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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.

Iris Outlaw receives AABHE Exemplary Award for Public Service

Published: April 27, 2015

Notre Dame News

The American Association of Blacks in Higher Education (AABHE) presented the AABHE Exemplary Award for Public Service to Iris Outlaw, director of Multicultural Student Programs and Services at the University of Notre Dame, at the 2015 AABHE National Conference in Charleston, South Carolina, on April 10. The AABHE Exemplary Public Service Award goes to those individuals whose public lives and...

Claire Bowen earns NSF Graduate Research Fellowship

Published: April 17, 2015

Department of Applied and Computational Mathematics and Statistics

The National Science Foundation (NSF) recently announced the awardees of the 2015 Graduate Research Fellowships Program (GRFP). This year, eight College of Science students and two alumni received awards. In addition, several students and alumni received honorable mentions. There were over 16,000…

A round of racial provocations

Published: April 06, 2015

Kerry Temple ’74

Notre Dame has a nettlesome past helping African Americans feel at home, and recent campus flare-ups played against a national backdrop of rekindled racial polarization.

The family, one tale at a time

Published: April 06, 2015

Josh Stowe '01

Meet Fred, Notre Dame’s first service dog for mental illness. Catch up with a Chinese student who shares what he misses about his hometown. Hear a campus employee’s thoughts on fatherhood. That’s just a sampling of I am Notre Dame, a popular blog created by sophomore Laura Gruszka of Valparaiso, Indiana.

Two weeks in America

Published: April 01, 2015

Mendoza Business

If you are taking a crash course in American culture, deconstructing “have a nice day” is not a bad place to start. For three graduate students from China, anyway, the expression was puzzling and funny, and ultimately rendered a tiny glimpse into the American psyche. “People in China don’t…

Chinese civil rights activist to give Notre Dame’s 2015 Human Dignity Lecture

Published: March 30, 2015

Michael O. Garvey

Chinese civil rights activist and former political prisoner Chen Guangcheng will give the University of Notre Dame’s 2015 Human Dignity Lecture at 7:30 p.m. April 7 (Tuesday) in the McKenna Hall Auditorium. Chen’s lecture, “Interpreting Reform: Human Dignity and Human Rights in Contemporary China,” is sponsored by Notre Dame’s Institute for Church Life (ICL) as one of its Human Dignity...

Grammy Award-winning singer Aaron Neville to receive Notre Dame’s 2015 Laetare Medal

Published: March 15, 2015

Sue Ryan

Aaron Neville, a four-time Grammy Award-winning singer and musician, will receive the University of Notre Dame’s 2015 Laetare Medal, the oldest and most prestigious honor given to American Catholics, at Notre Dame’s 170th University Commencement ceremony May 17 (Sunday). “Aaron Neville proudly embraces and honors his faith through his God-given musical talents,” said Notre Dame’s president, Rev. John I. Jenkins,...

Women engineers gather at Notre Dame, bring the ‘brains and beauty to engineering’

Published: March 05, 2015

Notre Dame News

This Friday and Saturday (March 6 and 7), approximately 850 female collegiate students and professionals will gather at the University of Notre Dame for the 2015 Society of Women Engineers (SWE) Region H Conference, highlighting women engineers’ unique place and voice within the engineering industry and bringing a significant economic impact to the area.

Robinson Community Learning Center celebrates 14th anniversary

Published: February 18, 2015

Catherine Ake

The University of Notre Dame’s Robinson Community Learning Center celebrates its 14th anniversary from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Feb. 20 (Friday) at the RCLC. The celebration is open to the public.

Notre Dame among top producers of Fulbright students

Published: February 12, 2015

Michael O. Garvey

Ten University of Notre Dame students have been awarded Fulbright grants in the 2014-15 program, placing the University among the top-producing universities in the nation. The U.S. government’s flagship international educational exchange program, Fulbright recently announced the complete list of colleges and universities that produced the most 2014-15 U.S. Fulbright students. The success of the top-producing institutions is highlighted in...

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

Published: April 24, 2015

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 (April 27) in Room 141 of DeBartolo Hall at the University of Notre Dame.

Researchers identify molecular mechanism responsible for making malaria parasites drug-resistant

Published: April 15, 2015

Stephanie Healey

University of Notre Dame researchers led an international team to identify a molecular mechanism responsible for making malaria parasites resistant to artemisinins, the leading class of antimalarial drugs. According to the World Health Organization’s 2014 World Malaria Report, there are an estimated 198 million cases of malaria worldwide with 3.3 billion people at risk for contracting the infection. Although the...

Irreconcilable Differences

Published: April 06, 2015

April (Dan) Feng

I love watching people pray. Growing up in China, an atheist country, I never prayed before family meals. We didn’t pray before breakfast, lunch or dinner. In contemporary Chinese culture, religion is usually considered a bewitchment of the mind and faith is regarded as the illusion that you have someone to depend on. I am not an atheist myself, but...

Notre Dame to award 7 honorary degrees at Commencement

Published: April 06, 2015

Michael O. Garvey

Six distinguished figures in community leadership, the Catholic Church, education, engineering and science will join principal speaker Oxford Chancellor Christopher Patten as honorary degree recipients at the University of Notre Dame’s 170th University Commencement Ceremony on May 17 (Sunday).

