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In memoriam: Timothy O’Meara, provost emeritus

2018-06-17T17:00:00-04:00

Timothy O’Meara, provost emeritus, Kenna Professor of Mathematics Emeritus and Trustee Emeritus at the University of Notre Dame, died June 17. He was 90.

A member of the Notre Dame faculty since 1962, O’Meara twice served as chairman of the University’s mathematics department and served as its first lay provost from 1978 to 1996.

“Tim O'Meara was a multi-talented professor and administrator, a world-class mathematician, a great husband and family man, a faithful Catholic, a visionary provost and a person deeply devoted to Notre Dame” said Rev. Edward A. Malloy, C.S.C., president emeritus of the University who worked directly with O’Meara for nine years. “His legacy is evident all around the campus. He will be missed.”

“We are deeply grateful for Tim O’Meara’s many invaluable contributions to Notre Dame,” said Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C., the University’s president. “May God bless and keep him.”

Onorato Timothy O’Meara was born Jan. 29, 1928, in Cape Town, South Africa, on the second story of a bakery his parents, Daniel and Fiorina O’Meara, owned and operated there.

He was graduated from the University of Cape Town in 1947 and earned a master’s degree in mathematics there the following year. Earning his doctoral degree from Princeton University in 1953, he taught at the University of Otago in New Zealand from 1954 to 1956 before returning to Princeton where he served on the mathematics faculty and as a member of the Institute for Advanced Study for the next six years.

During the early years of O’Meara’s academic career, his enthusiasm for mathematics seemed matched only by his enthusiasm for motorcycling, and on often daunting road trips he traversed the African, European and North American continents—including one 12-day round-trip from Princeton, through Wyoming, to Los Angeles, to the rim of the Grand Canyon and back to Princeton.

Those nomadic days abruptly ended when he met a young woman named Jean T. Fadden of Philadelphia, whom he married in 1953.

“Her first and most decisive move,” O’Meara liked to recall, “was to give me a clear choice between her and my constant companion in South Africa, Europe and America—my 1.0-litre Black Shadow motorcycle.” All five of the O’Mearas’ children earned Notre Dame degrees.

O’Meara was among the distinguished Catholic scholars personally recruited by Notre Dame’s Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, C.S.C., early in his institutionally transformational 35-year presidency. Joining the faculty in 1962, and ironically, given the subsequent three decades of his Notre Dame career, requesting that he never be asked to take any administrative position in the University, O’Meara soon became chairman of the mathematics department.

In addition to his mathematical teaching and scholarship, he published magisterial works, including “Introduction to Quadratic Forms,” “Lectures on Linear Groups,” “Symplectic Groups” and “The Classical Groups and K-Theory,” co-authored with Alexander J. Hahn, professor of mathematics emeritus at Notre Dame and a former O’Meara doctoral student.

O’Meara was appointed Notre Dame’s first lay provost in 1978 and served as the University’s chief academic officer for the next 18 years in the administrations of both Father Hesburgh and Father Malloy. He once described his principal responsibility as “preserving the Catholic character of the University and not being afraid to say it. Some Catholic schools, in adapting to what they thought would be the best way to obtain resources from public agencies, have tried to neutralize or camouflage their heritage. We have not. Interestingly enough, the very fact that we have maintained our self-confidence in what we are has proved to be a positive factor in enabling us to find the resources we need.”

The numerous honors O’Meara received for such commitments include an honorary degree from Notre Dame in 1987 and the University of Dayton’s Marianist Award in 1988. In 1991 he was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2008, Notre Dame’s Mathematics Library was rededicated and named in his honor.

“It is clear to all of us who thought, wrote, lectured and taught at Notre Dame during the 1980s and 1990s that Tim O’Meara’s tireless efforts raised the quality of the intellectual environment at Notre Dame dramatically,” Hahn said. “Tim’s rigorous commitment to ‘superior scholarship by a superior faculty’ provided significant momentum that has enabled the University’s more recent administrations to continue to promote the pursuit of academic excellence effectively.”

Visitation is at 8:30 a.m. on Friday (June 22), and a funeral Mass will follow at 9:30 a.m. in the Basilica of the Sacred Heart on campus.

Notre Dame to host an academic conference on Pope Francis in Cuba

2016-10-12T12:00:00-04:00

Peter Casarella, director of Latin American/North American Church Concerns, speaks with undergraduate students after the opening session of a colloquium in Cuba which initiated a three-year study, led by Casarella, of Pope Francis’ “Teologia del Pueblo” (Theology of the People).

The University of Notre Dame’s Institute for Latino 91��Ƶ will convene a gathering of theologians and other scholars in Havana Sunday-Tuesday (Oct. 16-18) to discuss the impact of Pope Francis’ visits to Latin America and the United States.

The colloquium, to be held in the Casa Sacerdotal (Priests’ House) of the Archdiocese of Havana, will include participants from throughout Latin America and the United States — among them, a group of Notre Dame undergraduate students enrolled in one of the institute’s theology courses.

Among those invited to the meeting are Cardinal Jaime Ortega, who presided over three papal visits to Cuba; Catholic journalist and papal biographer Austin Ivereigh; Bishop Felipe Estevez of St. Augustine, Florida; and Jesuit theologian Rev. Allan Figueroa Deck of Marymount University.

The meeting in Cuba will initiate a three-year study, led by Peter J. Casarella, director of Latin American/North American Church Concerns, of Pope Francis’ “Teologia del Pueblo” (“Theology of the People’”), which shaped his pastoral ministry as a priest and bishop in Argentina and continues in his pontificate and teaching today.

“This colloquium is part of our commitment to contribute to scholarly work that directly links all of the Americas, including Mexico, the countries of Central and South America, and the United States,” said institute co-director Luis Ricardo Fraga. “One cannot understand Latino communities in the United States without also understanding important international transformations in Latin America. Pope Francis’ origins in Argentina, and his overwhelmingly favorable reception in his visits to the Americas, are among such transformations with direct implications for our Catholic Church and its faithful.”

Next fall, the institute will host a meeting at Notre Dame of scholars from Latin America, the Philippines and the United States to discuss “Theology of the People” in their countries and cultures, and a year later will convene a conference to conclude the study at Notre Dame’s Global Gateway in Rome.

“This Havana colloquium is a timely opportunity to learn from colleagues in Cuba and throughout the Americas about the papal visits and pastoral vision of Pope Francis,” said institute co-director Timothy Matovina. “It is an important first step in the project’s broader goal of appreciating the significance of Pope Francis for our American continent and the world.”

A new cardinal, Archbishop Tobin, to speak at Notre Dame on refugees

2016-10-10T15:45:00-04:00

Archbishop Joseph W. Tobin of Indianapolis, one of the three Americans named as cardinals by Pope Francis on Sunday (Oct. 9), will speak on “Welcoming the Stranger while Challenging the Fear” at 12:30 p.m. Friday (Oct. 14) in the University of Notre Dame’s Hesburgh Center auditorium.

Archbishop Tobin was named cardinal along with Chicago archbishop Blaise Cupich and Bishop Kevin Farrell of Dallas. His elevation is widely regarded as reflective of Pope Francis’ concern for the plight of refugees worldwide. Last December, Archbishop Tobin was outspoken against Indiana Gov. Michael Pence, now the running mate of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, when Pence opposed the settling of Syrian refugees in the state. Pence later said he would not enforce his call to ban Syrian refugees one day after Archbishop Tobin announced a Syrian family had arrived in the Indianapolis archdiocese.

