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Staff Stories

Notre Dame seeks to enhance our community by attracting employees from all walks of life. The work of maintaining and advancing our University requires individuals who approach challenges from unique perspectives borne of varied and nuanced personal experiences. Moreover, it requires learning from one another in an environment that welcomes open discussion and invites personal as well as professional growth in this area.

The stories below showcase the diversity of thought and experience of the people who work at Notre Dame.

Notre Dame hosts business students from top-ranked Chinese university

Amanda Skofstad

The University of Notre Dame expanded its reach in global education with the arrival of 35 students from Tsinghua University, a top-ranked school located in Beijing. The students, who arrived on campus Saturday (Jan. 24), are part of the PBC School of Finance at Tsinghua University. During the intensive two-week program offered by the Mendoza College of Business in coordination...

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Notre Dame to honor Martin Luther King Jr. Day with prayer service, community events

Notre Dame News

Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C., president of the University of Notre Dame, will preside at a prayer service to honor the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. from 11:45 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. Jan. 19 (Monday) in the rotunda of the Main Building. The public is invited to participate in the prayer service and the reception that will immediately follow.

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ACE launches $1M project to improve reading outcomes in Haitian Catholic schools

William Schmitt

The University of Notre Dame’s Alliance for Catholic Education (ACE) Haiti initiative recently launched its “Haiti Reads” project, an innovative literacy program in 52 Haitian Catholic schools. Working in partnership with the Haitian Episcopal Commission for Catholic Education (CEEC) and Catholic Relief Services (CRS), the project began in the summer and is supported by a $1 million grant from an...

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Notre Dame’s crèche pilgrimage: Celebrating life’s most intimate moment

Michael O. Garvey

When the University of Notre Dame’s Crèche Pilgrimage begins at 2:30 p.m. Sunday (Dec. 7) in the Eck Visitors Center, those on hand to visit, view and pray at some 30 Nativity scenes on exhibit throughout the campus will be participating in a Christmas tradition as ancient as it is universal. “Mary is the most ‘inculturated’ person in the Church,”...

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Notre Dame unites to fight Ebola

Carol C. Bradley, NDWorks

When news broke of the outbreak of Ebola in Liberia, “We knew we had to do something,” says Katherine Taylor, director of operations for the Eck Institute for Global Health and interim director of global health training. “Ebola in West Africa is a crisis in our own family,” she says. “We felt we couldn’t stand around and do nothing. This...

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'Gay in Christ' conference to be held at Notre Dame

Michael O. Garvey

A two-day conference, “Gay in Christ: Dimensions of Fidelity,” co-sponsored by the University of Notre Dame’s Institute for Church Life (ICL) and the Gender Relations Center, will convene Oct. 31 (Friday) to explore appropriate pastoral strategies for Catholic parishioners who regard themselves as non-heterosexual, but who accept Catholic Church teaching on marriage and sexuality.

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ND Expert: Hong Kong movement unlike any other

Shannon Roddel

Hong Kong marked China’s National Day (Oct. 1) in unprecedented fashion, as pro-democracy protesters crowded the streets of the Asian financial hub for what is being called a critical day in the territory’s “Umbrella Revolution.” University of Notre Dame political scientist and Hong Kong native Victoria Hui has worked in the democracy movement there. She says it is unlike any...

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Fulbright foreign language teachers introduced to American culture at Notre Dame

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The University of Notre Dame is hosting its ninth Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant (FLTA) orientation for the upcoming academic year. Sixty teachers from 28 countries, representing 15 languages, are staying on campus Aug. 9-13 (Saturday-Wednesday) and will attend a series of workshops designed to enhance their teaching in the United States.

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The ministry of storytelling

Michael O. Garvey

The Catholic Church is the largest of the Christian churches in the nation, and more than half of the Catholics in the United States who are under the age of 25 are Latinos. Barring massive changes in birthrates and immigration, a majority of American Catholics will be Latinos by the year 2050. If the rise of Latino Catholics confronts the...

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Kerry Ann Rockquemore to speak at Notre Dame Graduate School Commencement

William G. Gilroy

Kerry Ann Rockquemore, who received her doctorate in sociology from the University of Notre Dame in 1999, will deliver the address at the University’s Graduate School Commencement Ceremony at 10 a.m. May 17 (Saturday) in the Compton Family Ice Arena. While a graduate student, Rockquemore won both the John J. Kane Memorial Award for the most outstanding graduate student in...

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Nora Besansky-led studies featured on the cover of Science

William G. Gilroy

Two studies led by Nora Besansky, O’Hara Professor of Biological Sciences at the University of Notre Dame and a member of the University’s Eck Institute for Global Health, which resulted in the sequencing the genomes of 16 Anopheles mosquito species from around the world, are featured on the cover of today’s (Jan. 2) edition of the prestigious journal Science.

