Mike Bonner, executive producer of live events for Fighting Irish Media (FIM), has attracted a lot of attention since he joined the University in 2016 to manage the operation of Notre Dame Stadium’s new state-of-the-art video board (He worked at Yankee Stadium! He knew George Steinbrenner!).

Bonner spent 14 years working for the Yankees (including five World Series), three years with the Broncos (with two Super Bowl seasons) and six Olympic games, including the Rio Olympics.��

He’s often referred to as “the video board guy” now that he’s taken on the job of managing the operation of Notre Dame Stadium’s new video board, a 54.1-foot-high by 95.5-foot-wide behemoth with a crystal-clear, 4,798,976 pixel-LED display — the highest-definition video board in college football.

But what Bonner really wants people to know is that he may be executive producer, but he’s part of a large team. “If we count everyone, we’re pushing 60 people,” he says.��

His teams are stationed on the field and at three different locations in the stadium on game days.��

Mike Bonner (right) in the ninth floor video board control booth in Duncan Student Center.

Bonner’s production booth is located on the ninth floor west side of Duncan Student Center, facing the field. The rest of the team works out two locations — the control room and replay room — of the state-of-the-art Rex and Alice A. Martin Media Center on the first floor of Corbett Family Hall. “Their view of the game is looking at camera feeds,” he says.

“Tony Simeone, the playback operator, is a jack of all trades. He also does on-camera work as the face and voice of our ‘Irish Scoreboard’ feature, giving updates on scores in other sports. Also up there I have the public address announcer (Mike Collins) a marketing assistant and his two spotters, an additional graphics person and the DJs (Craig Turney and Rodney Washington, who strictly play music. Others in the control booth on game day include playback producer Tony Simeone, the scoreboard operator and others who manage the game clock, the play clock, and down and distance. There’s also a separate ribbon board operator. The ribbon boards (393.07 feet wide by 3.78 feet high) on the east and west sides of the stadium run game-in-progress information at all times — the score, the time on clock, down and distance, possession and number of timeouts remaining.

“I also have August Kuehn (temp/on-call), who we call A-1, or Audio 1. He manages all other sounds that come through the PA system. That includes the PA announcer’s microphone, the referees’ microphones and the band microphones. All of our videos have sound, and A-1 is tracking those videos to make sure they’re not silent, and also tracks the music the DJ is playing — he’s on the fader and can bring the music up or down.”��

Nathan Bush, athletics digital media associate producer, in the main control room.

Game director Brock Raum, who works out of the Martin Media Center replay and acquisition room, “Is my right-hand man,” Bonner says. “He is the one I’m communicating with the most. He executes the replays and calls cameras.”��

Also in the media center are replay producer Nathan Bush, social media moderator Reilly Fangman, four replay operators, two camera shaders (who adjust the camera settings for various light conditions) and a robotic camera operator. “We have 12 robotic cameras within the stadium, operated basically on a joystick.”

Each replay operator can bring in up to nine camera angles, he says, “So we can roll back replays of 36 different camera angles. That room is frenetic. Every play they are clipping off and lining up the highlights ready to go. If it’s a great highlight, they clip it off and add it to a playlist so later they can put together a package of several highlights in a row.” The replay room also supplies replays to the referees if they’re asked to take another look at another play, something that’s already resulted in multiple plays overturned on the field, many in favor of the Irish.

Mike Bonner, seated left, executive producer of live events, with some of the crew of nearly 60 full- and part-time University employees, student interns and freelancers necessary to handle the broadcast of home football games.

All those camera feeds are coming from another part of the team, the camera operators on the field (plus the feeds they take in from NBC.)

“We have nine manned cameras inside the stadium,” Bonner says. “Two are up high on the west side 35-yard-line: one at the north and one at the south. Those we call our game and tight-follow cameras. We also have two low end-zone cameras, on both the north and south ends of the stadium.”

Student workers Scott Hoyland and Natural Baptiste operate two wireless hand-held cameras can roam anywhere, inside or outside the stadium. Junior Micaela Powers operates the “slash,” a camera that shoots across the field toward the Notre Dame bench. NBC picked up some of her shots of the Georgia game, Bonner notes. Many of the other camera operators are freelance professionals (technically on-call/temporary staff).There are two hand-held wired cameras on the field. “They are tethered but can move anywhere from the 20-yard-line to the end zone at the north and south ends.” Each of those operators is assigned three student workers to make sure the cables stay plugged in and aren’t crossed with NBCs cables, and no one trips over them.��

The Media Center main control room.

Bonner’s team can also take 12 camera feeds from NBC, and vice versa. Up high, NBC operates the 50-yard-line camera. “We take that because they have the virtual first-down marker and we can run that on the video board,” he says.

As executive producer, Bonner notes, “I run the show. But I rely on so many people. Our job is to entertain, engage and educate. Our job is to spread the University message, whether that’s a ‘What Would You Fight For’ feature or a great football video.”��

Staff members

Executive Producer: Mike Bonner

Playback Producer: Tony Simeone

DJ: Craig Turney and Rodney Washington��

A1: August Kuehn��

Ribbon Board Stats: Student worker Juan Jose Rodriguez��

Marketing: Jasmine Cannady; Janna Hughes; Darin Ottaviani; Brian Pracht; Becca Moore, Robert Judin and Khadijah Wiley��

Stage manager: Kevin Barrett

PA Announcer: Mike Collins��

Director: Brock Raum��

Technical director: Rick Harman (temp/on-call)

Associate director: Jaye Galloway��

Replay producer: Nathan Bush��

Robotic camera operator: student worker Callee Stirn��

Graphics 1: Kyle Miller ’07

Graphics Assist: John McDermott ’07, ’10 JD

Graphics 2: Student workers Regan Edwards and
Hunter Thompson��

Social media moderator: Reilly Fangman��

Replay operators: Joe Stachler; student worker Henry Davis; Chris Hagstrom-Jones (temp/on-call); and Jasmine Curry ’17 (FaithND intern)

Camera Shaders: Steve D’Ambrosia and David ��Gooding (both Temp/On-Call)

Postgame Show Producer: Josh Long (FaithND Producer)

Camera operators:��

Full-time employees: Claude Devaney (ND Studios); Michael Wiens and Tony Fuller (Marketing Communications); Jon Cotton (Athletics Digital Media).

Temp/on-call: Bob Richthammer, Russ Hnatusko; Jon O’Sullivan and Gary Banks

Student workers: Scott Hoyland; Natural Baptiste; Micaela Powers; Emily Regan and Denise Dorotheo.

Grips: (all student workers): Mia Berry, Nick Taylor, Indi Jackson, Taylor Vucinich, Jack Kieffaber, Ana Urquijo, Dontae Knox, and Brian Haimes.��

��

When Doug Franson shared details of an exciting summer program for children at the Notre Dame Center for Arts and Culture, Lori Bush immediately saw the potential for adapting the program as a staff team-building exercise.

