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Student/Alumni Stories

Notre Dame history and Africana studies alumna wins MacArthur ‘Genius’ Grant

Notre Dame history and Africana studies alumna wins MacArthur ‘Genius’ Grant

Josh Weinhold

Nikole Hannah-Jones, a 1998 Notre Dame graduate, has won a fellowship from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation — commonly known as a “Genius” Grant. Hannah-Jones, who majored in history and African American studies (now Africana studies), is an investigative reporter for The New York Times Magazine, covering issues of racial inequality, especially in education. 

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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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Book tells stories of African-Americans who integrated the University of Notre Dame

Book tells stories of African-Americans who integrated the University of Notre Dame

Kathryn Pitts

In a series of seventy-five essays, beginning with the first African-American to graduate from Notre Dame in 1947 to a member of the class of 2017 who also served as student body president, we can trace the trials, tribulations, and triumphs of the African-American experience at Notre Dame through seven decades.

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To have and to hold

To have and to hold

Carol Schaal '91M.A.

The images of the millions of displaced people living in refugee camps can be overwhelming to those who wish to offer assistance. It hurts even more to know that, as the Refugee Council USA says, “Over half of all recorded refugees are children who have been deprived of their material possessions, statehood, and sometimes even loved ones.” Steve Lehmann ’14MBA...

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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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Liberal studies alumnus uses big data to fight inequality in education

Liberal studies alumnus uses big data to fight inequality in education

Jack Rooney

For his entire academic career, Sean Reardon ’86 has sought to use his passions — the humanities and quantitative research — to make a difference in the field of education. One of the nation’s leading experts on educational inequality, Reardon researches how opportunities and outcomes vary in the United States for students of different racial, ethnic, or socioeconomic backgrounds. 

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Notre Dame awards honorary monogram to Condoleezza Rice

Notre Dame awards honorary monogram to Condoleezza Rice

Dennis Brown and Sean Carroll

“You represent the philosophy of our coach and this program so well," University Vice President and James E. Rohr Director of Athletics Jack Swarbrick said of the women’s basketball team. "You said once, ‘We have to move past the idea that women can become leaders to the expectation that they will be leaders.’ That is what this program is built on and that...

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