Arturo Martinez: A study in character

Published: April 01, 2015

Sally Anne Flecker

Nobody wants to be diagnosed with cancer, Lord knows, least of all a 14-year-old boy who is crazy about basketball. But those were the cards dealt to Arturo Martinez (MSA ’15, BBA ACCT ’14), now a healthy 22-year-old, former Notre Dame football player and an Ernst and Young Scholar completing the…

Notre Dame and Latin American bishops sign memorandum of understanding

Published: March 25, 2015

Michael O. Garvey

The University of Notre Dame and the Latin American Episcopal Conference (CELAM) have signed a “memorandum of understanding,” pledging to cooperate in a range of initiatives in academics, social development, peace-building and institutional administration. Notre Dame’s president, Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C., and Archbishop Carlos Aguiar Retes of Tlalnepantla, Mexico, president of CELAM, signed the memorandum in a ceremony Tuesday...

Alumna Annette Ruth wins USAID fellowship

Published: March 12, 2015

Stephanie Healey

Notre Dame alumna Annette Ruth is one of twelve Notre Dame researchers recently selected by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to receive a brand new Research and Innovation Fellowship Program grant. Ruth will travel to Bogota, Colombia in May to work on a project entitled, “Zebrafish as an animal model to study Trypanosome cruzi motility” at La Universidad de los...

Making the most of a Notre Dame education

Published: March 02, 2015

Carol C. Bradley, NDWorks

The fundamental function of CUSE, the Center for Undergraduate Scholarly Engagement, is “helping students maximize their undergraduate experience, with an eye to contributing to their post-baccalaureate success,” says Deb Rotman, Paul and Maureen Stefanick Faculty Director of the program. CUSE, founded in 2009, provides undergraduates opportunities for research, scholarship and creative projects, as well as assisting with applications for prestigious...

Notre Dame receives USAID grant to undertake global development research on 3 continents

Published: February 13, 2015

Joanne Fahey

Twelve University of Notre Dame researchers, students from the Graduate School and the College of Arts and Letters, have been selected by the United States Agency for International Development’s (USAID’s) brand-new Research and Innovation Fellowship Program. They will travel to Brazil, Colombia, India and South Africa to research global development challenges and create innovative solutions to address these issues.

ND Expert: Media must resist Islamophobia in wake of Chapel Hill murders

Published: February 11, 2015

Michael O. Garvey

Sensational reporting and commentary must be avoided in the wake of the recent murders of three Muslim college students in North Carolina, according to Ebrahim Moosa, professor of Islamic studies at the University of Notre Dame’s Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies.

Michael Dinh named 2015 Goldwater Scholar

Published: April 23, 2015

Stephanie Healey

The Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship Foundation recently announced that Michael Dinh has been named a 2015 Goldwater Scholar. Dinh, a junior biological sciences and psychology double major and member of the Glynn Family Honors Program, was one of 260 scholarship recipients selected from over 1,200 applications.

Division of Student Affairs honors exceptional student leaders

Published: April 07, 2015

Ann Hastings

The University of Notre Dame’s Division of Student Affairs recognized seven students at the annual Student Leadership Awards Banquet on Tuesday (March 31), and will honor one award winner at the Graduate School Awards Ceremony on May 15 (Friday). These annual awards honor current students who have made exceptional contributions to the Notre Dame community.

The points still count the same way

Published: April 06, 2015

Madeline Gore '15

One from the line, two in the lane and three from the arc. It’s basketball, only from a very different point of view.

Video: Matt Dooley and the Notre Dame bond

Published: April 04, 2015

Daily Domer Staff

It’s been more than a month now since Irish senior men’s tennis player Matt Dooley identified himself to the world as the first openly gay student-athlete at the University of Notre Dame. In some ways, Dooley’s life has gone on in normal fashion, as he competes with the nationally-ranked Irish tennis squad and finishes his final semester of classes at...

Notre Dame produces Liam Neeson-narrated documentary to remember Ireland's 1916 Easter Rising

Published: March 31, 2015

Michael O. Garvey

The University of Notre Dame will play a major role in the international celebration of the centenary of Ireland’s 1916 Easter Rising, which was announced Tuesday (March 31) in Dublin by Taoiseach Enda Kenny. A documentary television series, “1916: The Irish Rebellion,” produced by Notre Dame’s Keough-Naughton Institute for Irish Studies, will be broadcast worldwide during the centenary, which memorializes...

New paper examines household production and asset prices

Published: March 20, 2015

William G. Gilroy

A new paper by Zhi Da, Viola D. Hank Associate Professor of Finance at the University of Notre Dame, finds that residential electricity usage can track household production in real time and helps to price assets. “The importance of household production in economics has been recognized by Nobel Laureate Gary Becker back in 1960s, but measuring what household produces at...

Early survey results indicate that LF will be eliminated in Haiti

Published: March 12, 2015

Gene Stowe

Preliminary testing of more than 850 schoolchildren in the Haitian town of Saut-d’Eau has shown only one child to be infected with the parasite that causes lymphatic filariasis (LF), a milestone in efforts to eradicate the debilitating disease from the island. The results, involving children from 38 schools in the community of 35,000 people 50 miles north of Port-au-Prince, mean...

Notre Dame launches online theology program for Hispanic Catholics

Published: February 23, 2015

Michael O. Garvey

The University of Notre Dame’s Institute for Church Life (ICL) has launched a new online adult faith formation program for Hispanic Catholics. The program, Camino, is a collaborative initiative of ICL’s Satellite Theological Education Program (STEP) and the Southeast Pastoral Institute (SEPI).

New antibiotic holds promise against antibiotic-resistant infections

Published: February 13, 2015

Gene Stowe

Estimates of deaths from methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) in the United States range upwards of 19,000 annually. Around 1960, when Staphylococcus aureus developed resistance to first-generation penicillin, methicillin and other second-generation beta-lactam antibiotics were adopted to fight the illness. The modern variants of the bacterium have developed resistance to the four drugs now used to treat it. A team of...

Notre Dame hosts business students from top-ranked Chinese university

Published: January 28, 2015

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...