Franson is the assistant director of Segura Arts Studio in the Notre Dame Center for Arts and Culture. Studio staff, including master printer Jill Lerner, report to Bush, director of finance and administration for Auxiliary Operations.
The original program was developed by Jackie Rucker, associate director of community relations, for the summer Innovative Thinkers camp at the NDCAC.

As an enrichment activity for the kids, Rucker pulled together resources from the DNA Learning Center in the College of Science and the Segura Studio — students tested their mitochondrial DNA, then developed an art concept based on their genetic background. Students then printed their designs in the studio.

For the staff project, participants first had their DNA tested through Ancestry.com. For the team-building exercise, Bush brought in Eric Love, director of staff diversity and inclusion in Human Resources to speak to the group.

Says Love, “they looked at their DNA tests, which in many cases revealed genetic backgrounds that were the opposite of what they’d thought. Some had cousins in the audience they didn’t know. We talked about connectedness, and how important it is to know who we are and where we came from. We are more diverse than we think, and we have more in common than we know.”

Franson, who participated in the exercise, was one of those surprised at the DNA test results. “I found out that I’m 32 percent Irish. I had no idea. I included that imagery in the print that I created. What I find amazing is that your family can tell you about a few generations back, but your DNA goes back thousands of years.”

Participants brought their design concepts into the studio, and with some instruction, traced them onto linoleum blocks and carved the designs. During their time in the studio, each also had the opportunity to share stories of their heritage. Then they inked their block and made a print. Master printmaker Jill Lerner created a matrix of all 12 images, which were planned to link to each other in one large group print.

“The connectedness of the images parallels the connectedness of our society,” says Lerner.

Love’s mother was English, his father African American. Love’s design incorporated both his English and African American heritage — one with a design of a teacup, the other with African adinkra symbols typically used in fabrics and pottery among the Akan peoples of Ghana. In the finished print at right, Love’s is the center image in the 
third row from the top.

Framed copies of the composite print were presented to Bush and Love.

Says Bush, “It was nice, getting together with members of the team. Each of us had to research their background, and tell everyone their story. The composite print illustrates it — no matter where we came from, we are all connected.”

Discussions are already underway 
regarding the possibility of offering the workshop to other departments.

The University is using most of the advertising space in the departure area of South Bend International Airport to celebrate the 175th anniversary of its founding.

Eight banners, four floor treatments, wall signage and a 20-second recurring video at the baggage carousel will be in place for at least one year. In the coming weeks, a Notre Dame-themed lounge area will also be installed.

Banners hanging from the concourse ceiling highlight themes of the University’s mission, including faith, undergraduate and graduate studies, research, international reach, athletics, and service. Text on the banners describes how the University is “boldly fighting” to make the world a better place.

The floor treatments display images of places faculty and students transverse daily, in the Main Building, Law 91��Ƶ, Notre Dame Stadium and Purcell Pavilion at the Joyce Center.

The video will be shown on monitors in the baggage claim area and features the 175th anniversary logo as well as a portion of the themes on the banners.

Stack is the Ann F. Dunne and Elizabeth Riley Director of the Harper Cancer Research Institute (HCRI) and the Kleiderer-Pezold Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry; Ravosa is a professor of biology with concurrent appointments in the Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering and the Department of Anthropology.

Stack completed her doctorate at the University of Louisville; Ravosa at Northwestern. The couple met as postdoctoral scholars at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina.

“We met in a bar,” Stack says. “At Friday Happy Hour. A Duke University campus hangout. He was with his lab mates, and I was with mine. He walked by and handed me a paper, and said ‘Did you drop this?’ I didn’t look at it till the next morning. It said, ‘Hi, my name is Matt. I’d like to meet you. If you’d like to go to dinner call me,’ with a phone number.”

The next morning she found the note in her pocket but couldn’t remember who’d handed it to her. She looked his name up in the university directory, where he was listed as a visiting research professor. With some coaxing from her friends, she called. The first night they went to dinner, the next day they spent at the North Carolina State Fair, Stack says.

“We had a blast working and dancing a lot, got married and Matt took a job at Northwestern University Medical 91��Ƶ in Chicago. I moved there about nine months later.”

Northwestern wasn’t her first choice. “I said I’d move anywhere but New York, Los Angeles or Chicago. We were in Chicago for 13 years, and I only complained for the first 10. When the kids (Nico, now 18, and Luca, now 16) came along, we decided to move on.” Stack and Ravosa both took positions at the University of Missouri, 91��Ƶ of Medicine then on to South Bend and Notre Dame.

Stack and Ravosa live on 22.5 acres near Edwardsburg, Michigan (technically the Cass County part of Niles), with a menagerie that includes (as Ravosa likes to say) “eight llamas, two alpacas, three dogs and two boys.”

Stack and Ravosa with their llamas

After they bought the property, he cut the lawn once. “I decided I needed some animals to eat the grass.” The llamas are all rescue animals and earn their keep by cropping some of the five or six acres of fenced pasture. The alpacas are also rescue animals, acquired from a friend who was shutting down a research project on animal feeding behavior and biomechanics at Ohio University.

The llamas are named after types of pasta — Bucatini, Orecchiette, Fusilli, Ditalini, Gnocchi, Tagliatelle, and her daughter, Ziti. The alpacas are named after pasta sauces, Aglio e Olio and Carbonara. The dogs (not to leave anyone out) are June Bug, Stella and Fenway.

Older son Nico just graduated from Edwardsburg High 91��Ƶ, and will be attending Western Michigan University as a mechanical engineering major in the fall. Luca is a junior at Edwardsburg High 91��Ƶ.

They hadn’t intended to make another move after Missouri, she says, “But this was such a great opportunity for me. It’s been a great challenge to build a basic cancer research institute from scratch. The job has been made easier by the strength of the faculty, at both Notre Dame and the Indiana University 91��Ƶ of Medicine, South Bend.”

The in Harper Hall, dedicated in March 2011, comprises 55,000 square feet of office and research laboratory space and is located adjacent to Raclin-Carmichael Hall, which houses the IU 91��Ƶ of Medicine, South Bend. The buildings are located on the south side of the intersection of Notre Dame Avenue and Angela Boulevard.

Part of the funding for Harper Hall came from the family foundation of the late Charles M. “Mike” Harper, a former South Bend resident and the retired chair and chief executive officer of ConAgra Foods. Harper made a $10-million contribution to Notre Dame to support its cancer research programs, and the gift was matched with a $10-million appropriation from the state of Indiana to Indiana University for the project.

There are very few cancer centers engaged in the level of interdisciplinary collaboration with engineers to the level of the HCRI, Stack notes. “The Koch Institute at MIT is one example.��We are able to do this and do it well because of the collaborative nature of the faculty here. Collaboration is our foundational principle.”

Her areas of research interest include tumor metastasis, ovarian cancer, oral cancer, cell and molecular biology. Stack has published more than 155 peer-reviewed research articles and reviews, and she was elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2012.

In addition to faculty members from the Colleges of Science and Engineering, HCRI also has several faculty from the College of Arts and Letters, “focusing on quality of life and end-of-life issues,” Stack says, including psychology professor .

Merluzzi studies coping processes in people with cancer, as well as in cancer survivors.

