Lenten Twilight Reflection: Exercising Your Gifts of Power as God Intended

Wednesday, April 2, 2025
6:00 - 7:30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time

Facilitated by Ann Garrido, D.Min - Associate Professor of Homiletics and Director of Spiritual Formation at the Aquinas Institute of Theology (St. Louis, MO), and Dale Hoyt, EdD - Educational Leadership Faculty, Creighton University (Omaha, NE)

Audience: All School Boards

In Catholic education, leadership is considered a sacred calling deeply rooted in our baptismal mission. This Lenten twilight retreat offers administrators and board members a moment to pause from the busyness of the day and reflect on what God is calling us to be as leaders in Catholic schools. Through the lens of our shared faith, we will examine the power to convene, the power to speak, and the power to ask thoughtful questions—essential tools for leadership grounded in mission.

About Dr. Garrido:

Ann is the oldest of eight children in a close-knit Catholic family from St. Louis, Missouri. From a very early age, Ann displayed an unnatural attraction to writing with chalk. Some of her earliest memories involve constructing elaborate lesson plans and schedules for an attic academy that her siblings refused to attend. By the age of twelve, she was designing weeklong retreat experiences…. that her siblings also refused to attend.

Forced to ply her trade outside the home, Ann joined the ranks of Catholic school educators in 1991. After four years teaching middle school and high school on the Pacific island of Guam, she pursued her Master of Divinity and Doctorate of Ministry in Preaching at Aquinas Institute of Theology. Ann joined the Institute’s faculty in 2000.

Over the past two and a half decades she has taught a range of courses in pastoral theology, homiletics, and catechetics while also serving in a variety of administrative positions including Director of Field Education, Director of Distance Learning, Director of the Aquinas Ministry Integration Project, Director of the Doctorate of Ministry program, and Director of the Masters in Catechesis of the Good Shepherd. 

Ann’s ongoing reflection on her experience as an educator and administrator has led to a number of publications and speaking engagements. She is the author of ten books, as well as numerous essays and articles. She has visited all 50 states and 20 countries, having spoken at over 300 diocesan, educational, health care, ministry, and business gatherings

About Dr. Hoyt:

Dr. Dale R. Hoyt serves at Ädelbrook as Vice President for Education overseeing four Academies, and a Pre-School & Day Care Center located in Connecticut.  Prior to Ädelbrook, Dr. Hoyt was Superintendent of Catholic schools in the Archdiocese of Hartford (2004-2016) and in the Archdiocese of San Antonio (1996-2004), and a Catholic School Principal in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles (1990-1996). Dr. Hoyt taught elementary and secondary education in the (Arch)dioceses of San Bernardino, Chicago, Detroit, Ft. Wayne-South Bend, and Charleston. Dr. Hoyt has served as Catechist, Youth Minister, and Director of Religious Education for the Archdiocese of Military Services at Ft. Jackson Army Base, and the Dioceses of Charleston and Savannah. Dr. Hoyt was an adjunct instructor at St. Mary University in San Antonio and the University of San Francisco, and has been an adjunct faculty member at Creighton University since 2015.

Dr. Hoyt is a member of National Catholic Educational Association (NCEA), Association of Supervision, Curriculum and Development (ASCD), Connecticut Association of Public School Superintendents (CAPSS), Connecticut Council of Administrators of Special Education (ConnCASE), National Association of Church Personnel Administrators (NACPA) and serves on the Board of Directors of the Connecticut Association of Private Special Education Facilities (CAPSEF). 

Dr. Hoyt holds a doctorate in education from the American International College in Springfield, MA, and other graduate degrees in education and theological studies from Catholic institutions of higher education.