In his Notre Dame lecture, Archbishop Tobin will explore the imperative to assist refugees as a component of the moral tradition of the Catholic Church. He also will address the fear and anxiety often arising from the imperative of hospitality and suggest ways the Catholic community might address them. Archbishop Tobin will be joined by Ebrahim Moosa, professor of Islamic 91��Ƶ in Notre Dame’s Keough 91��Ƶ of Global Affairs. A question and answer session will follow the presentation.

The event is co-sponsored by Notre Dame’s Center for Civil and Human Rights and Center for Social Concerns.

A live stream of the Friday afternoon speech is available here: http://humanrights.nd.edu/tobin.

Spanish architect Enrique Nuere awarded the Rafael Manzano Architecture Prize

2016-10-05T09:00:00-04:00

In recognition of his research and leadership in the recovery of traditional Spanish carpentry methods, architect Enrique Nuere will receive the 2016 Rafael Manzano Prize for New Traditional Architecture, presented by the University of Notre Dame 91��Ƶ of Architecture in partnership with the Richard H. Driehaus Charitable Lead Trust.

Nuere will be presented with €50,000 and a commemorative medal at a ceremony on Oct. 19 (Wednesday) at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando in Madrid. Born in Valencia, Nuere is best known for his coffered ceiling lazed carpentry work, which was informed by his research into the original geometric rules described in 17th-century manuscripts on carpentry techniques. Through his studies, Nuere recovered the craft of the carpinteros de lo blanco – or construction carpenters – which had been lost in the 18th century. Nuere’s most notable works include the new ceilings of the galleries of the Patio del Alcázar in Toledo, the framework of the auditorium of the University of Alcalá de Henares, the framework of the Buenavista Palace in Malaga, which has become the Picasso Museum, and the ceiling frameworks of the Miguel Mañara Palace in Seville.

“Enrique Nuere has maintained, nurtured and carried the flame of traditions and culture forward so that the next generation can accept them as their inheritance, thus ensuring that the cycle of tradition and craft begins again on a basis of knowledge and wisdom,” said Michael Lykoudis, Francis and Kathleen Rooney Dean of the 91��Ƶ of Architecture. “This is the true sustainability; a real investment in the future. His work is an act of faith in the future, a commitment to the cities and countryside of his native Spain and an act of courage as a citizen of the world.”

Richard H. Driehaus, founder, chairman and chief investment officer of Chicago-based Driehaus Capital Management LLC, said, “As we mark the fifth anniversary of the Manzano Prize, it is fitting that we recognize the pioneering work of Enrique Nuere who, as an architect, preservation advocate, scholar and practitioner of a nearly-lost traditional craft, has changed the course of history. By sharing his knowledge and teaching a new generation of carpinteros de lo blanco, in the ancient techniques while taking advantage of modern materials and technology, he has single-handedly ensured that this aspect of Spain’s cultural heritage will survive for centuries to come.”

In conjunction with the prize ceremony, a two-day seminar will be held with the theme Architecture and Traditional Building Crafts. The seminar’s topic was selected to respond to and make manifest Nuere’s work. Presentations on traditional building crafts from different regions and cultures will be showcased.

The Manzano Prize recognizes the work of architects who defend and preserve vernacular architecture and reinforce Spain’s unique architectural heritage. The award is named after Rafael Manzano Martos, who was awarded the 2010 Richard H. Driehaus Prize at the University of Notre Dame. Manzano is an architect who has devoted his professional life to the preservation of the architectural and urban heritage of Spain through both the restoration and the design of new architecture based on this heritage.

Contact: Mary Beth Zachariades, 91��Ƶ of Architecture, 574-631-5720, mb.zachariades@nd.edu

In memoriam: Brother Louis Hurcik, C.S.C., professor emeritus of physical education and wellness

2016-09-27T12:00:00-04:00

Brother Louis Hurcik, C.S.C., professor emeritus of physical education and wellness at the University of Notre Dame, died Friday (Sept. 23) at St. Joseph Regional Medical Center. He was 83.

A native of Chicago, Brother Louis attended St. Vitus Grade 91��Ƶ and St. Ignatius High 91��Ƶ there before entering the Brothers of Holy Cross in North Dartmouth, Massachusetts, and professing his final vows in 1955.

From his very first days as a Holy Cross religious, when he was appointed assistant sacristan in Sacred Heart Church (now the Basilica of the Sacred Heart), Brother Louis’ ministry was conducted entirely in and around the Notre Dame community. In 1960, he began working on the staffs of the Catholic Boy and Catholic Miss magazines then published by the Ave Maria Press, and in 1969 he was assigned to Little Flower Parish in South Bend. In 1970, he came to Notre Dame and began a nearly four-decade career as a teacher in the University’s Department of Physical Education.

A Notre Dame omnipresence in the days when the University required all undergraduate students to pass a swimming test, Brother Louis served for many years as director of the Rockne Memorial, taught generations of Notre Dame students how to swim and trained many others in Red Cross life-saving and CPR techniques. His career was all the more remarkable, in that he himself did not learn to swim until adulthood.

In 1989, the St. Joseph County Red Cross recognized Brother Louis for 33 years and 20,500 hours of continuous volunteer services as a life guard, and water and safety instructor, and CPR instructor. In 2010, he was honored by the Notre Dame Alumni Association with its Dr. William B. Sexton Award for “outstanding service (which) exemplifies the spirit of the University.”

Since retiring in 2008, Brother Louis worked at Notre Dame’s University Health Services as its webmaster. He moved to Holy Cross House in 2013.

Visitation will be from 3:30 to 7:30 p.m. Tuesday (Sept. 27) at Moreau Seminary, with a wake service at 7:30 p.m. A funeral Mass will be celebrated at 3:30 p.m. Wednesday (Sept. 28) in the Basilica of the Sacred Heart.

Memorial contributions may be made to the United States Province of Priests and Brothers (Office of Development, P.O. Box 765, Notre Dame, IN 46556) or online at donate.holycrossusa.org.

Open floor plans may lead to more eating

2016-09-08T10:30:00-04:00

No competent food critic reviews a restaurant without taking into consideration the ambience of the place, because whether or not a meal is enjoyable greatly depends upon the environment in which it is served.

According to Kim Rollings, assistant professor in the University of Notre Dame’s 91��Ƶ of Architecture, dining environments can have even more serious consequences for eating behaviors, and in an article published recently in the journal Environment and Behavior she and Nancy Wells, an environmental psychologist from Cornell University, describe some of them.

The article, “Effects of Floor Plan Openness on Eating Behaviors,” concerns a study Rollings and Wells conducted with 57 college students in the Food and Brand Lab at Cornell.

The study made use of folding screens to manipulate the arrangement of kitchen and dining areas during the service of buffet-style meals, and two-way mirrors for the unobtrusive observation of variously sized groups of student diners.

“Although more research is needed,” Rollings said, “the results of our study suggest that the openness of a floor plan, among many other factors, can affect how much we eat. Eating in an ‘open concept kitchen,’ with greater visibility and convenience of food access, can set off a chain reaction. We’re more likely to get up and head toward the food more often, serve more food and eat more food.”