As an example of cross-disciplinary collaboration, Stack notes the work of , the Bayer Professor of Engineering and director of the . Chang is working with , assistant professor of biological sciences, on an early detection method for pancreatic cancer. According to Stack, detecting pancreatic cancer even several months earlier could make a dramatic difference in outcomes for the patient. Pairing an engineer and biologist to tackle one of the deadliest forms of cancer is the kind of innovative approach that was central to Harper’s founding.

“We’re trying to get researchers who perhaps don’t think about cancer research, but who have strong scientific methods and approaches, and let them know what our questions are,” Stack says.

Growing up in South Carolina and Massachusetts

Stack grew up in South Carolina and went to a rural high school that didn’t offer much science “other than leaf collecting and dissecting tapeworms. In college (at Clemson University), I intended to be a math major.”

When she arrived for classes, she needed to pick a major, but the math adviser was out at the time, “I picked biochemistry out of the catalog. I didn’t even know what it was.”

She completed a major in biochemistry and spent a year in Bonn, Germany, as a Fulbright Scholar. “That was life-changing, to go from a small town to Bonn. By myself. It was the first time I saw a map of the world and the U.S. wasn’t in the middle.”

Ravosa grew up in a town called Longmeadow, Massachusetts, “which has the longest green, or town commons, in the state of Massachusetts,” he says. “It was incorporated in 1644. So I’m from a part of the country with an historical perspective on things.

“Maybe I’m interested in evolution because I’m from a part of the country that has history. I was always interested in how heads are put together the way they are. That’s the common theme throughout my entire research career, what makes heads diverse. Why do they look the way they do?”

When he visited Edwardsburg Middle 91��Ƶ for Career Day recently, he got the question he’s frequently asked, “Were you interested in dinosaurs?”

“That was me as a kid,” he says. “Dinosaurs have wicked cool heads. Why does this one have a head that does this, and another a head that does that? They used to head-butt each other. I’ve always been interested in skulls and how diverse they are. I never got far away from that.”

Some common research interests

Stack and Ravosa do share some common research interests. Stack is interested in how mechanical forces affect tissues. “In tumors, you feel something hard in something soft. Ravosa’s focus is on whole animals and how mechanobiology (the interface between biology and engineering) affects evolution.” The couple has a collaborative research project focusing on the relationship between mechanical loading and tissue remodeling in the development and aging of the jaw.

Ravosa

Ravosa has published close to 100 peer-reviewed research articles, books and reviews. He was elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2008.

Ravosa’s research is conducted with rabbits, which chew like humans and other primates, he says. Changes in the skull come from changes in the diet — what the animal is chewing. It’s something that can be quantified, but not from fossils. “The way we study skulls has changed radically. Questions are coming from fossils, but I go there last, not first,” he says. “If you want to understand living organisms, you have to study live organisms.”

The technology has also changed radically, he notes. “We used to just look at the skulls and take measurements directly or take X-rays of them. Now we work with live animals. We do physiological recording. Then we look postmortem at the tissues, the cells, the genes. We use engineering approaches to skulls — why are they constructed the way they are? Then we put it all back together so we understand the genes that encode the proteins that result in differences in the biomechanical properties of the tissues that are affected in different ways, depending on what you do when you’re alive.

“That gets us to what starts to fail as you get older,” he says. “The cartilage goes first, before the bone goes. If you look at the bone and the cartilage together, you can understand what’s happening as it’s starting to degenerate. That long-term perspective is really a critical part of what we do.”

For example, consider the Tyrannosaurus Rex. “The T-Rex used its teeth to slice and swallow. Teeth are tools, like chisels. Mammals take something and process it orally—that can take a lot or a little time, depending on what it is. Teeth are tools that you apply to those foods, and those foods require you to impart forces to them. Those forces affect the way the tissues grow.

Bones that experience more forces grow more. “It’s kind of like the couch potato thing,” Ravosa says. “If your kids get up and off the couch and move more, they will have larger bones when they stop growing.”

“As animals chew certain things, their jaws become more robustly constructed. What might be driving those changes? Can we induce change?”

The research has implications for humans as well.

“If you don’t walk around very much, or you don’t exercise very much, you’ll develop osteoporosis. No one has ever developed osteoporosis of the brain case. So in other words, it suggested to us that there must be different things that control bone formation in different parts of the skull.”

There are two other interesting things about bone development in the skull that differ from bone development in other parts of the body, he adds.

“When we are really little, bones start off as cartilage, and they become replaced by bone. When they become fully bony, we stop growing. In the head, most of the bones don’t grow that way. They start off as soft tissues, and go straight to bone. A baby’s soft spot, there’s nothing there. There’s skin and soft tissue and brain right below it. There’s no cartilage there. And it turns into bone. That only happens in the head.”

Another unique aspect of bone growth in the skull is that the bone comes from two tissue types. The bones in the body come from only one. So there are three things affecting bone growth in the skull: a diversity of loading environments (chewing on different types of food, harder or softer, effecting changes in the jaw); a diversity of tissue types — the precursors of bones; and a diversity in the way the bone forms.

Ravosa’s research examines the ways bone cells vary in neonatal mice. “You would assume that bone is bone is bone — that one bone acts the same way as another bone, that a bone cell acts the same way as another bone cell,” he says. “We’re starting to find that depending on what part of the bone you pick a bone cell from, its activity is very different. If you’re going to do reconstructive surgery, you need to use the right tissue from the right spot.”

That’s just one clinical application. Developing a model for osteonecrosis of the jaw from chemotherapy is another. Although his research may have clinical applications, he’s primarily interested in bone from an evolutionary perspective.

“Why do some animals have a complete bar around the eye socket and other ones don’t? A lot of it is asking those kinds of questions — if you’re an animal that has this kind of joint, you’re probably in a group of animals that all look like that. You can ask questions—compare one animal to another.

“What we’re doing is exemplary of the way science needs to be done, has to be done. It’s cross-disciplinary. An engineer has a different take on science that a biologist. You have to incorporate new skills from other disciplines. That’s how you get advances. My post-docs are bioengineers. My students have engineers on their dissertation committees. I may be one of the few faculty members on campus with concurrent appointments in two other colleges,” Ravosa says. Indeed, having engineers as colleagues was a big part of his initial attraction to Notre Dame.

Breakthrough research on ovarian cancer

Sharon Stack’s current research and grant writing focuses on ovarian cancer.

Nearly 70 percent of ovarian cancer cases are detected after metastasis, which is the development of secondary malignant growths distant from the primary site of cancer, resulting in a five-year survival rate of less than 30 percent.

Stack

Stack’s laboratory��emphasizes the understanding of the molecular mechanisms by which tumor cells manipulate micro-environmental cues in order to more efficiently metastasize. Knowing how cancer spreads is a key step in stopping the metastatic process in this late stage.

Recently, alongside��HCRI��researcher Yueying Liu, she led a team of researchers in a study that found that��obesity contributes to ovarian cancer metastasis. The team used an integrative approach combining three-dimensional cell culture models, tissue explants and mouse models to evaluate tumor cell adhesion to cells that line the abdominal cavity.

