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2009: The Year in Review
• Date: December 23, 2009 • Categories: Campus and Community
Each year at Notre Dame is filled with highlights, achievements and accomplishments. Here are some of the significant moments from 2009:
- President Barack Obama served as the principal speaker at Notre Dame’s 164th University Commencement Ceremony on May 17. The visit, in the face of discord about the president’s position on abortion, received both criticism and support nationwide. Notre Dame’s president, Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C., and Obama addressed the discord from the commencement platform.
- Notre Dame hired Brian Kelly as the 29th head football coach in the University’s history. He replaces Charlie Weis, who was not retained after five years at the helm. At his introductory news conference, Kelly said: “We hear about academic standards. That is what the mission is of this University. That is the mission of Notre Dame, excellence in academics and athletics, and I wanted that challenge, and I’m excited about that challenge, that you can do it both in the classroom and be prominent in the athletic arena, as well.”
Five professors earn NEH awards; ND leads nation for past 11 years
• Date: December 23, 2009 • Categories: Academics and Campus and Community
Five University of Notre Dame faculty members have received research fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) for 2010, bringing to 42 the number of NEH fellowships awarded to Notre Dame in the past 11 years − more than any other university in the nation.
The NEH recipients from Notre Dame’s College of Arts and Letters are Karl Ameriks, Kathleen Cummings, Semion Lyandres, Mark Noll and Sophie White.
Forbes ranks Fighting Irish as second most valuable college football program
• Date: December 23, 2009 • Categories: Athletics
Forbes magazine rated Notre Dame as the second most valuable college football program in the country in a survey published Dec. 22.
Using a set of standardized revenue and expense streams for each university surveyed, Forbes placed the team value of Fighting Irish football at $108 million. The University of Texas was rated first with a value of $119 million.
Forbes also listed the “dividends” generated by each football program by analyzing how much money was contributed back to the university as a whole and to other athletics programs after subtracting the cost of running the football operation. The magazine also factored into the dividend equation money generated by a football program through bowl game revenue and for its surrounding community.
Department of Energy honors Notre Dame professor
• Date: December 22, 2009 • Categories: Campus and Community and Research
Joan F. Brennecke, the Keating-Crawford Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and director of the University of Notre Dame Energy Center, has been chosen to receive the Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award from the United States Department of Energy (DOE).
Presented by the secretary of energy, the Lawrence Award honors scientists and engineers at mid-career for their exceptional contributions in research and development supporting the DOE and its mission to advance the national, economic and energy security of the United States. The award is given in each of the following categories: chemistry, materials research, environmental science and technology, life sciences (including medicine), nuclear technologies (fission and fusion), national security and non-proliferation and high-energy and nuclear physics.
Notre Dame anthropologist uses new genetics lab to research women’s health disparities
• Date: December 22, 2009 • Categories: Research
Jada Benn Torres, assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Notre Dame, uses genetics to research the distribution of diseases across populations, with a primary focus on women’s reproductive health. Currently, she is trying to figure out why African-American women are at a higher risk of developing uterine fibroids.
Notre Dame’s first and only molecular anthropologist, Benn Torres recently celebrated the opening of her laboratory, which uses the tools and techniques developed in molecular genetics to address anthropological questions. This is an important new venture for Notre Dame’s Department of Anthropology, which is considered among the most innovative in the nation.
Notre Dame’s First Year Dean Hugh Page edits new book on Africana biblical studies
• Date: December 21, 2009 • Categories: Campus and Community
“The Africana Bible: Reading Israel’s Scriptures from Africa and the African Diaspora,” a new book edited by Hugh R. Page Jr., dean of the First Year of Studies and associate professor of Theology and Africana Studies at the University of Notre Dame, recently was published by Fortress Press.
Page directed a team of editors from the Society of Biblical Literature’s African-American Biblical Hermeneutics Section in gathering a groundbreaking collection of essays by biblical scholars from Africa and the African Diaspora.
Notre Dame study into food marketing to kids wins award
• Date: December 21, 2009 • Categories: Campus and Community
Research into how companies pitch food marketing to children online recently earned significant recognition for the study’s authors.
Elizabeth S. Moore, University of Notre Dame Chair in Business and Associate Professor of Marketing, received the Thomas C. Kinnear/Journal of Public Policy & Marketing Award for “The Online Marketing of Food to Children: Is It Just Fun and Games?” with co-author Victoria J. Rideout of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. The article appeared in the fall 2007 issue of the Journal of Public Policy & Marketing.
Robinson Shakespeare Company earns awards
• Date: December 18, 2009 • Categories: Campus and Community
Four members of the Robinson Community Learning Center (RCLC)’s Robinson Shakespeare Company (RSC) earned awards in Shakespeare at Notre Dame’s second annual English Speaking Union Shakespeare Monologue Competition.
