Faculty Stories

Faculty at Notre Dame come from communities and cultures all over the world. They conduct research and scholarship on topics and issues that span numerous academic disciplines. They share with students not just their areas of expertise but also their questions and concerns about the enduring issues and latest developments that shape our times.

But their role in broadening and sharpening the lenses through which we understand ourselves and the world around us extend well beyond individual research projects, classroom lectures, course syllabi, or a list of academic programs.

The selection of stories below helps illustrate the many other ways Notre Dame faculty foster diversity, support inclusion, and enliven the entire Notre Dame community.

Video: Theatre historian La Donna Forsgren on women’s contributions to the Black Arts Movement

Todd Boruff

La Donna L. Forsgren is an associate professor in the Department of Film, Television, and Theatre; concurrent faculty in the Gender Studies Program; and affiliated faculty in the Department of Africana Studies. Her latest book, Sistuhs in the Struggle: An Oral History of Black Arts Movement Theater and Performance, is the first oral history to fully explore the contributions of...

Read More

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.

Read More

FTT professor wins theatre society prize for essay on adaptations of The Wiz and is appointed associate editor of prestigious journal

Arts and Letters

La Donna Forsgren, an associate professor in the Department of Film, Television, and Theatre, has won the American Society for Theatre Research's Oscar G. Brockett Essay Prize. The award, given annually to the best essay of theatre research in a scholarly English-language publication, honored Forsgren’s “The Wiz Redux; or Why Queer Black Feminist Spectatorship and Politically Engaged Popular Entertainment Continue...

Read More

Dean Galvin’s impact and legacy

Tammi Freehling

Mary E. Galvin, the William K. Warren Foundation Dean of the College of Science at the University of Notre Dame since 2015, recently announced she will step down from the position effective December 31, 2020. Notably, Galvin is the first woman to serve as dean in the college’s 155-year history.

Read More

The Snite Museum of Art Announces Important Acquisitions to its Mesoamerican Collection

Gina Costa

The Snite Museum of Art announces  five gifts to the Museum’s distinguished Mesoamerican collection.   Mr. William. J. Gallagher Jr. ND’1950, was one of the original lenders of Pre-Columbian objects to the Snite Museum of Art when it opened its doors in the fall of 1980. These early loans from the Gallagher Family were foundational objects to the development of...

Read More

Video: Sociologist Dana Moss on studying authoritarian regimes, transnational repression, and protest movements

Todd Boruff

Dana Moss is an assistant professor of sociology at Notre Dame whose research interests include collective behavior and social movements, global and transnational sociology, international migration, and political sociology. She's currently working on a book project on the "Arab Spring abroad" — how Libyan, Yemeni, and Syrian communities, spread from as far away as Los Angeles to London, mobilized to support...

Read More

Having Coffee with Dianne Pinderhughes

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.

Read More

How the Wilson Sheehan Lab for Economic Opportunities is fighting to prevent homelessness

Notre Dame News

The Homeless Prevention Call Center for the City of Chicago, currently run by Catholic Charities of Chicago, has helped thousands of families stay off the streets. Knowing funding for public programs is never guaranteed, it wanted to prove its method was cost effective and impactful. In 2012, it approached Notre Dame’s Wilson Sheehan Lab for Economic Opportunities (LEO) for assistance. Could LEO...

Read More