The researchers set out to determine whether obesity contributes to ovarian cancer metastatic success. In other words, are tumor cells better able to successfully metastasize when the “host” is obese versus lean?

“Ovarian cancers metastasize through a distinct mechanism that results in large numbers of lesions anchored throughout the abdominal cavity, making surgery challenging,” Stack says. “It’s important to delve deeply into understanding ovarian cancer on a molecular level and identify disease-specific targets. Not only will this help us find cures, but it will also assist in early detection efforts that are important for survival.”

The hope is that further research will provide new targets for dietary and therapeutic interventions to slow or inhibit metastatic dissemination — thereby impacting the long-term survival of women with ovarian cancer. “We are just at the beginning of understanding this complex disease,” Stack says.

The study was supported by grants from the National Cancer Institute and the Leo and Ann Albert Charitable Trust and by training fellowships from the National Cancer Institute and the National Science Foundation.

Stack also points out the interdisciplinary nature of the research.

“In addition to the cell-based research, we analyzed hundreds of fluorescent images and many hundreds of slides to collect the data to support our conclusions,” she says. “We had phenomenal interactions with the and the . You can see the team effort by looking at the author listing: This paper has 22 authors. Seven of them are current or former Notre Dame undergrads, and four are current or former ND grad students.”

In May, the University hosted the Midwest Ovarian Cancer Coalition. Researchers examined the current state of ovarian cancer research and discussed ways they might collaborate to more effectively combat the disease.

“The goal was to bring together research groups and share our findings, as well as to learn from survivors and advocates,” says Stack. “We want all women to have better treatment options and early detection.”

Contact Carol C. Bradley, editor of NDWorks, at 631-0445

Rare books conservator Sue Donovan holds a rare herbal book by 16th-century German physician and botanist Leonhart Fuchs, part of the Edward Lee Greene collection. In 2012, it was discovered that the book had spine linings of parchment manuscript waste used to bind the book, including an extremely rare medical text by Constantinus Africanus (Constantine the African), an 11th- century physician and Benedictine monk from North Africa who spent the last part of his life in Italy.

Conservators discussed with the curators what to save and how to save it. The parchment pieces have been removed and photographed for documentation, and the book will then be reassembled. “It’s been a wonderful project — the fragments have value, so we photographed them, put them back and documented the process,” says Donovan. There are three different texts represented in the parchment found in the book.

Says rare books curator David Gura, “It’s essential to have a top-notch conservation staff to preserve our collections for posterity, keeping them usable and accessible. We’re very fortunate to have the conservators here.”

Donovan completed her undergraduate studies at the 
University of Chicago and holds a master’s in conservation from the Université de Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne. She joined the University as a Samuel H. Cress Fellow in 2015 and was recently extended as a rare book conservator through July 2017.

“Will the Circle Be Unbroken,” a selection of collage works by artist and professor Nathan Skiles, will be on view through June 30 in the Crossroads Gallery at the .

Originally from Indiana, Skiles now works as a professor at the Ringling College of Art and Design in Sarasota, Florida. He explains this most recent body of work as creating “a repository for diverse elements to co-exist and cross-contaminate in open-ended relationships” through collaging “symbolic motifs including heraldry, military and familial fabric patterns, quilting, and folk magic in the form of sacred geometry and Pennsylvania Dutch hex signs” on a round field.

These 12 round works reference rose or ocular stained glass windows often found in churches. Skiles has created two large versions of these metaphorical windows specifically for the exhibition. These rondo collages will structurally reference the north and south rose windows of Notre-Dame de Paris. Along with the structure of the cathedral’s windows, the works also reference more subtle elements such as the University’s blue and gold 
color scheme.

The Notre Dame Center for Arts and Culture is located at 1045 W. Washington St. in South Bend. For more information, visit or call 
574-631-5224.

Tosha McComb, conservation technician for general collections at the Hesburgh Libraries, reattaches boards with toned Japanese paper and wheat starch paste. The paste is stable, alkaline and reversible in water. Modern resin-based adhesives are also used in repairing items in the circulating collections.

Conservation staff members pick up general circulation materials flagged as damaged or in need of repair weekly, and the books are triaged by the type of repairs needed — the case may be falling off, or the spine needs to be replaced. “We recreate custom spines and covers as well,” says conservator Sue Donovan. “We batch the circulating collections repairs to provide efficient and robust standardized treatments.” Other tasks include making book pockets to contain loose papers or errata that must stay with the volume.

Other jobs include mending, making protective boxes, making CoLibri covers — a trademarked system for making protective plastic covers for books — and sewing pamphlets into folders. The goal, Donovan says, is to make the circulating materials backpack-proof. “They get a lot of wear and tear.” Overall, the conservation lab strives to keep as much of the original book as possible, while strengthening and stabilizing the volume for use.

Conservation technician Diane Sikorski makes boxes for special collections. “We make our own alkaline card stock and cloth-covered clamshell boxes,” she says. She also makes plastic cradles to safely display books and other items for exhibitions in the gallery of in the Hesburgh Library.

Imagine you’ve got one arm tied behind your back to help understand what the daily life of an amputee feels like. How would you squeeze toothpaste out of a tube to brush your teeth?

Assistant Professor of Design first- and second-year course Design Matters, a gateway course to the Department of Art, Art History & Design’s new Collaborative Innovation Minor, considers questions such as this and looks for solutions.

“It’s an empathic, human-centered approach,” says Conrado. “How do we open our students to the potential to make the world a better place?”

Design Matters is divided into three primary areas of focus: insight, ideation and implementation.

During the insight stage, students work to identify and understand a problem by researching users, their needs and the context, developing empathy along the way. In the second stage, they generate ideas and rigorously evaluate each one. The last stage is implementation — how can the idea for a product, invention or service be brought to life?

In previous semesters, students in the course have collaborated with various commercial organizations and social entities in the U.S. and abroad.

Conrado, born in Las Vegas, is a 1993 BFA graduate of Notre Dame. After working as a product designer (“burned out and working really long hours”) she decided to spend a year traveling the world and fell in love with Nepal. “It struck me as a unique and welcoming place. I volunteered there for another six months. Learned the language. Started a charity.”

Her charity, , is an international nonprofit working to utilize design thinking to address humanitarian concerns in developing countries.

In addition to scholarships for education in Nepal, the group established HOPE House, a home for orphaned children in Kathmandu, and the Design for Fair Trade Initiative, which teaches crafts for the creation of fair trade products — both for sales and to continue the country’s crafts heritage. Nepalese handicrafts are sold on campus every year at Badin Hall’s Conscious Christmas event.

Since a magnitude 7.9 earthquake devastated Nepal on April 25, 2015, the focus has been on rebuilding efforts — one Notre Dame MFA student, she notes, traveled to Nepal with a template for a shelter that utilizes local materials and is designed to be carried by a single person.

“We don’t need a new shelter design. You can’t transport them. When students arrived on the ground two months after the earthquakes, people were still living under tarps tied to trees. What they needed was knowledge. But why not educate local people in the problem solving inherent in design thinking? Isn’t it time we taught them how to fish instead?”