Kim Rollings

Rollings noticed that each time college students in the study got up to get more food, they ended up eating an average of 170 more calories in the “open” than in the “closed” floor plan kitchen. “Considering that decreasing calorie consumption by 50 to 100 calories per day can reduce or avoid the average annual weight gain of one to two pounds among U.S. adults,” she said, “these results have important implications for designers of and consumers in residential kitchens; college, workplace and school cafeterias and dining areas; and buffet-style restaurants.”

Not so long ago, most American kitchens were separate, enclosed spaces, purely functional and not intended for entertaining. “Now,” Rollings said, “open-concept plans put kitchens on display, which is great for entertaining, but not necessarily for our waistlines. Serving food out of sight from diners in an open kitchen, serving food from a counter in a closed kitchen rather than from a dining table, and creating open kitchens that have the ability to be enclosed may help U.S. adults maintain their weight.”

Rollings said that the study findings have important implications not only for college and university students, but also for people who need to eat in health care, group home and military settings.

Contact: Kim Rollings, 574-631-4105, krolling@nd.edu

In memoriam: Brother Bonaventure Scully, C.F.X., former rector of Keenan Hall

2016-09-07T12:00:00-04:00

Brother Bonaventure Scully, C.F.X., former rector of Keenan Hall at the University of Notre Dame, died Thursday (Sept. 1) at Xavier House in Baltimore. He was 87.

Brother Scully, who served in Keenan Hall from 1985 to 1999, was among the most popular and affectionately regarded residence hall rectors in a University proud of its distinctive commitment to the quality of undergraduate communal life.

Before becoming Keenan Hall’s rector, Brother Scully had taught science and religion and served as counselor, retreat director and principal for Xavierian high schools in Massachusetts, Kentucky and New York. He also served in the Catholic school systems of Denver and Memphis as superintendent, and his religious order as its provincial vocation counselor. In 1971, he became the first president of the National Association of Religious Brothers.

At Notre Dame, he became an exemplar of the residence hall rector’s role in loco parentis, regarding his job as primarily a work of hospitable Christian ministry. The door of his apartment on Keenan’s first floor was open most of the time, and there seemed always to be a pot of hearty soup or stew simmering on the stove of its kitchenette. Brother Scully was an accomplished, if somewhat undisciplined chef and no Keenan student during his tenure went long without a home-cooked meal.

Soon after he had moved into Keenan, Brother Scully undertook what one alumnus remembers as the transformation of “an abandoned dungeon of a basement into a bright, well-decorated and much-used social area with drop ceilings, piped-in music, TVs, pool tables, video games and study space. Quite simply, he made the hall itself a more comfortable place to live.”

In addition to being a companion, counselor and disciplinarian in the community life of the hall’s 300 residents, Brother Scully (“Brother Bon,” or simply “Bon,” the students called him) also was an enthusiastic supporter of spiritual retreats and social service projects, particularly of Dismas House, a community in which former prison convicts and college students lived together and where Brother Scully served as part-time cook.

A native of Baltimore, Brother Scully was graduated from Catholic University of America and professed vows in the Xavierian Brothers in 1951. He held a master’s degree in chemistry from the University of Detroit and a master’s degree in religious education from Loyola University in Chicago.

“My most cherished pursuits,” he wrote recently, “were mostly my teaching, my efforts to encourage young people to deepen their relations with Jesus and to reach out to the less fortunate.”

The pursuits Brother Bon most cherished were, to those who lived in Keenan Hall and to most others who lived and worked at Notre Dame from 1985 to 1999, always plain to see.

Notre Dame to dedicate new center in Connemara, Ireland

2016-08-22T11:45:00-04:00

Kylemore Abbey

The new Notre Dame Center at Kylemore Abbey in Connemara, County Galway, Ireland, will be dedicated on Aug. 25 (Thursday) with a Mass in the abbey’s Gothic Chapel, an academic convocation and a blessing of the center’s headquarters in Kylemore’s Saint Joseph Hall.

Thomas G. Burish, the University of Notre Dame’s Charles and Jill Fischer Provost, will preside at the convocation, during which honorary doctoral degrees will be conferred on Sister Máire Hickey, abbess of the Benedictine Community at Kylemore, and Justice Peter Kelly, president of Ireland’s High Court.

Opened last May, the Notre Dame Center at Kylemore offers programs in a wide variety of academic disciplines blending the scholarly rigor of Notre Dame with the abbey’s traditional Benedictine spirituality. Housed in what was formerly a boarding school as well as the home of the Benedictine nuns, the center significantly expands Notre Dame’s network of five Global Gateways — located in Dublin, Beijing, Jerusalem, London and Rome — which provide academic and intellectual hubs where scholars, students and leaders from universities, government, business and community gather to discuss, discover and debate issues of topical and enduring relevance.

The Notre Dame Center at Kylemore Abbey, located in one of Ireland’s most beautiful and storied regions, will provide a rural complement to Notre Dame’s urban presence in O’Connell House, the historic home of Daniel O’Connell, the 19th-century Catholic political leader, on Merrion Square in Dublin.

In its first summer, the Notre Dame Center hosted a variety of academic programs, including an environmental law conference, a week of coursework for Notre Dame’s Dublin Summer Program, a week of coursework for the Irish Seminar, a two-week retreat for the Alliance for Catholic Education (ACE) from Dublin, a three-week creative writing seminar, the Ireland Inside Track program and a workshop for the International Network for Comparative Humanities program. Program participants included Notre Dame undergraduate and graduate students and faculty as well as faculty from universities throughout Ireland, and scholars from around the globe.

Contact: Lisa Caulfield, director, Notre Dame Center at Kylemore Abbey, lcaulfield@nd.edu

Paolo Carozza, director of Kellogg Institute, appointed to Vatican academy by Pope Francis

2016-08-08T16:00:00-04:00

Paolo Carozza

Paolo G. Carozza, professor of law, concurrent professor of political science and director of the Kellogg Institute for International 91��Ƶ at the University of Notre Dame, has been appointed to the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences by Pope Francis.

Established by Saint Pope John Paul II in 1994, the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences promotes such social sciences as economics, sociology, law and political science, and makes studies in them available to the Church for the development of social doctrine and the application of that doctrine in contemporary society. An international body composed of 25 scholars, the academy includes another Notre Dame faculty member, Vittorio Hösle, Paul Kimball Professor of Arts and Letters.

“It is a great privilege to serve society and the Church in collaboration with this distinguished international group of scholars,” Carozza said. “I am looking forward to the challenge of taking up issues of contemporary relevance in the world and am glad to have the many intellectual resources of the University of Notre Dame at hand to help.”

“All of us who know Paolo are delighted by this excellent appointment,” said Nell Jessup Newton, Joseph A. Matson Dean of the Notre Dame Law 91��Ƶ. “His deep faith and outstanding scholarship will enhance the Pontifical Academy even as his experiences there enrich his Law 91��Ƶ courses in human rights and international law.”

Carozza joined the Notre Dame faculty in 1996. His expertise is in the areas of comparative constitutional law, human rights, law and development and international law. His writings in these areas have been published in Europe and Latin America as well as in the United States.

At Notre Dame, in addition to directing the Kellogg Institute, a component of the new Keough 91��Ƶ of Global Affairs, Carozza is a fellow of the Kroc Institute for International Peace 91��Ƶ, the Nanovic Institute for European 91��Ƶ, the Liu Institute for Asia and Asian 91��Ƶ and the Institute for Educational Initiatives. In the Notre Dame Law 91��Ƶ, he directed the Center for Civil and Human Rights from 2011 to 2013 and directed its J.S.D. in International Human Rights Law program from 2006 to 2016.

