Nielsen ready to call it a career after 41 years at Bishop Carroll

A couple of months ago, as he sought to summarize the example set by Leticia “Tish” Nielsen during her time as president of Wichita’s Bishop Carroll Catholic High School, Nielson’s soon-to-be successor emphasized her ability to connect with others. 

“The main thing is how she builds relationships with everyone – students, staff, donors,” said BCCHS incoming President Alan Schuckman. “She is always available and has been such a good listener.”

The 2026-27 school year will be only the second one in which Schuckman has not worked with Nielsen at Carroll. The other year, he notes, was the stint when she stayed home with her kids – and also looked after the two youngest members of the Schuckman family. “We have worked side by side for 30 years,” he said. “It’s a tremendous honor to follow her and build on the foundation that she has laid. Like me, she bleeds green and gold.”

As she concluded her remarks months later during a retirement party BCCHS hosted for her on the evening of Saturday, May 2, Nielsen acknowledged that the school had become part of her identity. “Bishop Carroll has been more than a workplace; it’s been home,” she said. “I will carry the memories, the relationships, and the spirit of the school with me always.”

Public school preference

“This was a very upsetting day, because I felt so frustrated and didn’t feel like I was doing a good job. I kept wondering all day why I was doing this, and thinking if I could quit. Well, later in the day, it went better … I sure hope I get to feeling better, because right now I do not feel like teaching is for me. This was a bad day overall, and I just hope tomorrow is better.”

–Letitia “Tish” Palacioz’s student teaching journal entry for Feb. 9, 1983

As a 21-year-old student at Bethel College in her hometown of Newton, Tish Palacioz – who would become Tish Nielsen several years later – was irked about being sent to Carroll. 

The fact that Palacioz was student teaching at all was a bit of a surprise, since most of her college studies had focused on economics and business administration. She also had connections in the public sector and the legal profession, having already worked for the State of Kansas and for several years in the office of a Newton attorney.

“I thought I was going to work in business,” Nielsen said. “Bethel’s business education department sort of pushed me into it, saying ‘We’ve never had a student-teacher at a Catholic High School.’ I was so mad when they wanted me to go to Carroll, because I thought if I was going to teach, it would be in a public school, where I assumed there would be more opportunities for career success.”

Although God only knows what Nielsen could have achieved had she taken a different path more than four decades ago, retiring as BCCHS’ president suggests plenty of career success. Moreover, she acknowledges, a more comprehensive view of success accounts for far more than titles, salaries, and worldly achievements. She expresses appreciation for contributing not only to students’ academic, moral, and spiritual formation during her decades as a Carroll teacher, administrator, and president, but says that work has continued to shape her too. 

“I feel guilty sometimes that those of us with a vocation of working in Catholic schools get paid to grow closer to the Lord,” Nielsen said. “It’s a blessing we can sometimes take for granted when there are challenges, but ultimately, it’s been a Godsend.”

Second impressions

“I’ve been so scared that I can’t rest well, and I worry a lot. I’ve always done that, but things will get better.”

–Letitia Palacioz’s student teaching journal entry for Feb. 9, 1983

“If the students did not respond as I expected and remain on task, I would get frustrated,” Nielsen recalled of those early student-teaching days. “It was nerve-wracking. One day in a typing class, I introduced three new keys in a way that was too fast for the students, so they acted up. I was definitely very depressed.”

But her prediction of better days soon came to pass. The Feb. 16, 1983 journal entry reflected not only an improving dynamic with the students, but also a dawning appreciation for the beauty of working in a Catholic school:

“Today was a pretty good day overall … So far, time is really going fast, and I’m kind of happy, because I’m hoping that I will improve the longer I am here … I finally feel like I like teaching … I forgot to mention how meaningful the all-school Ash Wednesday Mass was for today. The religious aspect of the school really unites the students and faculty. It creates a different atmosphere than I’ve ever seen in a school setting. It was a special event for me to be able to share and participate in the Mass.”

Since she was keeping the student-teaching journal to fulfill a college assignment, Nielsen had to submit the entries to her professor. As her accounts became more positive, so did the feedback, such as what her professor wrote in a margin by that entry:

“I sense you really are gaining in confidence. It’s a hard role, and that will continue. There will continue to be periods, classes, and days when you will be nervous and wonder about teaching. But there are also the good success experiences. You have the qualities and ability to be a successful teacher. You just need more experience, which I feel you are openly participating in, taking the risk involved in experimenting with learning to teach. That’s good. Nice job.”

By the time of her entry for Friday, April 22, Nielsen acknowledged that a career in education had really grown on her. BCCHS had too: 

“I was happy to finish my student teaching, but I will miss the students … I had planned to grade papers all day, but I didn’t get it done … I started giving the girls dictation in shorthand, when (the teacher) walked in with a cake that said, ‘Good luck in the future. We will miss you’ … it was written in shorthand on the cake. I started crying because I was so surprised.”

That wasn’t the last surprise party. The teacher in a subsequent class claimed an appointment and left, but returned with pizzas and a large cake in the shape of a letter. Students from a later class showed up with cakes and cookies. “I was so surprised, because I had always thought one of those girls hated me, but she brought me a cake,” Nielsen said.

Also, in that final journal entry: 

“I asked them to fill out an evaluation for me. And when I was talking, I broke down. I will miss them. This is when I decided that I would probably want to teach …  it was a good way to end my student teaching. This was a great day, and I will never forget it. I am thankful for the many lessons I learned and new friendships I have made.”

