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Student Stories

Notre Dame endeavors to be a place where each student can grow individually in both mind and heart, and become a part of something larger than themselves. By celebrating the unique gifts each student brings to our shared community, student life is enriched immeasurably.

The stories below share just some of the ways Notre Dame students are celebrating and taking advantage of the wonderful diversity on our campus – through both scholarship and development and formation outside the classroom.

Nineteenth annual Expanding Your Horizons broadens career aspirations for girls

Published: April 29, 2016

Shadia Ajam

On Saturday, Apr. 23, Notre Dame hosted the 19th annual Expanding Your Horizons (EYH) career conference for middle school girls that focused on activities in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). Throughout the conference, students had the opportunity to collaborate and learn from female role models working in STEM fields. This exposure provides a gateway for empowering girls to see...

Cordell Carter, ’07 J.D., awarded BLSA’s Alvin McKenna Alumni Award

Published: April 25, 2016

Lauren Love

Cordell Carter II, ’07 J.D., was awarded the Alvin McKenna Alumni Award at the recent Notre Dame Law School’s Black Law Students Association Alumni Banquet.

Architecture students to present plans for new South Bend housing project

Published: April 18, 2016

Michael O. Garvey

The students, directed by Kim Rollings, assistant professor of architecture at Notre Dame, will present plans for a 30,000-square-foot facility to provide safe and affordable housing for chronically homeless people.

Studying youth participation in Colombia’s peace-building movements

Published: April 06, 2016

Carrie Gates

The young people of war-torn northern Colombia want their homes and their lifestyle back. Displaced from their villages by guerilla and paramilitary groups, they have spent the last 10 years in urban centers—making them prime targets for recruitment by those same criminal enterprises. But rather than falling prey to a violent cause, they’ve founded a successful peace-building movement. Notre Dame...

Studying abroad before arriving to campus strengthens freshman’s first year

Published: March 31, 2016

Amanda Skofstad

Inaugurated in summer 2015 with cohorts in Rome and London, Notre Dame International’s Global Gateway Seminars advance the University’s goal to provide undergraduates with greater access to study abroad opportunities—and deeper conscious engagement with the cultures in which they study.

Women lead: Tracy Kijewski-Correa

Published: March 18, 2016

Office of Brand Content

The power to lead is the power to transform. Notre Dame is proud to celebrate women whose scholarship and leadership are leaving an indelible imprint on the global community.

Jim Aviles, ’82, and Milena de Goes establish LL.M. fellowship for Brazilian students

Published: March 17, 2016

Lauren Love

On March 11, Notre Dame President Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C., proudly announced a $1 million gift from 1982 alumnus Jim Aviles and Milena de Goes. The gift will support Brazilian students seeking an LL.M. degree from the Law School.

Father Jenkins reflects on past, present and future collaboration with Brazil in São Paulo speech

Published: March 11, 2016

Notre Dame News

In a speech at the American Chamber of Commerce in São Paulo, Brazil, University of Notre Dame President Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C., discussed the importance of Catholic education in an era of corruption and injustice, the University’s vision for growth in the country and its research related to the Zika virus.

ND signee provides special prom surprise

Published: March 04, 2016

Daily Domer Staff

Troy Pride Jr. didn’t have to take Lina Rafkah to the prom. The 5-foot-11, 175-pound defensive back and wide receiver had plenty of reasons not to go. Before Rafkah approached him in the hallway at Greer Senior High School with an impromptu prom-posal, the two had never met.

Video: Father Ted's enduring legacy

Published: February 26, 2016

1842stories.nd.edu

On the one-year anniversary of the passing of Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, C.S.C., the 18/42 Stories of Notre Dame digital storytelling series reflects on the enduring legacy of the University's former president.

David Roth '91 starts walk across America

Published: April 29, 2016

Daily Domer Staff

To raise money for veterans, a math teacher and a Notre Dame graduate and police officer from Indianapolis plan to take a walk tomorrow in Atlantic City – a long walk.

‘Disability is not the whole of who you are’

Published: April 22, 2016

Catherine Owers and Haleigh Ehmsen

For students with disabilities, the University and College provide notetakers, extended test time and accessible dorm rooms, among other resources. But the impact of disabilities extends beyond the classroom and the residence hall, and the Sara Bea Center for Students with Disabilities and…

'Can I have it all?'

Published: April 13, 2016

Tracy Kijewski-Correa

Tracy Kijewski-Correa says young women routinely ask her whether they can 'have it all.' In this opinion piece for the Chronicle of Higher Education, the Notre Dame professor shares her answer.

SBA focuses law students on their mental health

Published: April 04, 2016

Lauren Love

Notre Dame Law School students last week participated in morning yoga, pet therapy, and a seminar focused on the power of positive thinking. According to Notre Dame’s Student Bar Association, the events are part of a larger weeklong initiative that aims to educate students about the mental health challenges particular to law students.

Notre Dame alum encourages youth interest in architecture

Published: March 28, 2016

Ashley Johnston

As part of a program created by the ICAA, Michael Romero ’02 is introducing a class of eighth graders at Marymount School of New York to the world of classical architecture and urbanism through a unique, hands-on program called New Heights: Discovering Classical Architecture.