From 2006 to 2010 he was a member of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and served as its president in 2008-09. In 2009 he received the Order of Merit of Bernardo O’Higgins, the Republic of Chile’s highest state honor awarded to foreign citizens, in recognition of his service to the Inter-American human rights system.

A 1985 Harvard College graduate, Carozza pursued graduate studies at Cambridge University and at Harvard Law 91��Ƶ, from which he earned his Juris Doctor in 1989. He has been a visiting professor at universities in the United States, Europe and Latin America, including as the John Harvey Gregory Lecturer on World Organization at Harvard Law 91��Ƶ and twice as a Fulbright senior scholar.

Contact: Paolo Carozza, 574-631-4128, pcarozza@nd.edu

Basilica of the Sacred Heart to close for organ installation

2016-07-29T10:45:00-04:00

The University of Notre Dame’s Basilica of the Sacred Heart will be closed Aug. 1 (Monday) through Aug. 14 (Sunday) while the new Murdy Family Organ is being installed.

Completing a project begun by the craftsmen of Paul Fritts & Company Organ Builders of Tacoma, Washington, in 2012, the installation will involve moving into the Basilica a massive musical instrument whose features include four keyboards, 70 organ stops and 5,164 pipes.

During the closure, the regularly scheduled 11:30 a.m. daily Mass will be celebrated Monday through Friday in the Crypt Church of the Basilica’s lower level. Confessions will be heard there Monday through Friday from 11 a.m. to 11:30 a.m.

The Murdy Family Organ will be formally blessed and dedicated next year at a Mass on Jan. 20, the Feast of Blessed Basil Moreau, the founder of the Congregation of Holy Cross, the religious order that established Notre Dame in 1842.

Three questions with Latino theologian Peter J. Casarella

2016-07-28T15:00:00-04:00

Peter Casarella

Peter Casarella, associate professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame and interim director of Latin American/North American Church Concerns (LANACC), is a scholar of Latino theology. Before joining the Notre Dame faculty in 2013, he served as professor of Catholic 91��Ƶ at DePaul University where he was director of the Center for World Catholicism and Intercultural Theology. Books he has written or edited include “Jesus Christ: The New Face of Social Progress”; “A World for All? Global Civil Society in Political Theory and Trinitarian Theology”; “Cusanus: The Legacy of Learned Ignorance”; “The Hispanic Presence in the U.S. Catholic Church”; and “Christian Spirituality and the Culture of Modernity: The Thought of Louis Dupré.” He answers a few questions about Latin America and the Church.

How would you describe your research?

My research does not fit into the usual categories. I have worked on medieval mysticism, German philosophical theology and Latino Catholicism. I do not see these as separate boxes but as a single, albeit sometimes complicated, whole. I have been working on a project recently called “The God of the People: A Latino/a Theology.” It brings together research on Latin American and Latino/a perspectives on the doctrine and spirituality of the triune God. I hope to have this ready as a book manuscript by December.

Have Pope Francis’ particularly Latin American emphases in Catholic social teaching affected your work, and, if so, how?

I have always tried to learn more about the sitting popes and their vision of theology and the Church as part of my work. In the case of Saint John Paul II, I was also blessed with a personal meeting, and I was actually fortunate enough to have several conversations over the years with Pope Benedict. I have never met Jorge Mario Bergoglio, but I have been studying his writings from Argentina and Rome intensively since his election as Pope Francis. Together with the Institute of Latino 91��Ƶ, I will be sponsoring three conferences (Havana, Notre Dame and Rome) on the “theology of the people” of the Argentine school of theology and its implications for the global Church. It’s true that Pope Francis has brought the social teachings of the Church to the forefront with renewed vigor. He has also promoted a revitalization of the idea of the Second Vatican Council of the Church as a people of God engaged in a common journey. I am particularly interested in showing how the emphasis of John Paul II on the family and Benedict XVI on moral conscience are not negated but deepened by the new Latin American and Latino accents of our Argentine pope.

How do you see the future of LANACC?

It has been a great pleasure and genuine privilege to spend the past academic year as interim director of LANACC. Rev. Robert S. Pelton, C.S.C., its director emeritus, is and always will be a giant in the area of interchurch cooperation, having begun work as a missionary of the Congregation of Holy Cross in the 1950s. He is not only as lively a conversationalist as anyone you’ll meet at Notre Dame (forget about the fact he’s 95 years old), but he’s also goldmine of information on the Church in Chile, Panama, El Salvador, Colombia and Cuba. I am in debt to him and wish that more people here at Notre Dame could benefit from his youthful, optimistic presence. For that reason, Father Bob and I are taking an undergraduate class of 17 students on a pilgrimage to Cuba during fall break in 2016.

What does the future hold for LANACC? Two things in particular come to mind. The first is what Father Bob calls “reverse mission.” We at Notre Dame must not only send people to witness and do service projects in the Church of the global South, but we also must confront our own identity here in the United States. That process has implications for immigration policy and social justice as well as for our identity as “Irish” and “American” Catholics. If we are Catholic in the true sense of the term, we can’t continue to support a nationalism and Americanism that closes its borders to the outside.

Second, I would like to see LANACC not only recover the memory of great figures from the past like blessed Archbishop Óscar Romero or Archbishop Marcos McGrath, C.S.C., but also the spirit and dynamism of these figures. We must make the past come alive in our own hearts and in the hearts of all the students here at Notre Dame. This hope entails promoting exchanges of ideas and activities that look anew at the need for interdisciplinary cooperation at our University and in collaboration with partner institutions in Latin America that will make the “preferential option for the poor” a living reality. One only need travel to the Mexican neighborhood in the western part of South Bend to see how timely and urgent these issues really can be.

Contact: Peter Casarella, 574-631-3194, peter.j.casarella.2@nd.edu

Three questions with political philosopher Patrick Deneen

2016-07-21T14:45:00-04:00

Patrick Deneen

A member of the University of Notre Dame political science faculty since 2012, Patrick Deneen is the David A. Potenziani Memorial Associate Professor of Constitutional 91��Ƶ. He teaches and writes about the history of political thought, American political thought, religion and politics, and literature and politics. Books he has published on these subjects include “The Odyssey of Political Theory,” “Democratic Faith,” “Democracy’s Literature,” “The Democratic Soul” and “Redeeming Democracy in America.” We asked him a few questions about Catholic social teaching in American politics.

How would you describe the scholarship you pursue?

I am interested in the “big questions” of political philosophy: What is politics, citizenship, community, freedom, equality and justice? How should we best organize our lives together? What conditions foster human flourishing and what forms of government and civic life seem most to accord with our nature? And so on. To begin answering these questions, I’ve studied and written on authors and works ranging from Homer, Plato, Aristotle and Augustine to Rousseau, Tocqueville, The Federalist Papers, Orestes Brownson, Mark Twain and the film “It’s A Wonderful Life,” just for starters. I’ve written and continue to write, with the help of such authors, on subsets of those questions, such as: Should we aspire to community or mobility? Is belief in democracy a kind of “faith?” In what ways does liberalism shape our souls, for good and ill? How should we seek to educate citizens in a liberal democracy? Has the American constitutional order been grounded on a sound or flawed political philosophy?

How well or badly do you think Catholic social teaching is reflected or represented in American society and politics today?