Collaborative Innovation Minor aims to change the world

The Minor in Collaborative Innovation, will launch in fall 2016, offers students an opportunity to engage in process-based, cross-disciplinary learning across University departments.

Students begin with an introductory course, Design Matters, which uses lecture- and case study-based learning followed by hands-on exercises and team projects.

Declared minors then take an additional four courses introducing them to skills in areas including research methods, visualization and entrepreneurship.

The program culminates in a fifth capstone course, Collaborative Product Development, which brings the students together with design majors. Working in teams with corporate partners, students have the chance to solve a variety of real-world problems.

Contact Carol Bradley, 574-631-0445, bradley.7@nd.edu

Doug Marsh

Notre Dame’s campus is consistently ranked among the most beautiful in America—and the team that’s behind the planning, design and construction, maintenance and long-term renewal of the University’s physical plant is Facilities Design & Operations, led by Doug Marsh, associate vice president and University Architect.

Responsibilities of the division’s 125 employees are wide-ranging but can be divided into four major areas: project design and construction; interior architecture; maintenance and utilities. All these areas are committed to work together seamlessly and outside of silos that are often found among these units on other campuses.

While the current construction of new major campus facilities such as McCourtney Hall, Jenkins Hall, Nanovic Hall, two new residence halls, Corbett Family Hall, the Duncan Student Center, and the new Music/Sacred Music Building (Campus Crossroads Project) may be the most visible evidence of their work, “It would be a mistake to focus just on new construction,” says Marsh. “We have a balanced mission—we see ourselves as the chief stewards of this incomparably beautiful and historic campus.

As new buildings are constructed and older facilities renovated, the division also manages daily operations of facilities as well as the delivery of energy and water to service the buildings.

“We think of us as overseeing a ‘cradle-to-grave operation,’” says Marsh. “We’re responsible for a continuum of services beginning with the planning of the campus and ending with providing consistently reliable utilities and maintenance to all of its facilities. We are better builders and planners because we know that we will care for new buildings after they are constructed. And we are better long-term stewards because Utilities and Maintenance is at table helping to design them. This approach helps us make informed value-based design decisions with respect to long-term operational costs, sustainability and durability.”

An emphasis on sustainability is part of the division’s stewardship of the University’s resources. Nine new buildings are LEED-certified, including Geddes Hall, Ryan Hall, Purcell Pavilion, Innovation Park, Carole Sandner Hall, Stinson-Remick Hall, and the Morris Inn, all of which received LEED Gold Certification from the United States Green Building Council.

In addition, energy conservation measures the division has introduced campus-wide, such as programmable thermostats and LED lighting, have reduced electrical demand by 20 percent.
When alumni and visitors arrive on campus, they often comment on how beautiful it is, Marsh says. “And they also note how well our campus is cared for. Our goal,” he says, “is to do things the right way the first time—as we say in our mission statement—developing, maintaining and renewing environments that provide for teaching, learning, research, living and working, consistent with our heritage and responsibilities as the world’s preeminent Catholic university.”

Paul Kempf

Paul Kempf, senior director of utilities and maintenance
People take utilities for granted, ‘and that’s the way we want it’

The Utilities Department is dedicated to providing reliable, low-cost and environmentally compliant utility services across campus.

The department is led by Paul Kempf, senior director of utilities and maintenance.

Kempf has been at Notre Dame, one way or another, for most of his life. His home address at birth was Vetville, the University’s married student housing where World War II veterans on the G.I. Bill lived with their wives and families.

Kempf’s father worked in the power plant under Brother Borromeo Malley, C.S.C., who supervised both the power plant and the fire department, and later succeeded Brother Borromeo. Kempf was appointed director of utilities in 1998, and senior director in 2011.

Utilities are something most people take for granted, Kempf says, “and that’s the way we want it.” People notice utilities mainly when something goes wrong.

The University has invested in an efficient and effective way to provide energy on campus and at the same time to be good stewards of the University’s resources, Kempf says.

Energy is produced on campus at the power plant, a building that has existed in the same location east of St. Joseph Lake since 1932 (power generation on campus dates to the late 1800s.) “It’s a combined heat and power plant, which allows us to provide energy, and use waste energy to produce heat,” says Kempf.

The production of steam can be derived from a variety of fuel sources, including coal, #2 and #6 fuel oil and natural gas. Over the past few years, the amount of coal has been reduced to 15 percent of total campus energy usage.

On September 21, President Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C. announced that the University will cease burning coal entirely within five years, and cut its carbon footprint by more than half by 2030.

The power plant today houses many pieces of equipment, including six boilers, seven chillers and ten generators. The six boilers produce steam, while generators (five steam-driven turbine generators and five diesel engine-driven generators) produce electricity. Five steam-driven and two motor driven centrifugal chillers produce chilled water.

The department has 50 employees. Nineteen are plant operators, eleven handle maintenance and others provide engineering support. The distribution team maintains pipes and wires, while the controls group manages or monitors systems.

In addition to steam, the power plant produces nearly half of the electricity the University uses. Other ancillary products include compressed air and drinking water. The department also manages both storm and sanitary sewers.

Visit the website, utilities.nd.edu, for outage information, to request service or to download a brochure with additional information on the power plant as well as the University’s energy and environmental stewardship efforts.

The department is also happy to offer tours of the power plant. Email Kempf at pkempf@nd.edu or call 631-6594. “It’s a chance for our folks to show off what they do,” he says.

Julie Boynton

Julie Boynton, Transforming interior spaces

“The most common misconception about the interior design team is that we pick colors and buy furniture—people visualize a sea of swatches and paint samples,” says Julie Boynton, director of interior architecture.

“In fact, we’re involved in nearly every new construction and renovation project on campus—managing and advising on details that range from wood species and stain, to door and hardware finishes, to selecting towel bars, leading design and implementation in graphics, theming, and signage…and selecting flooring and paint colors and furniture…really nearly every single thing a person sees and touches inside a building. We oversee and manage the interiors portion of projects from conceptual design through the planning and execution of campus clients moving into their new spaces.”

When Boynton started working at the University in 2003, she was an office of one. Her team has since expanded to include interiors project managers Tammie Rowley, Shay Nothstine, Jodie Funkhouser, Joline Lock, and Mary Cyrier, as well as a student intern. The Interior Architecture team is set-up similarly to the maintenance department in that interiors project managers are assigned to buildings by type and the similarity of the building function.

While the team is managing interior architecture for the new buildings going up across campus, she notes, “We currently have 94 other projects of various sizes. When a campus client’s project is only related to furniture, we don’t always get involved. But we’re involved in any project where the physical space is changing —carpet, paint, re-doing a conference room or renovating an entire floor. A lot of what our team does involves space planning to ensure that a campus client’s needs can be fully met by the layout and design of their new space. We want to create not only inspiring spaces, but also fully functional spaces by working closely with our team members in the Planning, Design & Construction department.”

