| Ursuline Academy Of Dallas |
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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 of non-white descent. Ursuline provides its students with a rigorous college preparatory curriculum. Ursuline shares close ties with its brother schools, Jesuit College Preparatory School Of Dallas and Cistercian Preparatory School . HISTORY MISSION STATEMENT 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 and the Eucharistic Ministers. TRADITIONS Powderpuff The week of Jesuit's homecoming, the juniors and seniors gather on the Jesuit football field to play a game of flag football. Powderpuff is often the center of much conflict as the activity usually incites an unhealthily competitive atmosphere. It also marks the first competition between classes and makes way for Intramurals. Intramurals One of the high points of the Ursuline school year is Intramurals. Intramurals occur in November and are a chance for each class to show its spirt is the strongest. Each class chooses a theme to base their spirit around and is represented by a color:
During Intramurals, students compete in a variety of ways: ; Spirit : The main competition. ; Hallway Decoration : Each grade is given a section of the hallway to decorate using their color and theme. ; 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. ; Skit : Each grade makes a skit relating to their theme and performs it for the school. ; Mural : Each class creates a mural of their theme and depicting the other grades as well. ; 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. 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 past examples include writing the question on his car, unveiling a large sign at a school function, and for the tenacious, arranging with his parents to fill his room with snow and throwing a snowball saved from a recent winter storm at him to surpise him when he enters. Another unique aspect of Snowball is the selection of queen and court. Unlike other dances, the queen and court are not selected by a popularity vote. The members of the senior class each receive a cupcake. The recipient of the one cupcake that contains a walnut is crowned queen while the court is made up of those who receive cupcakes that contain another type of nut. 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. 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 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. 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. 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 as well as the Ursuline Alma Mater. NOTABLE ALUMNAE
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