1. Home ›
  2. Our Stories ›
  3. Staff Stories

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.

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...

Read More

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…

Read More

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...

Read More

‘A ministry of presence’

Carol C. Bradley, NDWorks

Rev. Jim Bracke, C.S.C., is the newly appointed chaplain for the University’s staff and retirees. “I’m there as a presence to people in their work, as well as in their lives,” Father Jim says. “I am here to serve the staff, as well as to represent Notre Dame to families at the time of loss of a loved one.” Staff...

Read More

Peter Woo named recipient of Indiana Campus Compact student community commitment award

John Guimond

Senior Peter Woo, Class of 2014, a Hesburgh-Yusko Scholar and a finance and philosophy major with a minor in Chinese at the University of Notre Dame, has been named the recipient of the Indiana Campus Compact (ICC) 2014 Richard J. Wood Student Community Commitment Award. The annual award recognizes the efforts of students from an Indiana college or university for...

Read More

Two prominent South African anti-apartheid participants to speak at Notre Dame

Elizabeth Rankin

Two prominent South African participants in the anti-apartheid struggle will speak at the University of Notre Dame on Wednesday (March 19) and April 3 (Thursday) as part of the Africa Working Group’s “Celebrating Nelson Mandela” series. One a liberation theologian and political activist, the other the “Jackie Robinson of South Africa,” they each played a crucial role in moving their...

Read More

'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.

Read More

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...

Read More

Fulbright foreign language teachers introduced to American culture at Notre Dame

Liquid error: internal

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.

Read More

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...

Read More

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...

Read More

Notre Dame theologians explore life, death and resurrection in Rwanda

Michael O. Garvey

Watch video The genocide in Rwanda, whose 20th anniversary is being observed worldwide this month, began only a few days after Easter. That the hatred that cost the lives of a million people in this overwhelmingly Christian country could be unleashed so near to Holy Week seems paradoxical, ironic or even blasphemous.

Read More

Ruan Yisan to receive 2014 Henry Hope Reed Award in Chicago

Notre Dame News

Ruan Yisan, historic preservationist and professor of architecture at Tongji University, will receive the 2014 Henry Hope Reed Award on March 29 (Saturday) at the John B. Murphy Memorial Auditorium in Chicago. Ruan will receive the award in conjunction with the Richard H. Driehaus Prize ceremony, at which the Driehaus Prize will be presented to Italian architect Pier Carlo Bontempi.

Read More

South Africa’s ambassador to the U.S. to deliver 20th annual Hesburgh Lecture in Ethics and Public Policy

Joan Fallon

Ebrahim Rasool, South Africa’s ambassador to the United States, will deliver the 20th annual Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, C.S.C., Lecture in Ethics and Public Policy at 4 p.m. April 8 (Tuesday) in the Hesburgh Center for International Studies Auditorium at the University of Notre Dame. Rasool’s lecture, “Relic of the Past or Template for the Future: Nelson Mandela’s Impact on...

Read More

San Antonio Mayor Julián Castro to address Latino civic engagement

Arnel Bulaoro

San Antonio Mayor Julián Castro will visit the University of Notre Dame campus at 7 p.m. April 7 (Monday) in DeBartolo Hall, Room 101, for an event titled “American Politics in the 21st Century: Latino Civic Engagement.” Joining the mayor on stage will be his former Stanford faculty mentor Luis Fraga. The two will discuss the mayor’s journey into the...

Read More

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...

Read More

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.

Read More

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...

Read More

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.…

Read More

Notre Dame to award 7 honorary degrees at Commencement

Brendan O’Shaughnessy

Six distinguished figures in business, the Church, community leadership, education, engineering and the performing arts will join principal speaker Christopher Patten as honorary degree recipients at the University of Notre Dame’s 169th University Commencement Ceremony on May 18 (Sunday). The ceremony will be held in the morning at Notre Dame Stadium in order to accommodate as many guests as possible....

Read More

Italian architect Pier Carlo Bontempi to receive 2014 Driehaus Prize in Chicago

Notre Dame News

Italian architect Pier Carlo Bontempi will receive the 2014 Richard H. Driehaus Prize from the University of Notre Dame at a ceremony to be held on March 29 (Saturday) at the John B. Murphy Memorial Auditorium in Chicago. Bontempi’s award-winning international work includes a block recovery plan in Parma’s historical center, as well as the Place de Toscane and the...

Read More

Panel discussion on role of Catholic Church in marriage debate to be held at Notre Dame

Michael O. Garvey

A panel discussion on the role of the Catholic Church in the cultural and political debate about marriage will take place at 7 p.m. Monday (March 17) in DeBartolo Hall, Room 101, on the campus of the University of Notre Dame. The discussion, “Marriage, the Church and the Common Good,” is sponsored by Notre Dame’s Center for Ethics and Culture...

Read More