Woefully, Catholic social teaching has been chopped up and parceled out in pieces among various political actors, parties and organizations in contemporary American society. This is to say, many people of diverse political views can justifiably claim to follow parts of Catholic social teaching, but it’s exceedingly rare to find anyone in a prominent public position who strives to adhere to its totality. One could see the glass as half-full and say that at least parts of Catholic social teaching inform most American political actors, whether a concern for the immigrant, the worker, the poor, the disabled, the unborn, the health and stability of families and the strength of civil society. But one might equally see the glass as half-empty and conclude that chopping up a social philosophy that is otherwise cohesive and meant to be taken as a whole renders it incoherent and ineffectual.

What do you regard as the responsibilities of a Catholic public intellectual these days?

In our polarized nation, it is in the first instance to be Catholic rather than defined by a particular partisan label. This will often mean expressing disagreement with people of all parties and positions, as well as finding points of commonality with the same, and to explain how these simultaneous responses are coherent from a Catholic perspective. Secondly, it is to provide intellectual reflection informed by one’s faith especially for fellow Catholics, as well as those who might be curious about Catholicism and even those who are indifferent and hostile, to understand Catholic beliefs in a modern context, particularly (in my field) as they intersect with social and political life. And lastly, it is to be public: to strive for accessibility and inclusion in ways that resist academic jargon and narrow specialization, to take seriously our responsibility as stewards of an intellectual tradition, and to make that great inheritance available and relevant to those who are not blessed with the leisure and training of a college professor.

Contact: Patrick Deneen, 574-631-7659, pdeneen1@nd.edu

In Memoriam: Bernard E. Doering, professor emeritus of Romance languages and literatures

2016-07-19T16:00:00-04:00

Bernard Doering

Bernard E. Doering, professor emeritus of Romance languages and literatures at the University of Notre Dame, died July 9 (Saturday). He was 91.

A member of the Notre Dame faculty since 1965, Doering was born in St. Louis, Missouri, where he attended McBride High 91��Ƶ for a year before entering the postulancy of the Marianist religious order in Kirkwood, Missouri. After his graduation from the University of Dayton in 1944, he taught for seven years in Marianist high schools in Chicago, St. Louis and Milwaukee and in 1951 entered the Marianist novitiate for theological studies in Fribourg, Switzerland, where he eventually discovered that his vocation lay elsewhere. Before returning to St. Louis in 1955, Doering spent months hitchhiking throughout post-World War II Europe.

He earned a master’s degree in English from Washington University in 1955 and, a year later, while attending summer school at Laval University in Quebec, met Elizabeth Jane O’Connor (now Elizabeth Jane Doering, professional specialist emerita in the College of Arts and Letters) whom he married three years later, and who went with him to teach at Indian Springs 91��Ƶ in Helena, Alabama, a private secondary school for boys that curiously required that all its students be from south and all its teaching staff from north of the Mason-Dixon Line.

In 1963, the Doerings left Indian Springs, and Bernard earned a doctoral degree from the University of Colorado in 1965, writing a thesis on what would become his principal scholarly interest for the rest of his life, “Jacques Maritain and French Literary Figures in the Political and Social Turmoil of 1920-1950.”

At Notre Dame, Doering soon became a popular and affectionately regarded teacher and mentor. Among the pioneers of the University’s international studies programs, he played an indispensable role in establishing and developing the Notre Dame program in Angers, France, in which more than 3,000 Notre Dame students have been enrolled.

One of those alumni, 1969 Notre Dame graduate Rev. Patrick Gaffney, C.S.C., now associate professor of anthropology at Notre Dame, said that “as a scholar, teacher and translator, Bernard combined professional competence, poetic fervor and spiritual insight in a way that brightened minds, nourished hearts and inspired imitation. The wisdom he sought and shared was founded on an alloy of conviction, compassion and courage of a sort that is rarer than celestial star dust.”

The recipient of numerous University awards for his teaching and service, Doering also wrote articles and essays in such journals as The Review of Politics, Commonweal, The New Oxford Review, Theological 91��Ƶ and Communio. Books he wrote, translated and edited include “Jacques Maritain and the French Catholic Intellectuals,” “The Philosopher and the Provocateur: The Correspondence of Jacques Maritain and Saul Alinski” and “Jacques and Raïssa Maritain: Beggars for Heaven, a Biography by Jean-Luc Barré.”

Doering died at his home in South Bend, survived by his wife, their four children and 10 grandchildren. He died surrounded by his family and friends, sharing the Prayer of Saint Francis.

Doering has donated his body to the Anatomical Education Program of the Indiana University 91��Ƶ of Medicine. A Mass in celebration of his life will be offered at 3 p.m. Aug. 13 (Saturday) in the Church of Loretto at Saint Mary’s College.

The family asks that memorial donations in his name be made to the Center for Hospice Care, 501 Comfort Place, Mishawaka, IN 46545.

A family reunion at Notre Dame

2016-06-01T13:30:00-04:00

When more than 3,500 University of Notre Dame alumni gather on campus Thursday-Sunday (June 2-5) for Reunion 2016, they will be reminiscing about their student days, renewing the friendships they made then and marveling at the changes in the storied landscape.

Most importantly, the alumni — from Notre Dame’s undergraduate, law and graduate classes of years ending in 6 and 1 and architecture classes of years ending in 7 and 2 — will have occasion to remember why Notre Dame will always be their home.

“The phrase ‘Notre Dame family’ comes up easily and naturally in any conversation about our University,” said 1984 graduate Dolly Duffy, executive director of the Notre Dame Alumni Association. “Reunion 2016 both celebrates and embodies that phrase. It’s our family reunion.”

Organizers of the reunion expect the attendance record for the youngest alumni, those who were graduated from Notre Dame five years ago, to be broken by Reunion 2016 for the fourth straight year.

Among events featured in this year’s reunion will be a “University Leaders Forum” on Friday (June 3) in Washington Hall, at which alumni will have an opportunity to discuss with Notre Dame administrators initiatives and plans for Notre Dame’s future. Duffy will serve as moderator for a panel including John Affleck-Graves, Notre Dame’s executive vice president; 1986 alumnus John McGreevy, I.A. O’Shaughnessy Dean of the College of Arts and Letters; and 1993 alumna Heather Rakoczy Russell, associate vice president for residential life.

Also on Friday in Washington Hall there will be a discussion of “Campaign 2016: An Election Like No Other” in which Christina Wolbrecht, director of Notre Dame’s Rooney Center for the Study of American Democracy, will serve as moderator for a panel exploring the issues, news coverage and role of social media in the 2016 primaries and upcoming general election. Attendees will be invited to participate in a discussion with panelists David Campbell, Packey J. Dee Professor of American Democracy and chair of Notre Dame’s political science department; Luis Fraga, Arthur Foundation Endowed Professor of Transformative Latino Leadership and professor of political science; 1990 alumnus Matt Schlapp, chairman of the American Conservative Union and former White House political director for President George W. Bush; and 1998 alumna Katie Beirne Fallon, president of Oak Tree Strategies and former director of legislative affairs for President Barack Obama.

On Friday evening in Notre Dame’s DeBartolo Performing Arts Center, the South Bend Symphony Orchestra will perform. The concert will feature the orchestra’s woodwind quintet and string quintet presenting favorite classical works, as well as some Irish standards.