One of her team’s major recent projects was the remodeling of the Morris Inn. “Listening is key,” she says. “The Morris Inn is viewed as ‘the living room of the campus.’ We need to carefully consider the types of spaces that make people feel good and welcome. We wanted the space to be refreshed, open and light. We also considered how we could create a timeless design so that it does not get dated too quickly.”

Boynton’s team also handles their own budget, and their portion of construction and renovation schedules on projects. “We manage our areas of the projects as well as direct the interior design elements,” she notes. “In a job such as ours, you not only use your interior design skills, you also have to plan well and be strategic in decision-making, always considering the larger good of the project.”

Heather Christopherson, director of maintenance
Keeping up service levels as the University grows

Christopherson, technician Marlon Yoder, Bill Brovold

Heather Christophersen, director of maintenance, oversees the maintenance department, including locksmith services and contract and materials management. The maintenance team is comprised of six zones, which divide areas of responsibility on campus by building type and similarity of equipment — labs and residence halls for example.

Christophersen recently rejoined the University. Previously she worked in the Office of Sustainability, the Office of Strategic Planning, Institutional Research and the Alumni Association, and most recently with a green chemical start-up company. She’s a Notre Dame graduate in chemical engineering with an MBA from the Kellogg 91��Ƶ of Management at Northwestern University.

The zone system, she notes, was created when the division was reorganized three years ago. Under the system, maintenance teams are assigned to a specific area of campus in order to more effectively provide customer service. The technicians are able to focus efforts on their assigned buildings, understand the specific equipment and build relationships with building occupants.

Technicians carry mini iPads to call up work orders or building plans. Having the information at their fingertips allows for faster response times and has reduced the inventory of spare parts on hand—for example, filters for air handlers are now delivered by the manufacturer on an as-needed basis.

Teams of technicians do corrective maintenance — changing light bulbs, clearing plugged sinks — as well as preventive maintenance to prevent equipment from going down. In addition, contracts and materials manager Deb Murray handles purchasing of needed items such as filters, belts or plumbing supplies as well as the management of the contract shops on campus.

“My role is to lead the team and ensure we provide excellent levels of service to campus,” says Christophersen, “But as we grow campus by almost 15 percent in the next few years, my job will also be to help answer the question of how we provide the same high level of service to buildings and campus customers, while also managing the University’s resources in terms of workload and efficiencies across the zones.”

Bill Brovold and John Kuczmanski: Maintenance zone supervisors have special roles

Bill Brovold is maintenance supervisor for all the University’s science and research buildings. His first job on campus was as a union sheet metal worker for a contractor. He joined the University in 1999 and in November will mark 16 years as a campus employee.

“I work with a four-man maintenance technician team that keeps all of the buildings systems in our zone up and running correctly,” Brovold says. “We try to have a very fast response times for all the issues that arise within our zone, because the research the faculty do is so important. We all take great pride in our customer service.”

Brovold and his team handle maintenance for approximately 1.2 million square feet of science and research space, including Nieuwland Science Hall, Stepan Hall of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Jordan Hall of Science, Galvin Life Science and others, as well as Innovation Park and the Indiana 91��Ƶ of Medicine-South Bend. When McCourtney Hall is completed, it will add another 200,000 square feet to their zone.

In addition to maintenance, Brovold’s position is unique in that he also oversees lab renovations within the College of Science, including design and construction within his zone. “I’ve had the honor of overseeing more than 50 lab renovations in the past 16 years for new and current faculty researchers.”

All members of the team have a strong commitment to customers. “To us they’re family, and the research they’re doing could someday save my life.”

John Kuczmanski

John Kuczmanski is a maintenance supervisor for Notre Dame’s 29 residence halls — a number that will increase to 31 when two new undergraduate residence halls, one for men and one for women, open east of Grace Hall, Pasquerilla Hall East and Knott Hall.

A South Bend native, Kuczmanski was hired as the result of a series of coincidences. He was working for a contractor on campus, and applied for the position. “It was the last day they were taking applications. There were 58 applicants, and I was one of four that were interviewed. The first person they offered the job to turned it down.” In September, he celebrated his 25th anniversary as an employee.

Kuczmanski’s team consists of six maintenance technicians, each of whom is responsible for five buildings. “It’s a challenge just to ensure that we have an appropriate response time to the large number of work requests we receive daily, especially at the beginning of the year,” Kuczmanski says. “It’s not uncommon to have over 100 work requests per day.”

Work requests may require help from one of a number of the department’s specialized shops—plumbers, electricians, carpenters, painters or sheet metal. He also deals with outside contractors who may be needed for flooring, repairing ceramic tile in showers or elevator repairs.

Most work requests involve corrective maintenance—fixing things. “That could be a broken window, a light that went out, a shower with no warm water or a hole in a wall,” Kuczmanski says. “The most important aspect of our job is that we realize that the residence halls are the rectors’, priests’ and students’ homes. We respect that by responding quickly and to the best of our ability.”

His team also handles scheduled preventive maintenance such as cleaning roofs and roof drains in fall, or changing belts and filters for equipment such as air handlers.

In addition to his campus job, Kuczmanski has an interesting sideline—he’s in his 10th year of working as an IHSAA (Indiana High 91��Ƶ Athletic Association) basketball official.

Faculty and staff members are invited to submit their photos of campus, shot with mobile phones or tablets, and compete for prizes and publication in NDWorks

Photos can be black and white or color; scenic views, sports, close-ups, “selfies” and altered images.

To enter: Email a maximum of three images by 5 p.m. Thursday, July 23, to NDWorks editor Carol C. Bradley, bradley.7@nd.edu.

Photo submission requirements:

Photos must have been shot on the Notre Dame campus on any brand mobile phone, tablet or other mobile device between August 1, 2014, and July 23, 2015. Copyright remains with the photographer.

Images should be JPEGs, and at full size (if less than 10 MB) or at least 2 MB in size if cropped—a large file size is required to use in print. Create an identifying filename for each of your digital images: yourlastname_ndworks_01_title [i.e., “tulips.”].

Judging: Images will be judged by a panel of campus photographers on criteria including quality, creativity, originality and overall impact.

Names and photos of prizewinners and a selection of photos will be printed in the September issue of NDWorks.

If you have questions, contact Carol C. Bradley, 631-0445, bradley.7@nd.edu.

Create a free Pinterest account and join us on the University’s Pinterest board! As images are submitted, they will be posted on the NDWorks iPhone-ography board on Pinterest. All are invited to to view, like, share or pin photos.

Relay for Life provides an opportunity for the campus and community to come together to raise funds and awareness for cancer research, remember loved ones lost, and celebrate the lives that have been saved.

The 2015 Notre Dame Relay for Life takes place 6 p.m. through midnight Friday, April 17, at the Compton Family Ice Arena. This year’s event takes place over six hours rather than overnight as in previous years.

One of the University’s three sponsored charitable initiatives, Notre Dame’s Relay for Life has raised over $1.2 million for the American Cancer Society, growing from a grassroots initiative to a national, award-winning event. For the second year in a row, Notre Dame in 2014 won the nationwide Number One Youth Per Capita Award and the Gordy Klatt Number One Collegiate Power of Hope Award.