Rayelynn Lee placed first and Indonesia Holt placed second in the elementary division; Paul Ferguson was the top middle school student; and Charell Luckey placed first in the high school competition. Luckey will move on to represent the district at the state competition Feb. 28 in Indianapolis.
Frederick Crosson, former dean of Notre Dame’s College of Arts and Letters, dies
• Date: December 18, 2009 • Categories: Campus and Community
Frederick J. Crosson, John J. Cavanaugh Professor Emeritus of Humanities at the University of Notre Dame, died Dec. 9 at Hospice House in South Bend. He was 83.
A member of the Notre Dame faculty since 1953, the same year he married Mary Patricia (Burns) Crosson, who survives him, Crosson specialized in phenomenology and existentialism, but studied and taught in a much broader variety of fields.
Notre Dame professor Thomas Corke named AIAA fellow
• Date: December 17, 2009 • Categories: Academics and Campus and Community
Thomas C. Corke, Clark Equipment Professor of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering at the University of Notre Dame, has been named a fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA).
According to the institute, AIAA fellows are “persons of distinction who have made notable and valuable contributions to the arts, sciences or technology of aeronautics or astronautics.”
Notre Dame launches new online campus tour
• Date: December 16, 2009 • Categories: Campus and Community
The University of Notre Dame has created a virtual tour Web site to bring the beauty and spirit of the campus to anyone with Internet access.
Visitors to the new site, which can be accessed at http://tour.nd.edu, will find student-led video tours of campus, 360-degree panoramic photos, numerous still photos – both interior and exterior – that showcase buildings during various seasons of the year, and descriptive text of each venue. The virtual tour immerses viewers in the experience of being on campus.
Notre Dame theology chair John Cavadini appointed Vatican advisor
• Date: December 16, 2009 • Categories: Campus and Community and Faith and Service
John C. Cavadini, associate professor and chair of theology and McGrath-Cavadini Director of the University of Notre Dame’s Institute for Church Life, has been appointed to the International Theological Commission by Pope Benedict XVI.
The International Theological Commission consists of some 30 theologians from around the world. An advising body to the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, its members are personally appointed by the pope, who reviews their credentials himself.
Lopez testifies on sanctions against Iran before national security subcommittee
• Date: December 15, 2009 • Categories: Academics
In testimony today (Dec. 15) before the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs, University of Notre Dame faculty member George A. Lopez argued against passage of HR 2194, which would impose severe economic sanctions on Iran in an effort to halt its nuclear weapons program.
The proposed measures “will inflict economic pain in Iran, but produce no political gain on issues important to the United States,” Lopez said.
“Without question, the robust set of sanctions under review will adversely impact the human rights situation within Iran, as the Iranian opposition and civil society groups will be both more repressed and more vulnerable to the regime,” Lopez said. “We run a high risk that many Iranians will be angry at the U.S. for such sanctions, which will please our need ‘to bring the regime to its knees,’ but will actually strengthen [Iranian President] Ahmadinejad’s hand.”
Creating a senior thesis culture in Arts and Letters
• Date: December 15, 2009 • Categories: Academics
When John T. McGreevy was appointed I.A. O’Shaughnessy Dean of the University of Notre Dame’s College of Arts and Letters last year, he said “Notre Dame’s effort to at once become a preeminent research university, enhance an already strong reputation in undergraduate education and nurture a distinct religious identity is one of the most important experiments in American higher education, and I look forward to assisting this project from a new vantage point.”
McGreevy continues to make good on that promise, implementing a number of changes this fall that will help the college create a more intense and sophisticated undergraduate experience.
Entrepreneur teams enter semifinal round of Notre Dame Business Plan Competitions
• Date: December 14, 2009 • Categories: Academics
A total of 76 teams have advanced to the semifinal round of the 2009-10 Notre Dame Business Plan Competitions, putting them one step closer to winning more than $40,000 in cash prizes.
The annual event, hosted by the Gigot Center for Entrepreneurial Studies at the University of Notre Dame, will hold its final round of competition on campus on April 15 and 16, 2010.
“We are very pleased with the quantity, quality and breadth of our entries in the ND Business Plan Competitions this year,” said Karen Slaggert, program manager for the Notre Dame Business Plan Competitions. “From viable technical solutions for serious medical issues, to practical solutions to social inequities, to unique and exciting approaches to retail opportunities, the entries are varied and intriguing.”
Architecture students take second place in Brown to Green design competition
• Date: December 14, 2009 • Categories: Campus and Community
A team of six University of Notre Dame School of Architecture graduate students earned second prize in a design competition sponsored by the Ed Bacon Foundation.
