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My Notre Dame wasn’t your Notre Dame

Published: February 24, 2024

When people learn I’m a Notre Dame alumnus, most “ohh” and “ahh” about how lucky, how smart, how well off I must have been to go there. The reality was quite the opposite. My experience of Notre Dame was different — very different — from that of 99.9 percent of my classmates.

Character studies

Published: January 10, 2024

Notre Dame Magazine

In his latest book, Narcomedia: Latinidad, Popular Culture, and America’s War on Drugs, Jason Ruiz focuses a scholarly lens on one-dimensional depictions of Latinos as the bad guys, kingpins and users in works such as Scarface and Miami Vice, up through more recent series like Narcos and Breaking Bad.

Having coffee with . . . Anna Haskins

Published: October 04, 2023

Notre Dame Magazine

Anna Haskins recalls the precise moment in June when she heard about the Supreme Court ruling that effectively ended affirmative action for college admissions. “Did I expect it? Yes. But…

A new generation of employees is looking for more than business as usual

Published: July 24, 2023

Notre Dame Magazine

At a recent birthday dinner, a friend asked me what she thought was an easy question. “Now that you’ve finished one decade,”…

The liberation of literacy: Stephane Dunn found her way with words

Published: July 14, 2023

Notre Dame Magazine

Stephane Dunn ’94 M.A., ’00MFA, ’00 Ph.D., has always savored reading. Her parents kept books around her childhood home in Elkhart, Indiana, and she frequently visited the public library with her older sister. She’s still in contact with her now-88-year-old sixth-grade teacher, who encouraged her to write and create skits in class, and also with her high school English teacher...

Having Coffee with Dianne Pinderhughes

Published: November 19, 2020

Notre Dame Magazine

Dianne Pinderhughes has been observing protests and marches for racial and social justice since her childhood in segregated Washington, D.C. In 2020, after the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police and the growth of the Black Lives Matter movement, things seem different.

When Jackie Robinson came to campus

Published: February 20, 2024

Notre Dame Magazine

It was 70 years ago — on February 10, 1954 — that baseball great Jackie Robinson came to Notre Dame and South Bend to speak about brotherhood, cooperation and eliminating prejudices. He declared that slow but steady progress was being made in race relations.

Answering why: For Laura Burdick ’10, the question is not what you may think

Published: November 05, 2023

Notre Dame Magazine

Considering everything that had already gone wrong that day, no one would have blamed Laura Burdick ’10 if she hadn’t followed through on her plans — particularly the…

TSU and ND grad Algie Oldham became a pillar of the community

Published: September 01, 2023

Notre Dame Magazine

Members of the Oldham family will celebrate their connections to both Tennessee State and Notre Dame when the schools meet on the football field September 2.

What Gen Z students want us to know about their lives

Published: July 19, 2023

Notre Dame Magazine

Daymine Snow is a junior and first-generation student with a major in business analytics and a minor in digital technologies. He was recruited to Notre Dame through the Posse Foundation…

Blue and Gold and Black and White

Published: January 18, 2021

Notre Dame Magazine

From the health disparities that COVID-19 has exposed in communities of color, to the killing of George Floyd that sparked nationwide protests, it has been a tragic and tumultuous year, prompting a reckoning with racial issues across the country, including at Notre Dame.

The wedding gift

Published: January 31, 2018

Notre Dame Magazine

My father recently arrived home from India with a tired smile on his face and a slim package tucked under his arm. “Here,” he said, offering me the grey-brown envelope as he walked through the door. “I brought these back from Delhi.”

The Troublemaker

Published: January 15, 2024

Notre Dame Magazine

As a biopic introduces Bayard Rustin to a new generation, take a look back at the civil rights activist’s stint as a Notre Dame trustee.

A year of living joyously

Published: October 29, 2023

Notre Dame Magazine

"I might describe my year at Notre Dame, a pinnacle for creative minds, as a combination of art, enlightenment and therapy, but also chores," said Cheng Wang, one of Notre Dame’s 20 Inspired Leadership Initiative fellows during the 2022-23 academic year.

Pioneering disability rights

Published: July 26, 2023

Notre Dame Magazine

July 26 is National Disability Independence Day. In this feature, we look back at a story that appeared previously in Notre Dame Magazine about the pioneering role Notre Dame played in the disability legal rights movement.

God gave me a gay son . . . and I did not always think it a blessing

Published: July 17, 2023

Notre Dame Magazine

Editor’s Note: This piece was written 19 years ago, by a father learning to accept his son’s homosexuality with honesty and love. It was one essay in the magazine’s 25-page exploration of a subject that has evolved since that publication,…

Shaping History: The sculptor who turned the social movement of his time into art

Published: November 19, 2020

Notre Dame Magazine

Frank Hayden’s art was of its time and timeless, attuned to current events and to eternity. Closely associated with the civil rights movement, he created sculptures in honor of those who bore the crosses of that struggle, as well as actual Church-commissioned crucifixes — an American Black Catholic artist in a time of civil and spiritual unrest.