On Saturday (June 4) in Washington Hall a panel of financial experts will discuss global markets, the U.S. economy, short- and long-term trends, inflationary risks and debt outlook. The discussion, “Navigating Your Financial Future,” will be moderated by Notre Dame trustee and University fellow Jack Brennan, chairman emeritus of Vanguard. Panelists will include 1978 alumna Ann L. Combs, principal of the Vanguard Group Inc.; 1978 alumnus James J. Dunne III, senior managing partner of Sandler O’Neill & Partners L.P.; and 1984 alumnus Scott C. Malpass, vice president and chief investment officer of Notre Dame.

As at all Notre Dame reunions, throughout the weekend individual alumni classes will gather for Masses in various residence hall chapels and at Notre Dame’s Grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes. On the afternoon of Saturday (June 4) in the Joyce Center Fieldhouse, Notre Dame President Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C., will preside at an All-Class Mass for all reunion attendees.

The commencement of the Class of 2016

2016-05-15T16:00:00-04:00

President Rev. John Jenkins, C.S.C., is flanked by Laetare Medal recipients John Boehner and Vice President Joe Biden

The families, friends and graduates of the University of Notre Dame’s Class of 2016 in Notre Dame Stadium Sunday morning (May 15) braved unseasonably chilly weather to celebrate the University’s 171st Commencement Ceremony.

Before degrees were conferred on 2,163 Notre Dame undergraduates, Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C., the University’s president, introduced Vice President Joseph Biden and former Speaker of the House John Boehner, the recipients of the 2016 Laetare Medal, Notre Dame’s highest honor.

Father Jenkins acknowledged that both political leaders “have cast votes and taken positions about which many among us have reservations, in some cases grave moral reservations. We cannot and do not turn a blind eye to such reservations. We award you today the Laetare Medal not to endorse particular positions you have taken or votes you have cast, but because each of you has given his life to serve the common good in political leadership by your own best lights.

“Despite a fractious political environment,” Father Jenkins said, “you have each built collegial relationships with those with whom you disagree, even disagree vehemently. In careers marked by patriotism, perseverance, hard work, courage, and sometimes tragedy, you have each found strength and guidance in your faith.”

In the first acceptance address, Boehner spoke of his affection for two former Notre Dame football coaches from his native Ohio, Gerry Faust, who had been Boehner’s coach when he played football at Moeller High 91��Ƶ in Cincinnati, and his friend Lou Holtz. He also spoke of his friendship with his political opponent Biden. “Governing is the art of the possible. Politicians are constantly being pushed to promise the impossible,” Boehner said, "but governing isn’t about promising the impossible. Governing, in its essence, is the art of the possible. Governing requires us to look for common ground where it can be found — without compromising on our principles.

“As Speaker, I always drew a distinction between ‘compromise’ and ‘common ground,’” Boehner said, “because I truly believe they are two different things, and the fact of the matter is, you can find common ground with people on the other side without compromising on your core beliefs. Ladies and gentlemen, Vice President Joe Biden is one of those people.”

Biden, pronouncing the Laetare Medal “the most meaningful award I have ever received in my life,” offered wide-ranging reflections on faith in public life. He remembered being impressed by the ingenuous greeting of Pope Francis when he met him on a diplomatic visit to Rome. “‘You always welcome here,’ Pope Francis said. That is the message he’s sent to the world and the reason why he’s most respected man in the world, not just among Catholics, but among Muslims, Hindus, other Christians and the Jewish community. ‘You are always welcome here’ is the message he was urging upon Congress and all of us who hold high office, to extend our hands as Americans and say, ‘You are always welcome here.’”

Biden also spoke of the faith learned and nurtured in his family. He spoke of the importance of faith when “reality intrudes” on distracted ambition, remembering the personal tragedies of his own life. He spoke emotionally of the recent death his son, “my soul, my Beau,” who died last January of cancer, and expressed thanks to God that faith had sustained and strengthened their love for each other. Recalling that some people have described his mutually respectful and affectionate relationship with Boehner as “old school,” Biden said, “John and I aren’t ‘old school,’ we’re the American school.” He closed by entreating the Class of 2016 to “engage in the tireless pursuit of finding common ground, because not only will you be happier, you will be incredibly more successful. That’s where you will find your reward, and you’ll leave us all the better for it.”

The Laetare Medal presentations were followed by the conferral of honorary degrees on Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and five others: molecular microbiologist Rita Colwell; civil rights movement leader Diane Nash; outgoing University Board of Trustees chairman Richard Notebaert; internationally acclaimed jazz and classical musician and composer Arturo Sandoval; and Pauline Yu, president of the American Council of Learned Societies. A sixth honoree, Cardinal Donald Wuerl, archbishop of Washington, D.C., received an honorary degree Saturday evening while serving as the presiding celebrant of Notre Dame’s 2016 Baccalaureate Mass.

Gen. Martin Dempsey delivers the 2016 Commencement Address

Dempsey, introduced by Father Jenkins as a personal friend who “embodies what it means to be a leader of consequence,” gave the commencement address, first warming up — literally — the shivering students with “Graduation Karaoke,” a jovial and impromptu exchange of group singing. His address soon grew more serious, turning to a reflection on the familiar Notre Dame slogan, “God, Country, Notre Dame.”

Praising the “faith-based education that has taught you and will remind you, if you allow it to, that it is not just what you accomplish in life, but how you accomplish it,” Dempsey reminded the graduates that “your faith, like your education, doesn’t end today. Your faith, like your education, cannot survive if dormant.”

Dempsey said that with commencement the graduates have become “part owners of the greatest nation on the face of the earth.” America, he said “is the world’s engine, but also its conscience.” He said that “for you to lead this country, we don’t just need you to succeed; we need you to inspire … We need you to have a warrior’s heart, an immigrant’s spirit, and a servant’s soul.”

The Class of 2016, Dempsey said, leaves “Our Lady’s University with everything you need to be leaders of consequence wherever life takes you … I challenge you to make each other proud in the future as you have in the past.”

The daunting temperatures seemed to make all the more appropriate the remarks of 2016 valedictorian Abby Davis, a political science major from Avon Lake, Ohio, whose address preceded Dempsey’s. Davis listed first among “three key lessons” the new Notre Dame graduates would take with them that “we have learned to be more comfortable with being uncomfortable.” The moments of discomfort, she said “are often the moments of greatest opportunity. And, somewhere along the way, as we stretched our comfort zones and pushed our limits.” She said the Class of 2016 had also learned “what we believe in and what we are willing to fight for,” by answering the call of Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, C.S.C., “to be the kind of person who not only understands the injustices of this life, but is also willing to do something about them.” Finally, Davis said, “we have learned to take care of ourselves and to pick ourselves up when we fall,” adding that the diplomas of her classmates “are a promise to our families, our friends, our professors and ourselves that we will use what we have learned here to do great things and to pay back, many times over, all that has been invested in our education and growth. I know that we will follow through on this promise. We will embrace the uncomfortable, we will fight for what we believe in and value, we will take care of ourselves and persevere through whatever challenges come our way.”

During the ceremony, in addition to receiving an honorary degree, Notebaert became the first recipient of the Hesburgh-Stephan Medal, named in honor of the late Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, C.S.C., Notre Dame’s 15th president, under whose leadership the Board was established, and Edmund A. Stephan, first chairman of the Board. The medal recognizes a Trustee, whether lay or a member of the Congregation of Holy Cross, for uncommon and exemplary contributions to the governance and mission of Notre Dame during his or her tenure on the Board.