The award-winning entry, submitted by Keith Kirley, Cindy Michel, Leon Li, Zeke Balan, Clayton Vance and C.J. Howard, earned the team a $1,500 prize at a ceremony held Dec. 8 at the Center for Architecture in Philadelphia. The students proposed a mixed-use development for an existing brownfield site along the Schuylkill River south of the University of Pennsylvania campus.
New campaign launched to seat 1 million Hispanic children in Catholic schools
• Date: December 11, 2009 • Categories: Academics and Faith and Service
On Dec. 12, a national task force commissioned by the University of Notre Dame will release a report and launch a campaign to improve educational opportunities for the next generation of American Latinos by expanding their access to Catholic schools.
Through the efforts of “The Catholic School Advantage: The Campaign to Improve Educational Opportunities for Latino Children,” the task force will seek to enroll 1 million Hispanic students in Catholic schools by 2020.
The report, titled “To Nurture the Soul of a Nation: Latino Families, Catholic Schools, and Educational Opportunity,” will be distributed to a national audience of 10,000 stakeholders on the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, exactly one year after the task force was established by Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C., Notre Dame’s president.
ND historian Father Robert Sullivan reassesses a Victorian icon
• Date: December 11, 2009 • Categories: Academics
“Macaulay: The Tragedy of Power,” by Rev. Robert E. Sullivan, associate professor of history and associate vice president for academic mission support at the University of Notre Dame, recently was published by Harvard University Press.
Since his death 150 years ago, English historian, politician, public intellectual and Victorian icon Thomas Babington Macaulay has been remembered as the author of the influential “History of England,” as an imperial administrator who made English the common language of India and gave that country a system of criminal law which survives to this day, and as a pioneering and effective apologist for English nationalism. The sales of his popular books on both sides of the Atlantic often rivaled those of Charles Dickens.
But it was principally Macaulay’s erudition that drew Father Sullivan’s interest.
Kareem named to Indian Academy of Engineering
• Date: December 11, 2009 • Categories: Academics
Ahsan Kareem, Robert Moran Professor of Civil Engineering and Geological Sciences at the University of Notre Dame, has been elected a foreign fellow of the Indian National Academy of Engineering.
With this election, he joins an elite group of engineers from India who are also leaders in the United States. Earlier this year Kareem was elected a member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering (NAE), one of the highest professional distinctions accorded to an engineer who has made outstanding contributions to engineering research, practice or education.
New book examines “Rashomon effect” and implications for conflict and peace
• Date: December 10, 2009 • Categories: Academics
On Oct. 28, 1967, a white police officer pulled over a black man in Oakland, Calif. Both men got shot, and the policeman died. Who pulled a gun first? And what happened after the shooting?
The answers depend on which news source you consult — the radical black newspaper (the black man was Huey Newton, founder of the Black Panthers), the moderate black newspaper, the radical white newspaper, the conservative Bay Area newspaper, or The New York Times, said Christian Davenport, a professor of peace studies, political science and sociology at the University of Notre Dame.
Fascinated by the wildly different accounts of police-Panther interactions, Davenport spent more than a year scouring newspaper archives and cataloging and analyzing the events, with funding from the National Science Foundation.
Holy Cross Father Jarret appointed superior of Moreau Seminary
• Date: December 09, 2009 • Categories: Faith and Service
Rev. Peter A. Jarret, C.S.C., religious superior of Holy Cross priests and brothers at the University of Notre Dame, has been appointed superior and rector of Moreau Seminary and coordinator of initial formation for the Indiana Province of the Congregation of Holy Cross, effective July 1.
Father Jarret has served as religious superior since 2006, with ministerial responsibility for the nearly 80 Holy Cross religious at Notre Dame. Prior to that appointment, he had served for five years as rector of Keough Hall, and as counselor to Rev. Edward A. Malloy, C.S.C., then Notre Dame’s president, from 2003 to 2005.
As religious superior of Holy Cross, Father Jarret is a Fellow of the University and member of the Notre Dame Board of Trustees.
A member of the provincial council of the Congregation of Holy Cross, Father Jarret serves on the University of Portland’s Board of Regents and chairs the board of Life Treatment Center. He also teaches courses on pastoral administration and the Sacrament of Reconciliation in Notre Dame’s master of divinity program
Thomas P. Carney, former chairman of Notre Dame trustees, dies
• Date: December 08, 2009 • Categories: Campus and Community
Thomas P. Carney, chairman emeritus of the University of Notre Dame’s Board of Trustees, died Monday (Dec. 7) after a long illness. He was 94.
“Tom Carney was a great scientist, a great humanist, a great administrator and a great friend,” said Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, C.S.C., Notre Dame’s president during Carney’s years on the Board. “The Notre Dame family, of which he is so treasured a member, will always remember him with gratitude, respect and love.”
