sister Program
The incoming Freshman class is paired with a Junior at the beginning of the year. They decorate each other's locker and have a Big Sis/Little Sis picnic on the lawns of St. Joes.
[edit] Powderpuff
The week of Jesuit's homecoming, the juniors and seniors gather on the Jesuit football field to play a game of flag football. It marks the first competition between classes and makes way for Intramurals.
[edit] Intramurals
One of the high points of the Ursuline school year is Intramurals. Intramurals occur in November in the last week before the Thanksgiving holiday and are a chance for each class to show whose spirit is the strongest. Each class chooses a theme to base their spirit around and is represented by a color:
- Freshmen - Green
- Sophomores - Yellow
- Juniors - Red
- Seniors - Blue
During Intramurals, students compete in a variety of ways:
- Spirit
- The main competition. The score is graded on amount of cans collected in the can drive, amount of cheering and/or class effort during volleyball games, ability to sing the Alma Mater, amount of cheering during hallway decoration, and amount of cheering during lunch periods, etc. Points are deducted from the final score of each class for offenses such as uncleanliness (ie, dirty tables left after lunch, feathers or other decorations left in hallways, etc) and unsportsmanlike behavior.
- Hallway Decoration
- Each grade is given a section of the hallway to decorate using their color and theme. The score is determined more by creativity and effort than by artistic merit although it is an important factor in the final score as it does indicate effort.
- Volleyball Games
- Each class's volleyball team plays the others. During the volleyball games, there is absolutely no silence, as each class cheers as loud as possible for their volleyball team. The winner is determined in the same manner as a typical round robin tournament.
- Skit
- Each grade makes a skit relating to their theme and performs it for the school. Each class must involve every member of their class in the performance, as well as include the themes of the other four classes in their own. Audibility is a major factor in score determination, as well as humor, creativity, etc. Crude or cruel jokes result in disqualification of the class and fourth place.
- Mural
- Each class creates a mural of their theme and depicting the other grades as well. Artistic merit is the most important factor in this competition.
- Can Drive
- Collecting cans for spirit points. The Class of 2006 collected over 11,000 cans during the 2005 Intramurals.
A pep rally occurs outside the school one morning. Members of each class also wear clothing (sometimes excessively decorative) according to their color with their Ursuline skirt instead of the typical uniform shirt.
[edit] Snowball
Snowball is the formal dance for Ursuline seniors, held in December before the Christmas Holidays.
Males are only allowed to the dance if they have a date. Males are normally asked in creative ways, some of which include writing the question on his car or unveiling a large sign at a school function.
For example, one senior male was asked to Snowball in a very creative manner by his girlfriend; she arranged with his parents to fill his room with fake snow (using glitter) and cut out snowflakes. Whe he arrived home, a sign instructed him to put on a scarf and mittens, and when he entered, she threw a snowball (created in a blender; Dallas gets very little natural snow) at him, containing a note asking him to the dance.
Another unique aspect of Snowball is the selection of queen and court. Unlike typical homecoming celebrations, the queen and court are not selected by a popularity vote; instead, members of the senior class each receive a cupcake. Some of the cupcakes contain nuts, and one cupcake contains a walnut. The recipient of the one cupcake that contains a walnut is crowned queen, while the court is made up of those who receive the other cupcakes with nuts.
[edit] Freshman Convocation, Sophomore Serviam Ceremony, Junior Ring Ceremony
Services for the three classes that mark them as members of the Ursuline community.
[edit] Laptop program
In 1996, Ursuline joined a program called Anytime, Anywhere Learning. As part of this program, all incoming students purchase a laptop from the school manufactured by Toshiba. Currently, included with the laptop is any software necessary for the classes being taken, a four year warranty with on-site service, the ability to get a "hot spare" loner laptop while repair is being performed, and wireless access throughout the school.
[edit] The Cave
The CAVE is a large closet located on campus in the "Club Hallway" of the school, so named for the large club bulletin boards lining the hall. Ursuline students and faculty are invited to bring their laptops to the CAVE where a Toshiba authorized technician maintains and repairs the finicky laptops. The techinician (Kyle) is renowned throughout the school as he has saved many laptops since the laptop program's induction in 1996, including a class of 2006 laptop that caught fire in the fall of 2002.
[edit] Wireless access
The Ursuline campus is fully wireless. The school is currently in the process of transitioning from a system created by an Israeli company, BreezeNet, to the IEEE 802.11 standard. Students may access the Internet as well print to printers located almost everywhere in the school - at least one in every classroom and more in the library. In August of 2006, all BreezeNet wireless routers were removed in light of the fact that the last class to utilize the BreezeNet internet cards had graduated.
[edit] Graduation
Ursuline graduation is the culmination of four years of "spiritual formation and faith development, respect for the uniqueness of the individual, development of the whole person, development of a nurturing community spirit, a commitment to peacemaking, and Serviam (I will serve) as a lived reality" (from the Ursuline mission statement.) Each year at the end of May, the young women of Ursuline Academy don their final Ursuline uniform, a long white dress meeting many explicit requirements.
The graduation ceremony is an incredibly formal affair, with Ursuline students performing a deep Southern curtsy on the front lawn in front of the statue of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The school provides a white, wide-brimmed hat and a dozen red roses for each student. The graduating class is also asked to sing a song of their choosing.
[edit] Notable alumnae
- Melinda Gates 1982 - Philanthropist, Businesswoman, Wife of Bill Gates
- Dina Powell - Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs
- Marsha Marco - Buns of Steel 2 Instructor