Thirty seniors receive national and international fellowships and scholarships

2016-05-13T09:30:00-04:00

In addition to the 15 University of Notre Dame senior recipients of Fulbright fellowships, the National Science Foundation and other organizations have awarded scholarships and fellowships to 15 members of the University’s Class of 2016.

The following students received National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowships, which provide funding for research-based study leading to a master’s or doctoral degree in science (including social sciences), technology, engineering and math (STEM): Kenzell Huggins, anthropology, Jacksonville, Florida; Brian Keene, chemical engineering, Snohomish, Washington; Ellen Norby, biochemistry and Glynn Family Honors Program, Bloomington, Minnesota; Joseph Norby, mechanical engineering, Bloomington, Minnesota; Toby Turney, biochemistry and Sorin Scholars Program, Talihina, Oklahoma; and Melanie Wallskog, economics and Glynn Family Honors Program, Timnath, Colorado.

John “Jake” Grefenstette, a theology student, Hesburgh-Yusko Scholar and Glynn Family Honors Program student from Pittsburgh, received a fellowship from the Yenching Academy, funding a one-year master of China studies program in that prestigious college within Peking University.

Charlie Ducey, an English and German student from Portland, Oregon, and Clarisse Wilson, a music performance student from Cordova, Tennessee, received Austrian Teaching Assistantships, which provide prospective teachers of German and/or graduates interested in Austrian studies with opportunities to work at secondary schools throughout Austria.

Ethan Beaudoin, a political science and Arabic student from Ballston Spa, New York, received a Boren Award for International Study for study in Turkey.

Michael Dinh, a biological sciences, psychology and Glynn Family Honors student from Maricopa, Arizona, and Ellen Norby, a biochemistry and Glynn Family Honors student from Bloomington, Minnesota, received Goldwater Scholarships for outstanding sophomores and juniors who have exceptional potential and intend to pursue careers in mathematics, the natural sciences or engineering.

Sociology and Spanish student Ray’Von Jones of South Bend, Indiana, and Bright Gyamfi, a political science and history student and Sorin Scholar from Grand Prairie, Texas, received Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarships for study in Toledo, Spain and London, respectively.

Chinese and chemical engineering student Rose Doerfler of Pittsburgh received a Critical Language Scholarship for a language and cultural immersion program in China.

The University’s Center for Undergraduate Scholarly Engagement (CUSE) provides students across the University with opportunities for research, scholarship and creative projects. The center assists them in finding faculty mentors, funding and venues for the publication or presentation of their work. It also promotes applications to national fellowship programs and prepares students in their application process.

Notre Dame and Vatican Library formalize agreement

2016-05-09T15:45:00-04:00

Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C., and Archbishop Jean-Louis Brugues, O.P., sign a memorandum of understanding

The University of Notre Dame and the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, or Vatican Library, formalized a unique agreement of collaboration and exchange in a ceremony Monday (May 9) in the Hesburgh Room of the Morris Inn, where Notre Dame president Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C., and Archbishop Jean-Louis Bruguès, O.P., archivist and librarian of the Holy Roman Church, together signed a memorandum of understanding.

The only such collaboration between the Vatican Library and any American academic institution, the agreement will develop visits and informal exchanges of faculty, scholars, librarians and administrators; organize joint conferences, lecture series, art exhibitions, and musical and theatrical performances; and explore the development of joint programs of research.

In remarks preceding the signing, Father Jenkins spoke of his delight in beginning to work with his longstanding friend, Archbishop Bruguès, who had been the secretary of the Congregation for Catholic Education when the two first met.

Father Jenkins and Archbishop Bruguès then exchanged gifts.

“If you ask a writer which of his works best represent him he always responds by referring to his latest publication,” Archbishop Bruguès joked, presenting Father Jenkins with the latest publication of the Vatican Library, a collection of drawings by the baroque artist Gian Lorenzo Bernini, and promising (“It’s coming very soon!”) an engraving of the Basilica of Saint Peter’s that the library had presented to Pope Francis earlier this year.

Father Jenkins gave Archbishop Bruguès an engraving of Notre Dame’s Main Building above a replica of the letter by which Notre Dame’s founder, Rev. Edward Sorin, C.S.C., established the Notre Dame Archives. Father Jenkins justified the considerable difference in size and scope between the two collections as due to the Vatican’s having “a much earlier start.” He then obliged Archbishop Bruguès’ request to indicate on the engraving the windows of Father Jenkins’ Main Building office.

Asked what had attracted the Vatican Library to the new collaboration, Archbishop Bruguès replied in French, through a translator, that he hoped the arrangement would enhance the presence of the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana in the United States and the world and reach a larger public. When he was appointed Vatican librarian, he said, he was “surprised and even a bit disillusioned” to learn that “so many treasures that are within its collection and that really belong to the whole of humanity are not available to the whole of humanity.” He said he hopes to increase the number of scholars with access to the library and that “Notre Dame is the best place to start that process here in America.”

The Vatican Library’s holdings today include some 80,000 manuscripts; 100,000 archival documents; 1.6 million printed books, including nearly 9,000 incunabula, 150,000 prints, thousands of drawings and plates; over 200,000 photographs; and 300,000 coins and medals, among other items. The manuscript collection includes such invaluable materials as the “Codex Vaticanus” of the Bible; the “Vergilius Vaticanus,” containing fragments of Virgil’s Aeneid; the “Dante Urbinate”; and other manuscripts that are used to produce modern editions of countless ancient texts.

“The collaboration will obviously provide a wonderful resource for our scholars and our students,” Father Jenkins said, “but at a deeper level it joins our mission to foster learning and faith with a place that is such an icon of the Church’s commitment to see the harmony between the two.”

The agreement is being celebrated on campus with an academic conference, The Promise of the Vatican Library; an exhibition of materials from the Vatican Library in the Snite Museum of Art; an exhibition of Vatican-related books and manuscripts held by Notre Dame’s Hesburgh Libraries in the Rare Books and Special Collections room; and a concert of sacred music in the Basilica of the Sacred Heart featuring music held by the Vatican Library.

Richard Notebaert named recipient of first Hesburgh-Stephan Medal

2016-04-29T15:15:00-04:00

Richard C. Notebaert

The University of Notre Dame will inaugurate a new award during its 171st University Commencement Ceremony May 15.

As the University looks forward to the 50th anniversary of its Board of Trustees, it will award the Hesburgh-Stephan Medal, named in honor of the late Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, C.S.C., Notre Dame’s 15th president, under whose leadership the Board was established, and Edmund A. Stephan, first chairman of the Board. It will be given to a Trustee, whether lay or a member of the Congregation of Holy Cross, for uncommon and exemplary contributions to the governance and mission of Notre Dame during his or her tenure on the Board. The medal celebrates the dedication of those who serve as Notre Dame Trustees, and the critical role Notre Dame’s Board plays as the governing body of the University.

“We are proud to announce that the first recipient of this new medal is our current Board chairman, Richard C. Notebaert,” said Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C., the University’s president. “Dick has served as our chair for the past nine years and epitomizes all of the characteristics for which this award has been created.”

A widely respected leader known for his energy, vision and moral character, Notebaert was elected the sixth chairman of Notre Dame’s Board in 2007. Under his stewardship as chair, Notre Dame has attracted its most diverse and academically competitive students ever, provided more financial aid and welcomed more low-income students, launched the largest construction program in the University’s history, grown its endowment to record levels and realized historic levels of research funding. He will become chairman emeritus on June 30, to be succeeded by John J. Brennan.

