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Blazing a family trail: First-generation student Karen Angeles earns doctoral degree in engineering

Published: May 24, 2023

Not a single member of Karen Angeles’ extended family in southern California had ever attended college. It just didn’t seem like a realistic possibility because it had never been done before. But Angeles didn’t stop at college—she continued onward to Notre Dame to get a doctoral degree in structural engineering.

Retracing the Route of Freedom: Notre Dame group rides a bus to civil rights landmarks across the South

Published: May 04, 2020

Brendan O'Shaughnessy

Goose pimples broke out on a student’s skin in the pitch-black cellar of a Tennessee stop on the Underground Railroad. A visceral sadness seeped into a faculty member in the Memphis hotel room where Martin Luther King was shot on the balcony. The physical presence of the souls of black leaders overwhelmed…

Notre Dame adds to Wall of Honor on Founder’s Day

Published: October 13, 2015

Brendan O’Shaughnessy

Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C., president of the University of Notre Dame, added two plaques to the Wall of Honor in Notre Dame’s Main Building on Tuesday (Oct. 13). One plaque honored Notre Dame theologian and teacher Rev. John S. Dunne, C.S.C., and another honored the first generation of African-American students at Notre Dame.

Notre Dame leaders build academic relationships in South Asia

Published: February 06, 2014

Brendan O’Shaughnessy

MUMBAI — University of Notre Dame President Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C., on Thursday (Feb. 6) signed an agreement to formalize a relationship with St. Xavier’s College in Mumbai, India, that includes study abroad and summer research programs, faculty exchange and research collaboration.

Wrongful Convictions: Notre Dame law students pursue exoneration cases in nearby Elkhart

Published: December 14, 2020

Brendan O'Shaughnessy

Elliot Slosar was in a Zoom meeting in April with Notre Dame law students working on a wrongful conviction case when he got a call asking him to pick up Andy Royer, whom a judge had just freed after 16 years in prison.

From soldier to scholar

Published: November 29, 2017

Brendan O’Shaughnessy

Kevin Burke wasn’t ready for college coming out of high school. Not mature enough, not dedicated to his studies. And there was the lingering trauma of his aunt's death in the Twin Towers collapse on Sept. 11, 2001. There were other things he felt compelled to do. So he joined the Army and served three deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan over...

Campus profile: John Affleck-Graves, executive vice president

Published: May 01, 2014

Brendan O’Shaughnessy

John Affleck-Graves, executive vice president, arrived in Chicago from South Africa with his wife and two young daughters in August 1986, when rules related to apartheid limited travelers to carrying everything they owned in two suitcases apiece. Rather than make the exhausted family wait for…

Building Language Bridges: Ernest Morrell expands literacy education research at Notre Dame

Published: September 30, 2020

Brendan O'Shaughnessy

Teaching English at Oakland High in the late 1990s, Ernest Morrell faced the age-old problem of how to get modern students interested in a canon of long-dead writers and poets. “I just got tired of teaching the regular way that I…

A transformative journey: Notre Dame experiences life at the border

Published: March 14, 2016

Brendan O’Shaughnessy

A dozen Notre Dame faculty members and community partners from South Bend went to Tucson, Arizona, to hear migrants’ stories during a four-day Mexican Border Immersion seminar in early January. The faculty and student groups participated in activities ranging from talks with community activists to hikes through the desert with humanitarians who deliver water, and from witnessing border violation court...

Notre Dame to award 7 honorary degrees at Commencement

Published: March 31, 2014

Brendan O’Shaughnessy

Six distinguished figures in business, the Church, community leadership, education, engineering and the performing arts will join principal speaker Christopher Patten as honorary degree recipients at the University of Notre Dame’s 169th University Commencement Ceremony on May 18 (Sunday). The ceremony will be held in the morning at Notre Dame Stadium in order to accommodate as many guests as possible....