By Amy White
The Texas Catholic

For the past 12 years, Gretchen Kane has blessed Ursuline Academy of Dallas as the school’s first lay president—bringing her leadership, expertise, and New Orleans charm to the job.

Born and raised in New Orleans, Kane is herself the product of a Catholic school education. She attended the all-girls Academy of the Sacred Heart through high school, graduating from the school in 1973, before earning her bachelor’s in mathematics and master’s in mechanical engineering at New Orleans University.

Since then, much of Kane’s extensive career has centered around single-sex Catholic school education. Kane began teaching in 1980 at the all-boys De La Salle High School. In the following years, she served as teacher, academic assistant principal, and the first woman administrator at the all-boys Jesuit High School in New Orleans; as associate vice president at Jesuit Secondary Education Association in Washington, D.C.; and as head of school at the all-girls Ursuline Academy of New Orleans.

In the summer of 2012, Kane joined Ursuline Academy of Dallas as the first lay president in the school’s history.

“It was an opportunity that would be hard to pass up,” Kane said. “The more I learned about Ursuline Dallas and the community, the more I fell in love with it. It is a very warm, welcoming family.”

Kane’s Leadership
During her 12-year tenure at the school, Kane experienced several milestone moments.

“One of the earliest special moments was finally getting the athletic field on the corner of Walnut Hill and Inwood,” Kane said. Prior to receiving approval for the soccer-lacrosse field from the city council, the Ursuline teams often had to rent fields miles away from campus or practice in “what we lovingly call ‘the ditch’” on the west side of campus, Kane remembered.

Obtaining permission to build the on-campus fields was difficult, but the school successfully received approval in May 2013, under Kane’s leadership.

“It’s great to have your own field and to have your own fans and to have home field advantage,” Kane said. “The impact has been really tremendous.”

Besides athletics, Kane also helped further the use of technology at the school.

“Every classroom is equipped with a Microsoft Surface Hub, which is like a gigantic computer,” Kane said. “It’s just really one of those things that elevates our school and helps the girls know so much when they move onto college and their careers.”

This incorporation of technology allowed Ursuline to more seamlessly weather the teaching and learning challenges of the coronavirus pandemic, said Jon Piot, chair of the board of trustees at Ursuline.

“The Microsoft 365 platform was critical and really enabled the school to do a lot,” he said, “because when COVID hit and all the students had to go home, they did not miss a beat in terms of having everything ready to go for all the virtual classrooms.”

Thanks to the incorporation of technology in the classroom, Ursuline Academy of Dallas was named a Microsoft Showcase School in the 2017-2018 school year and continuing into the present. The designation recognizes a school’s innovative use of technology to enhance education. As of the 2023-2024 school year, Ursuline is the only school in Texas to hold this title.

Perhaps Kane’s most impactful achievement at the school is her leadership with The Campaign for Ursuline: Act, Move, Believe. This comprehensive campaign launched in 2020 and supports programs and operations, endowments, and capital improvements at the school. The campaign is the most ambitious fundraising effort in Ursuline’s history.

“Her major accomplishment was building a really well thought-out, inclusive strategic plan that culminated in an $85 million capital campaign and really ended up transforming the campus in terms of new infrastructure, new theaters, new science labs, performing arts, sports,” Piot said.

“I think prior to this $85 million campaign, the last campaign was maybe just over 20 million,” Kane said. “So, it was a big jump for us.”

Sister Lois Castillon, OSU, Ursuline’s director of mission and heritage, said that the campaign was remarkably successful and has resulted in “the development of more buildings, more renovation, more technology, more professional development” at Ursuline.

While many changes took place under Kane’s leadership, the fundamental thing—the school’s mission—remained very much the same.

“This is a woman who always begins with a sense of St. Angela, our foundress, with a sense of the mission of Catholic education,” Sister Castillon said. “Her love of education, her love of the Catholic Ursuline piece of education, her leadership ability, her collaborative spirit—outstanding, just extraordinary.”

After her years of service at Ursuline Academy of Dallas, Kane is bidding farewell to the school. She will be returning to her alma mater, Academy of the Sacred Heart, as the head of school, a full circle moment for Kane.

As she prepares for the transition, she remembers fondly how “the community took a big chance on a New Orleans girl.”

Cutline for featured image: Gretchen Kane poses for a photo with Father Alfonse Nazzaro and Ursuline students at the Feast of St. Ursula Mass at Ursuline Academy of Dallas in October 2023. (KEVIN GADDIS/Ursuline Academy of Dallas photo)