Notebaert is the retired chair and chief executive officer of Qwest Communications International. He also served as CEO of Tellabs Inc., a network equipment company based in Lisle, Illinois, and chair and CEO of Ameritech, and he currently serves on the board of directors of Aon plc and American Electric Power. He is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin.

In addition to recognizing distinguished service, the Hesburgh-Stephan Medal memorializes two icons of Notre Dame’s 174-year history and reflects their extraordinary partnership in leading the University. In 1967, Father Hesburgh and Stephan framed the legal structure under which Notre Dame shifted from a governance model of clerical control to its current two-tiered model of a Board of Fellows and the full Board of Trustees, both including lay and religious members. The change made Notre Dame the first major Roman Catholic university in the world to move to this model, and the new charter — embodied in the relationship of trust between Hesburgh and Stephan — became a blueprint for similar changes at religious institutions around the country.

“The complexity of a modern research university demands an effective governing board, and it was part of the genius of Father Hesburgh and Edmund Stephan to fashion a board structure that serves the distinctive Catholic mission of Notre Dame,” said Father Jenkins. “With the Hesburgh-Stephan Medal, we wish to recognize the vital contribution of Trustees to the life of Notre Dame and celebrate and sustain their uniquely collaborative leadership and shared ownership of Notre Dame’s mission.”

Father Hesburgh’s 35-year legacy as the University’s president included the introduction of co-education and a dramatic increase in its enrollment, unprecedented expansion and enhancement of its campus, exponential growth in its endowment, advancement to the front rank of American higher education, and emergence as one of the world’s preeminent Catholic universities. Edmund Anton Stephan, a prominent Chicago lawyer and 1933 Notre Dame alumnus, served as Notre Dame’s chairman until 1982, when the bylaws he himself wrote mandated his retirement at the age of 70. He remained a trusted adviser to Father Hesburgh until his death in 1998.

Notre Dame and Vatican Library to celebrate new collaboration

2016-04-28T15:00:00-04:00

The University of Notre Dame and the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, or Vatican Library, will formalize a unique agreement of collaboration and exchange in a ceremony at 12:30 p.m. May 9 (Monday) in the Hesburgh Room of the Morris Inn, where Notre Dame president Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C., and Archbishop Jean-Louis Bruguès, O.P., archivist and librarian of the Holy Roman Church, will sign a memorandum of understanding.

The only such collaboration between the Vatican Library and any North American academic institution, the agreement will develop visits and informal exchanges of faculty, scholars, librarians and administrators; organize joint conferences, lecture series, art exhibitions, and musical and theatrical performances; and explore the development of joint programs of research.

“All of humanity should celebrate the Vatican Library for its mission to steward and protect the riches of global culture,” said Father Jenkins. “Notre Dame shares this mission as we inculcate an appreciation for the pursuit of truth in our students. In the face of forces which wish to make our horizons more narrow and sectarian, our two institutions point toward a vision which encounters God in the whole of creation. It is this affinity of mission that makes me so very glad for our collaboration and our long-term partnership into the future.”

The agreement will be celebrated on campus with an academic conference jointly sponsored by the two institutions, an exhibition of materials from the Biblioteca Apostolica, and a concert of sacred music featuring music from manuscripts in the Vatican Library’s holdings.

The conference, The Promise of the Vatican Library, will be held from May 8-10 in Notre Dame’s McKenna Hall. Among conference speakers discussing holdings of the Vatican Library and opportunities for future research will be Archbishop Bruguès; Carmela Vircillo Franklin, professor of classical studies at Columbia University; and James Hankins, professor of history at Harvard University.

An exhibition of materials from the Vatican Library will be held May 8-22 in the Milly and Fritz Kaeser Mestrovic Studio Gallery of the Snite Museum of Art. The exhibition of manuscripts, printed books, maps and drawings will include Galileo’s 1610 astronomical treatise, “Sidereus Nuncius,” the first published scientific work based on observations made through a telescope; a 13th-century manuscript commentary by Albertus Magnus on Aristotle’s treatise on nature, “Parva Naturalia”; and a 16th-century Mass composed by Josquin des Préz, which represents the introduction of movable type for printing music.

Materials selected from the collections of the Hesburgh Library will be featured in “Vestigia Vaticana,” an exhibition of books and manuscripts from the Middle Ages through the modern era, including papal bulls and documents, papal book bindings and representations of the Vatican in print, will be held in the Hesburgh Libraries’ Rare Books and Special Collections rooms May 5 through Aug. 15.

A concert of sacred music featuring music held by the Vatican Library will take place at 4 p.m. May 10 (Tuesday) in the Basilica of the Sacred Heart. The concert, “Penitence and Praise: A Concert of Sacred Music in Italian Libraries,” will include music from des Préz’s Mass as well as works by Domenico Scarlatti and Antonio Vivaldi.

“That spirit that inspired the Vatican Library also gave rise of the first universities in 13th-century Europe and continues today at the University of Notre Dame,” Father Jenkins said. “One of the distinctive goals of Notre Dame is to provide a forum where, through free inquiry and open discussion, the various lines of Catholic thought may intersect with all the forms of knowledge found in the arts, sciences, professions and every other area of human scholarship and creativity. We believe that no genuine search for truth in the human or cosmic order is alien to the life of faith. We are grateful beyond measure for the existence of the Vatican Library, which allows scholars to pursue truth by studying the treasures of civilization.”

Contact: Rev. William Lies, C.S.C., vice president for mission engagement and church affairs, 574-631-1212, lies.7@nd.edu

Architecture students to present plans for new South Bend housing project

2016-04-18T15:00:00-04:00

91��Ƶ of Architecture students in Boston

A team of eight undergraduate students in the University of Notre Dame’s 91��Ƶ of Architecture will formally present design proposals Friday (April 22) for a unique new housing project on South Bend’s south side.

The students, directed by Kim Rollings, assistant professor of architecture at Notre Dame, will present plans for a 30,000-square-foot facility to provide safe and affordable housing for chronically homeless people.

Permanent Supportive Housing (PSH), as it is called, is designed particularly to address the needs of homeless people whose plight arises from a complex web of health problems, including mental illness and addiction, which can entrap them in a cycle of ambulance rides, hospital emergency room visits and temporary stays in detox centers, homeless shelters and even in jail. The area’s first PSH facility, for which the South Bend Heritage Foundation and its local partners have recently received a state grant, will house 32 people

The students’ work on the project included extensive research on how architecture affects physical, mental and social health. Earlier this year, they visited Boston to study groundbreaking examples of PSH designed by The Narrow Gate Architecture Ltd., a firm started by three Notre Dame 91��Ƶ of Architecture graduates to serve marginalized people in urban communities, and to share a meal with and interview residents of the PSH facilities there.

“These students are passionate about architecture and how it can support human flourishing,” Rollings said. “Their training in traditional and classical architecture, along with direct interactions with residents of PSH facilities, allows them to create human-centered designs that are dignified, functional and durable, reducing the stigma often associated with affordable housing for vulnerable populations.”

Among those to whom the students will be making their presentations will be South Bend Heritage Foundation executive director Marco Mariani; the PSH architect Bill Lamie of Alliance Architects in South Bend; Mary Gibson, regional/compliance manager of The Bradley Company in South Bend; and Notre Dame alumna Kitty Ryan of The Narrow Gate Architecture Ltd.

Contact: Kim Rollings, 574-631-4105, krolling@nd.edu