Alongside that, her professor jotted: 

“Wonderful! What a great finish! We are proud of you and your successful student-teaching experience. You are to be commended and congratulated for your fine work. You have many qualities and talents for teaching, and I wish you the best in the future.”

An unlikely pairing

Nielsen was so busy at jobs she already held – which included a volunteer position at Newton’s Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish – that she focused on them during her first year after graduation from Bethel. 

But when Fr. Andrew Kuykendall called one day, Nielsen says she knew she had to hear out the BCCHS chaplain. “He said, ‘I have this opening,’ and I said, ‘Oh, Father, I don’t want to teach. I’m happy with my job.’ He said, ‘Try it,’ and look what happened.”

What happened not only included 41 years at the school, but eventually assimilating part of the school into her home by marrying a fellow Carroll teacher. But before the wedding (during which, as Nielsen recounted in her remarks at the May 2 retirement party, Fr. Jerome Beat observed during his wedding homily “We’re bringing together the Danes and the Mexicans, Catholics and Presbyterians, and the blonde hair and blue eyes with the black hair and brown eyes,”) Tish Palacioz had to realize Ran Nielsen wasn’t cold and aloof, merely shy and reserved.

“I told Mom, ‘There’s this science teacher at school, and he’s a snob,’” Nielsen recounts. “He had been there three years and still didn’t really talk to anybody.”

During that third year at Carroll, she recounts, they both shared a lunch period but demonstrated not a whiff of chemistry until Ran’s fellow science teacher, Larry Dostert, recruited them to work and take tickets at a Friday night BCCHS basketball game. She still lived in Newton at the time and wanted to minimize her drives back and forth, so decided to stay in Wichita for the pre-game meal. 

“I said, ‘I want to eat at Red Lobster, does anyone want to go with me?’” Nielson said. “Ran said he would, and so our first date was at Red Lobster. Then we worked the ball game together; we started dating, and the rest is history.”

Some of that history continues to surprise even her, including the fact that she, a devout Catholic, agreed to marry a strong Presbyterian. Nevertheless, Fr. Beat was sufficiently confident in their outlook that he even lobbied the two to accelerate their plans and marry before the start of the next school year. 

“I said ‘Ran isn’t Catholic,’” she recounted. “Father said ‘I have met with Ran. He’s a good man. He’s 29; you’re 26. Marry him and set a good example; he may join the Church.”

Fr. Beat’s prophecy eventually proved true. Their union also produced a pair of future Carroll alumni in son Zach and daughter Ariann. “God’s plan is such an amazing journey,” Nielsen said.

And while Nielsen says she indeed tried to provide Ran with a good example, she also suggests BCCHS’ Catholic culture presumably helped. After all, she notes, working at Carroll has softened many teachers who began their jobs adamantly against converting. 

“I have heard some teachers insist ‘Oh no, I’ll never be a Catholic,” Nielsen said. “It is such an inspiration when they join the faith. Bishop Carroll has a true sense of community and faith that, I believe, has gotten even stronger since I started. It has evolved to become more advanced and deeper. It has happened even as the school has grown. It had 687 kids when I started keeping records, and we have 1,164 this year.”

Everything is relational

Although she enjoyed teaching, by the time she was married, the school already had pressed her into splitting time between the classroom and the BCCHS office as both a teacher and assistant principal. One thing led to another – Wichita Southeast High School tried to lure her away to become its assistant principal – but she quit the classroom and accepted the same position at Carroll in 1991. By 2004, she held the combination role of president/principal, and in 2007 that was shortened to just president.

During those years in leadership, Nielsen says she has learned that it impossible to please everyone, but important to make sure all are equally respected. “Sometimes people don’t know – and really can’t know – why you make certain decisions, so you tell them, ‘You have to have faith and trust me.’ I really believe 98% of people accepted that.”

But as her roles began to take on BCCHS advancement, could she really afford to treat rank-and-file donors with the same regard as those with much greater resources?

“Whether you just gave us prayers and a dollar or a million-dollar gift, we treat everyone the same,” Nielsen said. 

Moreover, she relates, it’s not only smaller donors who appreciate that. 

“I was scared to death when a donor called me into his office, wondering what he was going to say,” she said. “He told me, ‘Thank you for treating me like everybody else; I have the utmost respect for you.’ I treasure that relationship, which is not about dollars, but about faith and love for a person.”

True to Schuckman’s assessment that his predecessor is all about relationships, Nielsen affirms that adjusting her place in the BCCHS orbit will take some acclimation. “I will miss working with the students, faculty, staff, and families, and getting to represent Bishop Carroll,” she said. “Everywhere I go – even on trips – I seem to meet somebody I know from Carroll. It’s going to be different, but those friendships will continue.”

Among the things that Nielsen admits she will not miss is the presidential responsibility of never being fully out of pocket. “I have been on call 24/7,” she said. “When we’re away, my husband points out I’m always on the phone about something. It will be nice not to have that, or even to worry about what might happen.”

During her retirement party, Nielsen acknowledged her family members. “Thank you for sharing me with the Bishop Carroll community,” she said. “Zach and Ariann, and especially my husband, Ran: Thank you for sharing me with this school for 41 years, for every sacrifice – the interrupted dinners, the missed bedtimes, the late-night calls, the crises. You gave your time and your hearts with such love and patience, and that gift has meant everything to me. I know it wasn’t always easy, but you never stopped loving me.”