St. Vincent-St. Mary High School in Akron has become the only Catholic high school in Ohio to earn a formal STEAM designation, following accreditation granted on June 18, 2026, by the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce in partnership with the Ohio STEM Learning Network.
The achievement marks an evolution for the school, which had held a STEM designation continuously since 2019. The new STEAM accreditation expands that framework by formally integrating the arts alongside science, technology, engineering, and mathematics — a shift the school’s leadership describes as both academic and mission-driven.
Principal Erin Faetanini said the designation reflects something deeper than a curriculum upgrade. “STEAM at STVM represents more than an academic model,” she said. “It reflects who we are as a Catholic school rooted in Marianist values.” She added that the program is designed to ensure students are not merely prepared for the future but equipped to shape it.
A Program Built Around Hands-On Learning
The school’s STEAM offerings are broad and concrete. Students participate in FIRST Tech Challenge Robotics and the NASA Student Launch Challenge, and a selected team takes part in NASA’s Microgravity Research Program — a competitive distinction that places St. Vincent-St. Mary alongside institutions well beyond the typical high school level. Students also have access to research opportunities through the University of Akron STEM Research Program.
The arts component of the expanded model is likewise experiential. Students meet weekly with working artists at professional studios in the Akron area, bringing creative practice into sustained dialogue with technical disciplines rather than treating it as a supplementary elective.
The school’s physical campus supports this integrated vision. Facilities include the Center for Science and Technology, The Greenhouse on Green Street, and the Pam Godshalk Maker Space — infrastructure that signals long-term institutional investment in hands-on, project-based education.
Faith, Learning, and the Common Good
For a Catholic school, the integration of arts and sciences carries a particular resonance. The Marianist tradition in which St. Vincent-St. Mary is rooted emphasizes education that forms the whole person — intellectual, moral, and spiritual — rather than reducing learning to technical competency alone. In that sense, the STEAM model, when animated by a coherent Catholic vision, reflects what the Church has long taught about the dignity of the human person and the purpose of education.
Catholic social teaching, drawing on texts from Gravissimum Educationis through more recent papal documents, holds that authentic education must cultivate not only skill but wisdom — the capacity to use knowledge in service of truth and the common good. A program that joins engineering with artistic formation, and situates both within a community of faith, is well-positioned to pursue that goal.
St. Vincent-St. Mary now stands as a benchmark for Catholic secondary education in Ohio. Whether other diocesan and Catholic independent schools follow its path toward STEAM accreditation may depend in part on resources, but also on whether school leaders are willing to articulate a distinctively Catholic rationale for integrating the arts with technical disciplines — as STVM has done.
The achievement joins a broader pattern of Catholic educators in Ohio being recognized for long-term commitment to academic excellence and institutional leadership.