Notre Dame professor invites friends and learners into Quran Circle
• Date: December 08, 2009 • Categories: Faith and Service
For most students, reading the Quran for an hour may sound like a homework assignment. For Gabriel Reynolds, associate professor of Islamic studies and theology at the University of Notre Dame, and the student members of the Quran Circle reading group, it is an extra-curricular activity with many benefits.
Established in 2004, the Quran Circle began when a few students and faculty members met informally to improve their Arabic in addition to discussing the language and the Quran.
Goldblatt receives Asian literary prize for translation
• Date: December 07, 2009 • Categories: Campus and Community
Howard Goldblatt, research professor in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Notre Dame and the foremost translator of modern and contemporary Chinese literature in the West, has been awarded the 2009 Man Asian Literary Prize for his translation of “The Boat to Redemption” by Chinese author Su Tong.
The book is about a disgraced party official forced to make a new life among the boat people resulting in revolutionary impulse.
Brockman participates in first Frontiers of Engineering Education symposium
• Date: December 03, 2009 • Categories: Academics
Jay B. Brockman, associate dean for educational programs and associate professor of computer science and engineering at the University of Notre Dame, was one of only 49 engineering researchers and educators invited to participate in the National Academy of Engineering (NAE)’s first Frontiers of Engineering Education (FOEE) symposium.
Nominated by fellow engineers or deans for their development and implementation of innovative educational approaches to engineering and covering a variety of disciplines, these young faculty members met in Herndon, Va., from Nov. 15 to 18 to share ideas regarding best practices and research in engineering education and explore innovations to help them build a stronger infrastructure for 21st-century engineering education.
Notre Dame astrophysicist to present Christmas Star lecture
• Date: December 02, 2009 • Categories: Campus and Community
University of Notre Dame astrophysicist Grant Mathews will give two presentations this month of his popular program titled “What and When was the Christmas Star?” in the Digital Visualization Theatre of Notre Dame’s Jordan Hall of Science.
The programs, which are free and open to the public, will take place at 4 p.m. Dec. 12 (Saturday) and 3 p.m. Dec. 13 (Sunday).
The Gospel of Matthew records a peculiar astronomical event that occurred at the birth of Christ. Mathews has applied the tools of modern astrophysics to the search for evidence of this event. His program will examine whether the “Christmas Star” was a nova, a super-nova or a planet alignment and discuss the possible identity of the “wise men from the East.”
New book offers blueprint to build a more clever student
• Date: November 30, 2009 • Categories: Campus and Community
College-bound students know they have to be book-smart in order to get in to a top school. But when it comes to impressing professors and standing out in the crowd, good grades are only one part of the equation.
A new book by a University of Notre Dame psychologist emphasizes the importance of “practical intelligence” and offers advice to new college students on how to give their teachers what they really want and get the most out of their hard-earned – and often expensive – college education.
College of Science programs find opportunities in laboratories for undergrads
• Date: November 25, 2009 • Categories: Campus and Community and Research
Undergraduate research, a longstanding natural element of a College of Science education at the University of Notre Dame, has accelerated in recent years with an increased commitment to make such opportunities available in a systematic way.
New and expanded programs, both during the academic year and during the summer, are bringing more students into research, with the goal that any science student who wants them can have access to research opportunities.
Notre Dame theologian Gary Anderson examines sin
• Date: November 25, 2009 • Categories: Campus and Community and Faith and Service
G.K. Chesterton famously described original sin as “the only part of Christian theology which can really be proved.” Not everyone agrees with Chesterton, but the abundance of evidence in support of his assertion is certainly compelling.
Familiarity with the effects of sin, overuse and abuse of the term and the exhaustion of religious vocabulary seem to have dulled the culture’s appreciation for this intrinsic element of human life and striving.
Father Mark Poorman to step down as VP for student affairs; to be succeeded by Father Thomas Doyle
• Date: November 24, 2009 • Categories: Campus and Community
After 11 years as vice president for student affairs at the University of Notre Dame, Rev. Mark L. Poorman, C.S.C., will leave the position to return to the theology faculty, effective June 30. He will be succeeded by Rev. Thomas P. Doyle, C.S.C., the executive vice president at the University of Portland.
“Father Poorman has provided outstanding service to the students, faculty and staff of Notre Dame as our vice president for student affairs,” said Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C. “On behalf of the University community, I thank him for his organizational leadership, his generous contributions as a Holy Cross priest-administrator, and, most importantly, his wholehearted dedication to our students. I look forward to continued collaboration with him in our efforts to reach our academic aspirations and to deepen Notre Dame’s Catholic identity.