The tangible results of the fundraising efforts of Relay can be measured in the research grant money that has come back to Notre Dame from the American Cancer Society, the single largest nongovernmental, not-for-profit investor in cancer research.

Over the past decade, Notre Dame has been awarded 13 research grants, totaling $4,723,518, allowing faculty and student researchers to conduct pioneering cancer research. Harper Cancer Research Institute, a partnership between the University of Notre Dame and Indiana University 91��Ƶ of Medicine South Bend, and Zachary Schafer, Coleman Assistant Professor of Cancer Biology were recently awarded a combined $1 million, providing seed money to fund their ground-breaking research.

There are many ways to participate in this year’s fundraising and awareness activities.

Back by popular demand is the “Put Your Feet Up” campaign, challenging every building and department on campus to help pave a path of purple in solidarity across campus now through April 17.

For just $1, participants can purchase a purple foot to be displayed on windows, walls, doors, etc. The feet can be purchased at LaFortune, the Hammes Notre Dame Bookstore and through participating departments. A traveling trophy will be awarded to the venue, division or building with the most feet sold and most innovative display.

In celebration and remembrance, the RFL committee is accepting names to be displayed on the jumbotron during the event of loved ones lost, those currently battling cancer, or those who have won the fight. Please submit your names to relay.nd.edu/honorees. Luminary bags are also available for purchase and will be displayed during the luminaria ceremony at 9:00 p.m. during the event. Bags can be purchased for $5 each or 3 for $10 either online or by contacting a committee member.

One of the highlights of this year’s event will be an online mobile auction conducted by partner Auctions by Cellular, allowing you to bid via cell phone while still participating in other activities. You can preview items up for bid and begin online bidding Monday, April 6, continuing through 11 p.m. Friday, April 17.

Items being auctioned include autographed Notre Dame and Blackhawks memorabilia; a summer concert package to see Chicago and Earth, Wind and Fire, including backstage meet-the-band passes and an autographed guitar; custom-framed photographs and prints; restaurant and spa gift cards, hand-made items and more. Visit ndrelay15.myab.co to register, preview and bid.

Notre Dame Security Police will host their Jail-n-Bail fundraiser on Friday, April 17. If you would like to participate by throwing a friend or colleague in jail, complete with mug shot and bail bondsman, complete the online registration at relay.nd.edu.

Relay for Life 2015, Friday, April 17, is a family-friendly event that will appeal to children and adults alike with activities and food items for all ages.

New this year is a zumbathon and karaoke provided by All Star Entertainment in O’Brien’s. Family skate, inflatables, face painting, ice sculpting, broomball tournament, open and closing ceremonies are among the featured events.

Meal packages will be offered for $5 from vendors including CJ’s Pub, Ben’s Pretzels, Gigi’s Cupcakes, Hacienda and more.

Everyone must register before entering the event. To avoid the line, we encourage everyone to sign up online in advance. Registration is $10 per person, with children 12 and under free. Registration includes entrance to the event and a 2015 ND Relay for Life t-shirt.

Please visit our website at relay.nd.edu for upcoming fundraisers, schedule of events, news and registration.

Follow us on Facebook at Notre Dame Relay for Life and Twitter @NotreDameRelay.

Memorial contributions may be made to:

Robinson Community Learning Center
912 N. Eddy Street
South Bend, IN 46617

A strategy modeled after ‘Jesus, Gandhi and common sense’

Thirty years later, Eric Love still remembers the words of a junior high classmate: “You’re the first black guy I’ve ever talked to.”

“I thought, ‘wow, this interaction needs to be positive because it’ll determine how you treat the second one,’” he says.

Keeping interactions positive is a key theme for Love, recently named the University’s director of staff diversity and inclusion.

In developing the University’s strategy on staff diversity and inclusion in concert with the work of the University’s Staff Diversity Subcommittee, Love hopes to foster a broad understanding of what diversity means.

“No matter where you are from, your ethnic background, sexual orientation, religious ideology or affiliation, I want you to feel welcome at Notre Dame.”

While increasing diversity among staff may be one goal, Love knows that successful institutions first look inward to acknowledge existing diversities—plural—and improve multicultural competencies.

What does that mean?

Love offers an example. “Father John is so approachable, but I know I should speak to the president of the University differently than my best friend,” he says.

Likewise, realizing that one might speak to an international staff member differently from a native English speaker is an important skill. “Multicultural competency genuinely serves people,” says Love.

To that end, Love looks forward to sponsoring staff programs on diversity and multiculturalism. He has already led the first new-hire onboarding class of 2015 in an eye-opening game of Diversity Jeopardy. After a fast hour of facts (Q: the 1969 riots at which establishment marked the beginnings of the gay rights movement?), participants left both entertained and enlightened about the differences among them. (A: the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in Greenwich Village.) “The feedback was extremely positive,” he says.

The real measure of Love’s success will be the things he doesn’t hear about, “the little things,” as he calls them. “It’s how colleagues respond to a co-worker’s culturally inappropriate comment, or how a diverse staff member feels about the Notre Dame environment.”

When the occasional cultural conflict does arise, Love hopes to steer conversations from the typical “who wins and who loses” debate toward a more helpful discussion. “We have to remain engaged because we have to talk about [our differences],” Love explains. “If we shut down and remain polarized, we’ll never gain insight into each other.

“You might not change my entire thought process,” Love adds, “but I can make a more informed decision in the future because I listened to what you had to say. We both walk away winning.”

Love has experienced such conflicts firsthand. At the age of 10, Love relocated with his family to Idaho, where less than 1 percent of the population was black. Shortly after, Love was called the n-word by a classmate.

“That was ignorant,” Love said to him. “But I said it without anger. I wasn’t rude. I didn’t cuss him out. I said it matter-of-factly.” The two still keep in touch today.

The youngest of six children of interracial parents, Love forged his philosophy—meeting cultural misunderstandings with patience and education—at an early age. But it wasn’t until college that Love realized his conviction could become a career.

While pursuing his undergraduate degree in psychology at Boise State, he began working with multicultural student organizations. “I fell in love with the work,” he says. “I didn’t know you could have a career doing that at a university.”

After completing a master’s degree in counseling, Love spent five years directing diversity initiatives at Idaho State University, and another 10 at Indiana University Bloomington. Some of Love’s initiatives at both institutions continue to this day.

Today, Love is excited to be at Notre Dame. While he is the first to hold his current position, he knows he has some big shoes to fill. “The history of diversity and social justice work at Notre Dame spans many decades, even beyond Father Hesburgh,” Love says, acknowledging the former Notre Dame president’s pivotal role in the civil rights movement of the 1960s. “I feel honored to continue the legacy that already exists.”

“I model my strategy after Jesus Christ, Gandhi, Martin Luther King and common sense,” he laughs, and adds, “it works.”

It must. That classmate who called Love the n-word decades ago recently confided to Love that his kind response helped shape the man’s view on race throughout the rest of his life.

