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Galilee Program shapes students’ views on being a different kind of lawyer

Lauren Love

The one-credit, student-led program is the only one of its kind, according to Associate Dean of Experiential Programs Bob Jones. In small groups of four to seven, the students will fan out across 15 different cities, including Chicago, Dallas, Boston, Miami and Los Angeles, to see how lawyers grapple with some of the urban poor’s most pressing legal issues.

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Psychology graduate student examines link between mental health and marriage satisfaction

Carrie Gates

For married couples, the odds aren’t good when one partner has anxiety or depression. The presence of such a mental issue significantly increases the risk that the couple will get divorced. Notre Dame psychology Ph.D. student Judith Biesen wants to find a way to improve the outcomes for those couples. With an American Dream grant from the Institute for Scholarship...

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Rev. Jenkins urges dialogue at Vatican's Congregation for Catholic Education

Paul Browne

Invited by the Vatican’s Congregation for Catholic Education to a meeting of Catholic educators from around the world at the papal retreat at Castel Gandolfo near Rome, University of Notre Dame President Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C., on Thursday (Nov. 19) cited Pope Francis and the late Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, C.S.C., president emeritus of Notre Dame, in urging that...

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Karen Richman: ‘We are a nation of immigrants’

Gene Stowe

Karen Richman, director of undergraduate studies for the Institute for Latino Studies, was one of the first scholars who saw both sides of immigration as it created transnational interdependent communities in the late 20th century. Her long-view historical perspective sees the current U.S. immigration debate as another in a long series of resistance followed by acceptance as newcomers contribute to...

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Soundreef internship bolsters Rome study abroad semester

Costanza Montanari

  Senior Mary-Catherine McRoskey, who studied abroad in Rome for spring 2015, leveraged her study abroad internship to gain professional experience while exploring academic and personal interests.  Notre Dame’s vision for a robust study abroad experience includes rigorous engagement inside the classroom as well as outside of it, the latter often taking the form of internships.

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Rahul Oka: Advocating for refugees in Kenya

Carol Bradley

Anthropologist Rahul Oka has been working with UNHCR and the World Bank on a new refugee camp being built, helping create a template for refugee resettlement. “All the data we’ve collected, both qualitative and quantitative, will inform the new camp. My job is not to tell them that they need a paradigm shift. My job is to make sure that...

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Catholic intellectual life: Student perspectives

Todd Boruff and Mary Haley

For students in the College of Arts and Letters, the unparalleled liberal arts education they receive is grounded in and enhanced by the Catholic intellectual life fostered on campus. Catholicism is an essential part of courses that every student takes, such as theology and philosophy, but it also serves as a background for all fields of study, from analyzing the...

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Six new history faculty bring transnational research and teaching interests to department

Josh Weinhold

  They bring expertise in subjects that span physical borders and chronological boundaries. They bring passion to their research and energy to their classrooms. And the six new faculty members joining the Department of History this fall bring additional prestige to an already elite group of academics. “For a long period of time, we’ve been working to assemble a group...

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Center for the Study of Languages and Cultures offers new minor: Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages

Charlene Dundek

The Center for the Study of Languages and Cultures in Notre Dame’s College of Arts and Letters is launching a new minor in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL). The program offers students the opportunity to study linguistics education, learn how to teach English, and develop classroom management and lesson planning skills.

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Economics major finds abundant research opportunities at Notre Dame

Tessa Bangs

Notre Dame economics major Melanie Wallskog walked into her professor’s office hours with a question. She walked out with a job. That simple act of reaching out to a professor led to research opportunities in Nicaragua, Ireland, and Chicago. The senior from Bloomington, Indiana, and Glynn Family Honors Scholar has now co-authored a paper with two of her professors and...

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Summer Language Abroad program provides immersive experiences for students

Tessa Bangs

Sarah Tomas Morgan, Scott Copeland, and JesusisLord Nwadiuko were three of 60 College of Arts and Letters students who engaged in an immersive cultural and linguistic experience through the Center for the Study of Languages and Cultures’ Summer Language Abroad program. Through intensive language coursework and daily interaction with native speakers, students rapidly enhanced their command of a foreign language...

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Alex Chávez: Parallels among Latino, Mideast and North African migration

Gene Stowe

Alex E. Chávez, an assistant professor in anthropology and Fellow of the Institute for Latino Studies (ILS), sees parallels between longstanding Latino migration to the United States and the current crisis of Middle Eastern and North African migration to Europe. He was part of a group of ILS faculty fellows who met with Italian scholars to discuss immigration at Notre...

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Three questions with political scientist Rev. Robert Dowd

Michael O. Garvey

  Rev. Robert Dowd, C.S.C., assistant professor of political science, is a fellow of the Kellogg Institute for International Studies and director of its Ford Family Program in Human Development Studies and Solidarity. A popular teacher and scholar of religion’s impact on development and political institutions, he has conducted extensive research on communities and societies throughout Africa. His recently published...

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Three Notre Dame faculty receive fellowships from National Endowment for the Humanities

Josh Weinhold

Three faculty from the University of Notre Dame received fellowships this week from the National Endowment for the Humanities, continuing the University’s record success winning support for humanities research. Receiving the grants are Julia Douthwaite, a professor of French; Amy Mulligan, an assistant professor of Irish language and literature; and Gabriel Said Reynolds, a professor of Islamic studies and theology. 

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Video: Student researches impact of Communist ideology in Shanghai

Todd Boruff

  During the summer of 2015, Notre Dame history and political science major Matt Souza interviewed laborers in multiple Chinese cities. The goal of his research was to determine whether the official ideology of the Communist Party is still influential amongst Chinese citizens. “All of my findings, they’re actually quite different from all the previous research, and I really want...

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Maurizio Albahari: How do liberal democracies deal with newcomers?

Gene Stowe

For Maurizio Albahari, an assistant professor of anthropology and native of Italy, this year’s refugee crisis in Europe is a new layer on an old story of deadly immigration efforts across the Mediterranean Sea from Africa and Asia to Europe.  The experience also bears considerable analogs with American migration issues, Albahari says, although especially in the Mediterranean situation, a fence...

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Sociologist’s research compares police presence at Christian and secular protests

William G. Gilroy

Police are less likely to show up at protests involving religious actors or organizations — unless the protesters are fundamentalist Christians, according to a new study. Notre Dame sociologist Kraig Beyerlein, the lead author of the study, analyzed protest-event data from daily editions of The New York Times published between 1960 and 1995 and found that, in general, police were...

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Marc Burdell named program director, Low Socioeconomic Status support

Ann Hastings

Burdell will oversee the creation of a student life enrichment program under the Fighting Irish Initiative, a groundbreaking initiative that will fully fund the cost for low-income students to attend Notre Dame — including tuition and fees, room and board, books, transportation and personal expenses. 

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Video: Fighting for Displaced People

Arts and Letters

  There are 60 million displaced people in the world, and every day, an estimated 40,000 people flee their homes in search of safety elsewhere. For many, a temporary stop in a refugee camp becomes a lifetime of dependency and desolation. Notre Dame anthropology professor Rahul Oka believes there is a better way to provide aid to these residents. For...

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Notre Dame to host gathering of Latino poets

Arts and Letters

  The University of Notre Dame’s Institute for Latino Studies (ILS), in close collaboration with the Creative Writing Program, will present a conference, “Angels of the Americlypse,” on October 28 and 29, 2015, featuring Latino/a poetry readings, literary translation, and roundtable discussions. The event—held in conjunction with Letras Latinas, the ILS literary initiative—will include readings by acclaimed poets Rosa Alcalá,...

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