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Student/Alumni Stories

Assistant dean's family has welcomed dozens for Thanksgiving each year

Assistant dean's family has welcomed dozens for Thanksgiving each year

New York Times

Dr. Jan Sanders was the first Black pediatrician to have her own practice here. Her husband, Leo McWilliams, is an assistant dean in the University of Notre Dame engineering department and a “quadruple Domer.” For decades, the couple have been the unofficial parents for many Black students at Notre Dame. This year, that family is scattered, reflecting on the year’s crises.

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Greg Bourke signs contract with Notre Dame Press to publish memoir, “Gay, Catholic, and American”

Greg Bourke signs contract with Notre Dame Press to publish memoir, “Gay, Catholic, and American”

Kathryn Pitts

Greg Bourke (ND ‘82), one of the plaintiffs in the landmark United States Supreme Court decision Obergefell vs. Hodges that legalized same-sex marriage nationwide in 2015, has signed a contract with University of Notre Dame Press to publish his memoir. The book, “Gay, Catholic, and American: My Legal…

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Sociology and Latino Studies guide recent grad to Fulbright in Mexico

Sociology and Latino Studies guide recent grad to Fulbright in Mexico

Oliver Ortega

Since high school, Erin Albertini has been focused on becoming a bilingual doctor serving children and families. But the recent Notre Dame graduate’s path to medicine is uniquely intersectional. Eschewing traditional pre-med majors such as biology and chemistry, Albertini instead took on sociology, Latino studies, Spanish and early childhood literacy during her time at Notre Dame, which culminated this May.

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Japanese major’s study abroad and internship experiences help launch career as U.S. diplomat

Japanese major’s study abroad and internship experiences help launch career as U.S. diplomat

Jack Rooney

Before Beth Gee ’10 studied abroad in Tokyo during her junior year, the Japanese and political science major had never left the United States. Now, as a U.S. foreign service officer, Gee travels for a living. She is currently working at the American Embassy in the Republic of the Congo — where she employs the language, communication, and critical thinking...

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For history major Micah Johnston, a year of service was a ‘master class’ in relationship building 

For history major Micah Johnston, a year of service was a ‘master class’ in relationship building 

Emily McConville

Now a senior program office for IREX in Washington, D.C., Micah Johnston '06 spent his first year after graduation volunteering for the Little Brothers Friends of the Elderly in Chicago. He learned how to have patience in building relationships with people of different backgrounds and life experiences — close connections, he found, take time to develop.

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Mai Ni Ni Aung to receive Kroc Institute 2018 Distinguished Alumni Award

Mai Ni Ni Aung to receive Kroc Institute 2018 Distinguished Alumni Award

Hannah Heinzekehr

Mai Ni Ni Aung, M.A. 2003, has been selected to receive the Kroc Institute’s 2018 Distinguished Alumni Award. She is the founder of the Sone-Tu Cultural Preservation Project and the director of its sister organization, Sone-Tu Backstrap Weavings. Both organizations work to preserve and elevate the culture and traditions of the Sumtu Chin community in Rakhine State, Myanmar. 

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

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

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.

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Alumna Nikole Hannah-Jones awarded Pulitzer Prize

Alumna Nikole Hannah-Jones awarded Pulitzer Prize

Dennis Brown

Nikole Hannah-Jones, a 1998 University of Notre Dame alumna and an investigative reporter for The New York Times Magazine, was honored Monday with the Pulitzer Prize for commentary. Hannah-Jones was recognized for her introductory essay to the newspaper’s landmark “1619 Project,” an ongoing and interactive series she created that focuses on the 400th anniversary of when enslaved Africans were first brought...

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‘Ways of seeing and changing the world’: Gender Studies Program marks 30 years

‘Ways of seeing and changing the world’: Gender Studies Program marks 30 years

Carrie Gates

Three decades after its founding, the Gender Studies Program is thriving, with more than 70 students currently pursuing gender studies majors, supplementary majors, and minors at the undergraduate and graduate levels, as well as more than 50 associated faculty across campus. Hundreds of students have found a home in the program over the years — including Sarah A. Mustillo ’96, the...

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Through her lens: Art alumna captures untold story in Kylemore

Through her lens: Art alumna captures untold story in Kylemore

Colleen Wilcox

Growing up in a traditional Irish and Catholic family, Mary McGraw was always fascinated by Ireland. During her sophomore year at Notre Dame, she applied to the Inside Track program, spending time at both the Dublin Global Gateway and Kylemore Abbey Global Centre. As an artist, she was drawn to the landscape and the story behind the Kylemore castle.

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Michael Hagerty, '13 J.D., is fighting for unaccompanied immigrant children

Michael Hagerty, '13 J.D., is fighting for unaccompanied immigrant children

Denise Wager

After his first year as a law student, Michael Hagerty, ’13 J.D., spent his summer hiking the desert trails of the U.S.-Mexico border. As a research assistant for Paolo Carozza, a Notre Dame Law professor and director of the Helen Kellogg Institute for International Studies, Hagerty was trying to better understand the challenges of migrants and the governmental and societal...

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