“He said, ‘I still hear your voice today. And I owe you an apology,’” Love recounts. “I felt sorry for him that he had to hear my voice all that time,” he laughs, “but of course I forgave him 30 years ago.”

Creating a diverse and inclusive culture

The University’s diversity initiative came out of the work of the President’s Oversight Committee on Diversity and Inclusion, the formation of which was announced in September 2013 in a letter from Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C., to campus.

The goal of the committee, chaired by Father Jenkins and including eight other members of the administration, is to ensure that University-wide initiatives are underway and progress is being made in creating a more diverse and inclusive campus community. The committee considers issues around diversity of race, ethnicity, nation of origin, socioeconomic class, gender and sexual orientation.

“We foster a diverse and inclusive community at Notre Dame for many reasons,” said Father Jenkins. “It provides a richer educational environment, enables us to attract and retain a wider variety of talented people and enhances the satisfaction of those who study and work here. All these are important.

“Yet the most important reason goes to the heart of our mission as a Catholic university—we strive to be a community that is welcoming, just and mutually supportive. We learn when we encounter a variety of perspectives and experiences, and we grow when we come to appreciate the gifts of each individual.”

While diversity and inclusion bring benefits to all colleges and universities, Father Jenkins adds, “As a pre-eminent Catholic university, we are part of one of the most ethnically and culturally diverse organizations in the world, and we strive to reflect that diversity—and to make every individual who is part of the University community feel fully welcomed and included.“

In past years, the generosity of the faculty and staff has made Notre Dame the largest workforce contributor in St. Joseph County, helping improve education, health and financial stability of individuals and families in our community.

This year, the changes emphasis, focusing on the epidemic of poverty in our community.

Poverty hurts everyone in the community—and the future of our community—through increased infant mortality, poor health, crime and wasted human potential.

With every dollar you give, a life can be changed. And this year, all new gifts or increases on gifts of $100 or more will be matched, doubling the impact of your contribution.

Your contributions also assist the Notre Dame family—5 percent of your total donation goes to the Notre Dame Employee Compassion Fund to help members of the campus community with emergency needs.

Pledge online at . Contributions may be made by payroll deduction from each paycheck, or you can make a single donation to be deducted from your first paycheck in January 2015. One-time donations by check are also welcome. All contributions are tax-deductible. Payroll deduction pledges must be completed by Friday, Dec. 12 to allow time for processing to begin your deduction in January 2015.

Return paper pledge cards or donations by check through campus mail to the Notre Dame United Way Campaign, 405 Main Building.

For more information on the Notre Dame campaign, visit . For more information on the United Way of St. Joseph County, visit or call 574-232-8201.

BE PART OF THE CHANGE

The United Way’s focus:

• Basic needs—providing a safety net of food and shelter
• Education—preparing children to succeed in school and graduate
• Income—moving families into financial stability through financial management tools and job skills
• Health—increasing wellness by reducing violence, especially domestic violence and child abuse

A donation of $15,383 and more than 2,000 pounds of food will be presented to the Food Bank of Northern Indiana at 10 a.m. Monday (March 12) at Notre Dame’s Mason Services Center, located on Juniper Road north of the Notre Dame Credit Union.

The donations were collected during the second annual , a collaborative effort of the Congregation of Holy Cross institutions of the University of Notre Dame, Holy Cross College and Saint Mary’s College. The “harvest,” which collected both monetary and food donations, took place between Jan. 23 and Feb. 14.

“The drive was a fantastic success,” says Anne Kolaczyk, senior technical training professional at Notre Dame, who served as chair of the Notre Dame Holy Cross Harvest. “We’re happy to be making a difference in our community.”

The three institutions collaborated on the first Holy Cross Harvest in the fall of 2010, collecting more than 6,600 pounds of nonperishables and $2,600 for the Food Bank. The goal this year was to collect even more, though no actual amounts were targeted.

The Holy Cross Harvest is one of several Food Bank drives going on at local colleges in January, February and March. Drives are also taking place at Ivy Tech Community College, Indiana University South Bend and Bethel College. Collectively they are part of the Neighbors in Need drive sponsored by WSBT, the South Bend Tribune and Martin’s Super Markets.

Contact: Marijo C. Martinec, The Food Bank of Northern Indiana, 574-232-9986, ext. 24, mmartinec@feedingamerica.org; Anne M. Kolaczyk, 574-631-8679, akolaczy@nd.edu

“Notre Dame is strong in undergraduate teaching, but the next frontier is students working with professors to do research,” says , associate professor of political science and director of the University of Notre Dame’s new (CUSE).

“Research is development of the mind—the development of students who will be of service to the University and to the world,” he says.

The center, which opened on the second floor of Notre Dame’s Geddes Hall late last year, will offer ideas, advice and centralization of information for undergraduates interested in doing research, in addition to partnering with faculty to create research opportunities.

“We are a University-wide center whose mission is to increase intellectual vibrancy on campus, increase the breadth and depth of undergraduate research and help students apply for and win fellowships,” Lindley says. “We thank our generous benefactors who helped catalyze CUSE into existence.”

The University is part of a nationwide trend in encouraging students to engage in research at earlier stages in their education, says Lindley. Research can be about gaining an appreciation for and transmitting knowledge about literature, understanding the biosphere or making discoveries that will improve human life, whether through medicine or art, he adds.

“Our mission is to help all students, not just the best and brightest, be the best they can be—to push them to new levels, and to try new things,” Lindley says.

Physics Professor , CUSE associate director for scholarly engagement, launched the Sorin Scholars program, which identifies and mentors some of the University’s best and brightest students each year.

“Students still don’t realize they can make a difference in their field, whether science or arts and letters,” he says.

Collon will work with the and Notre Dame’s to identify motivated students; he will also help match students with faculty based on research interests.

, assistant director for undergraduate research, “has the best view in the University of where student research funding is available,” says Lindley. She also has developed a common application that allows students to apply to several centers and funding sources with one form. Lucero is able to directly fund or supplement funds for student research projects. She also helps disseminate the results of student research with an annual University-wide .

If students are interested in research but don’t know where to start, CUSE is the place to begin, Lucero says.

“We try to show that there’s not a division between teaching and research,” she adds. “Research is part of a great education.”

Roberta Jordan, assistant director for fellowships, helps students apply for, and win, nationally competitive fellowships such as the Rhodes, Marshall, Mitchell, Fulbright, Gates, Churchill, and Truman – just a few of the over 100 fellowships for which Notre Dame students may apply. “Fellowships allow students to embark on their own research projects, or continue their education at the graduate level,” she notes. “From art history to economic development or bioengineering, Notre Dame students can and should be at the leading edge in their chosen field, and a fellowship can help get them there.”

More information about CUSE is available on the Web at .

Contact: Daniel Lindley, cuse@nd.edu

Frances Shavers, Notre Dame’s chief of staff and special assistant to the president, reads during Sonnet Fest 2010.

Members of Notre Dame’s ROTC stood watch at the Clarke Memorial Fountain (war memorial) on Veteran’s Day 2009.

Notre Dame’s 2009 Domer Run raised money to support local cancer programs.