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Notre Dame biologist Nora Besansky leads international consortium in sequencing the genomes of malaria-carrying mosquitoes

William G. Gilroy

Nora Besansky, O’Hara Professor of Biological Sciences at the University of Notre Dame and a member of the University’s Eck Institute for Global Health, has led an international team of scientists in sequencing the genomes of 16 Anopheles mosquito species from around the world. Anopheles mosquitoes are responsible for transmitting human malaria parasites that cause an estimated 200 million cases...

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Washington Post writer Wil Haygood, author of 'The Butler,' to speak at Notre Dame

College of Arts and Letters

Washington Post national writer Wil Haygood, whose feature story provided the basis for the movie “The Butler,” will discuss his career as a journalist and author Oct. 28 (Tuesday) at the University of Notre Dame. The conversation, which is open to the public and free of charge, will begin at 7 p.m. and take place in the auditorium of the...

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Venezuelan maestro receives final Notre Dame Prize for Distinguished Public Service in Latin America

Elizabeth Rankin

Visionary music educator José Antonio Abreu was awarded the final Notre Dame Prize for Distinguished Public Service in Latin America at a private campus ceremony on Sept. 22 in recognition of his extraordinary work fighting poverty and violence and developing whole, successful young people through classical music.

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Grant propels largest growth of Notre Dame Haiti Program’s salt operations

Marissa Gebhard

The Notre Dame Haiti Program at the University of Notre Dame has received a large, anonymous grant that will support the growth of its salt program, which produces clean, co-fortified salt, intended to eliminate lymphatic filariasis and combat iodine deficiency disorder. The $375,000 grant will be matched by other donations and, in conjunction with several other resources, will fund the...

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OIT staff members receive ESGR Patriot Award

Lenette Votava, OIT

On Thursday, May 29, two members of the OIT received a Patriot Award from the Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve (ESGR). This Department of Defense office was established in 1972 to promote the cooperation and understanding between Reserve Component Service members and their civilian employers.…

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Campus profile: John Affleck-Graves, executive vice president

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 an uncertain connecting flight to South Bend, the chair of the Finance Department that hired...

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Truly Christian and African: Notre Dame theologian Paulinus Odozor’s new book

Michael O. Garvey

The election of Jorge Mario Bergoglio, Cardinal Archbishop of Buenos Aires, as Pope Francis nearly two years ago is only one illustration of how the Catholic Church has become less concentrated in Europe and North America than in the southern hemisphere. Nearly half of the world’s 1.1 billion Catholics live in Latin America, and the Catholic Church in Africa, home...

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Notre Dame Haiti Program dedicates new salt facility

Marissa Gebhard

In partnership with the Haitian Ministry of Public Health and the Population (MSPP), the Congregation of Holy Cross and other partners, the University of Notre Dame Haiti Program dedicated a new fortified salt production plant Monday (Dec. 8) in Delmas, Haiti. Several dignitaries were in attendance, including Sophia Martelly, first lady of Haiti.

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Michelle Whaley is 2014 Indiana Professor of the Year

William G. Gilroy

Michelle A. Whaley, a teaching professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Notre Dame, has been named the 2014 Indiana Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education (CASE). She will be announced as the award winner at a luncheon Thursday...

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Studying historic Roman architecture – virtually

Carol C. Bradley, NDWorks

Most new iPad apps take weeks to be approved. The new app, SPQR-ND: Interpreting the Roman Forum Through Early Architectural Publications, was a two-day turnaround. The app was developed by Jennifer Parker, architecture librarian, Chaaban, and Adam Heet, digital projects specialist. The Center for Digital Scholarship’s Matt Sisk helped with mapping and geolocation. The project was a collaboration between the Hesburgh...

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Telling Notre Dame’s story

Carol C. Bradley, NDWorks

Paul J. Browne, vice president for public affairs and communications, was born to Irish immigrant parents and grew up in the Bronx, the northernmost of the five boroughs of New York City. He’s a dedicated Yankees fan (“I grew up about a mile from Yankee Stadium, and at one time I thought they just automatically went to the World Series,”...

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Rev. Ray Hammond to replace Patten as Notre Dame’s commencement speaker

Dennis Brown

Rev. Dr. Ray Hammond, founder of Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Boston, will deliver the principal address at the University of Notre Dame’s 169th University Commencement Ceremony on May 18 (Sunday), replacing the previously announced speaker, Christopher Patten, chancellor of Oxford and chair of the BBC Trust. Patten informed the University this week that he is withdrawing from several...

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