ESTEEM program inspires Arts and Letters majors to be innovative entrepreneurs

Published: March 17, 2016

Brian Wallheimer

Take the skills liberal arts majors already have — analysis, communication, creative collaboration, critical thinking. Now add intensive training in business and entrepreneurship. That’s a recipe for success, according to College of Arts and Letters alumni who have gone on to Notre Dame’s Engineering, Science & Technology Entrepreneurship Excellence Master’s program (ESTEEM).

Breaking down walls of racism, classism and sexism

Published: March 16, 2016

Cidni Sanders

Karsonya Wise Whitehead can be described in many ways. She is an historian, a writer, a public speaker, a professor. She’s a poet and filmmaker. She is a mother, a wife. She is a resident of Baltimore, Md., and she is the daughter of a Baptist minister. But, perhaps most fundamentally, she is an activist — a peace activist.

NDLS student groups host panel on immigration law

Published: March 11, 2016

Lauren Love

Three immigration attorneys visited Notre Dame Law School recently for a panel discussion on various immigration issues and challenges. The panel included Aimee Heitz, directing attorney at Indiana Legal Services, Inc., Immigrants’ and Language Rights Center, Michael Durham, ’01 J.D., solo practitioner…

Notre Dame Law School names two 2015 Bank of America Foundation community sustainability fellows

Published: March 01, 2016

Denise Wager

The third-year law students each developed a public service plan to address a community sustainability problem that supported the Bank of America Foundation’s funding mission of community development, education and workforce development and critical needs.

The strength of leadership

Published: February 26, 2016

Anthony DePalma

By any measure, Father Theodore M. Hesburgh’s influence on higher education — both during the 35 years he served as president of Notre Dame and over the many years after he retired — was oversized: broad, deep and enduring, touching everything from athletics and academics to the very essence of what makes a modern university, especially a modern Catholic university.

Notre Dame LL.M. grads lead in South Africa

Published: April 27, 2016

Lauren Love

Twenty years since the birth of South Africa’s democracy, graduates of Notre Dame’s LL.M program in International Human Rights Law with the Center for Civil and Human Rights returned to Notre Dame to discuss their efforts to maintain and improve the country’s developing constitutionalism.

Why majoring in English made Patrick Lyons ’08 a better doctor

Published: April 19, 2016

Brian Wallheimer

Dr. Patrick Lyons ’08 doesn’t ask his patients if they have questions when he’s finished talking with them about a diagnosis. There’s a good chance they’ll say no. Instead, he asks what questions they have. Looking at how he practices medicine now, especially in his interactions with patients, Lyons realizes his time as an English major had a profound effect...

College student program opposes payday lending

Published: April 11, 2016

Ryan Lohman, South Bend Tribune

South Bend Tribune story highlights JIFFI, a nonprofit that offers low-interest loans, and the Mendoza students who run it.

Greater China scholarship recipient admitted to Harvard Law

Published: April 01, 2016

Amanda Skofstad

A political science major set to graduate this spring with acceptance to Harvard Law, Rachel Wang says being part of the GCS program has helped her overcome the initial language and cultural barriers her freshman year.

NDLS Hispanic Law Student Association presents JoAnn Chávez with Graciela Olivarez Award

Published: March 22, 2016

Lauren Love

For 20 years the Graciela Olivarez Award has been presented to Hispanic lawyers and judges whose work embodies the spirit of Graciela Olivarez, the first woman and first Hispanic to graduate from Notre Dame Law School.

Heidelberg exchange program promotes research training

Published: March 17, 2016

Gene Stowe

Through Notre Dame International, the University of Notre Dame and Heidelberg University have established a collaboration in which students from Germany have taken classes and conducted research at Notre Dame since August, part of an ongoing, broad collaboration with Heidelberg University that was established in 2104. Alex Dimmling and Lennart Schleper, who both finished their bachelor’s degrees at Heidelberg last...

Science alumnus transforms developing countries’ prison medical care

Published: March 14, 2016

Gene Stowe

Notre Dame alumnus Dr. John May ND '84 founded Healing through Walls in 2001 in Haiti, where the organization now has 50 medical professional employees working in prisons. Healing through Walls also operates in the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Malawi and the Congo and consults across the Caribbean and Africa.

Notre Dame faculty discuss the right to vote

Published: March 10, 2016

Lauren Love

While Americans tout the right to vote as the cornerstone of democracy, a number of states across the country have recently passed measures making it harder for citizens to vote. Studies have shown these new rules — including voter identification laws, voter list purging, and cutting into the number of early voting days — have disproportionately affected low-income and minority...

Law School names 2016 Thomas L. Shaffer public interest fellows

Published: March 01, 2016

Lauren Love

Dean Nell Jessup Newton has named Neysa Nankervis and Ashlyn Anderson-Keelin the 2016 Thomas L. Shaffer Public Interest Fellows. The third-year law students each developed winning proposals for post-graduate public interest projects providing direct legal services to low-income people.

Hunter Smith '99 kicks way to music stage

Published: February 18, 2016

Daily Domer Staff

Hunter Smith '99, the former University of Notre Dame punter and high jumper has thrived in everything from sports to singing and songwriting, and it all started on campus.