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Empowering through education: A pathway out of poverty for children in India

2025-02-03T13:25:00-05:00

When Anaya was in third grade in a primary school outside Hyderabad, India, she was told she would have to arrive an hour before the other students each day to clean the classrooms and toilets. Once she reached her class, she was often isolated, bullied, and overlooked.

Because she was born into a tribal community, Anaya was defined as a second-class student who would never rise above manual labor status.

Although the caste system in India was formally abolished in 1950, the effects of a hierarchy that was in place for more than 3,000 years are still evident today. Many people in India still adhere to the view that those born into the impoverished lower castes and tribal groups are not equal and can never achieve upward mobility.

After years of isolation and mistreatment at school, Anaya entered a residential school specifically for girls from vulnerable groups in fifth grade. Her first semester was difficult. Four hours away from home and feeling homesick, she often cried at night and had trouble concentrating in the classroom. When her father visited, she begged to go home.

But all that changed for Anaya in sixth grade—when Project Sampoorna was implemented in her school.

Read the story

Editor’s note: The names of the Indian students throughout this story have been changed to protect their privacy.

Notre Dame to celebrate 10th annual Walk the Walk Week

2025-01-22T13:30:00-05:00

The University of Notre Dame’s 10th annual Walk the Walk Week, planned each year around Martin Luther King Jr. Day, will take place Jan. 27 (Monday) through Feb. 1 (Saturday). The week will feature a series of events, exhibits and discussions designed to invite members of the Notre Dame community to reflect — both individually and collectively — on how they can take an active role in making the University more welcoming and participate in building the Beloved Community at Notre Dame and beyond.

The week’s events will begin with an annual Candlelight Prayer Service at 7 p.m. Monday in the Basilica of the Sacred Heart, with University President Rev. Robert A. Dowd, C.S.C., presiding. The service, which is open to the public and will be livestreamed, will feature a keynote reflection from 2024 Laetare Medalist Claire Babineaux-Fontenot, chief executive officer of Feeding America.

Claire Babineaux-Fontenot, CEO of Feeding America

Babineaux-Fontenot, a leader and advocate dedicated to combating hunger and strengthening communities, has led Feeding America — now the nation’s largest charity — since 2018. She previously served on Walmart’s leadership team, most recently as executive vice president and global treasurer.

The prayer service will be followed by a candlelight march to the Sacred Heart of Jesus statue and a dessert reception in the Center for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in the LaFortune Student Center.

A campus-wide donation drive is also part of this year’s Walk the Walk Week. Notre Dame faculty, staff and students are encouraged to donate new supplies including personal hygiene items, diapers, socks, and winter hats and gloves to support individuals in the South Bend community facing hardship and housing insecurity. Dropboxes have been placed around campus, and donations will be accepted until Tuesday.

On Feb. 1 (Saturday), all students — undergraduate and graduate — are invited to gather in Duncan Student Center to sort the donations and package care kits for four local organizations: The Center for the Homeless, Hope Ministries, Our Lady of the Road and St. Margaret’s House. This initiative is co-sponsored by Notre Dame Student Government, the Office of Public Affairs and Communications, and Procurement Services, in partnership with the Office of the President.

The week will include more than 20 additional campus events sponsored by various University departments and student organizations. A full list is available at walkthewalk.nd.edu.

Notre Dame 91��Ƶ of Architecture hosts annual summit for 100-Mile Coalition

2024-12-04T11:00:00-05:00

Marianne Cusato, director of the Housing and Community Regeneration Initiative, presents during a charrette in downtown Elkhart (Photo by Matt Cashore/University of Notre Dame)

On Saturday (Dec. 7), the University of Notre Dame’s 91��Ƶ of Architecture will host its second annual summit for the 100-Mile Coalition. Created by the school’s Housing and Community Regeneration Initiative, the coalition comprises community leaders from cities within a 100-mile radius of the University.

The 100-Mile Coalition seeks to bring together city and nonprofit organization leaders who are working toward solutions related to housing shortages, disinvested communities, failed infrastructure and stagnant economic growth, as well as talent and workforce retention.

“We are living in a unique time where cities with place-based visions are able to unlock millions of dollars in grant funding,” said Stefanos Polyzoides, the Francis and Kathleen Rooney Dean of the 91��Ƶ of Architecture. “The goal of this event is to assist communities in learning how to implement projects that drive catalytic development, attract investment and serve as models of positive growth.”

The 91��Ƶ of Architecture launched the coalition last year with participants from the cities of South Bend, Gary and La Porte in Indiana, as well as representatives from the Health Foundation of La Porte, the Greater Elkhart Chamber of Commerce, Habitat for Humanity of St. Joseph County and the city of Kalamazoo, Michigan. The summit has expanded this year to include representatives of regional housing nonprofits, community foundations and county representatives.

“The coalition has formed a network to share knowledge and solutions for common planning and development issues,” said Marianne Cusato, director of the Housing and Community Regeneration Initiative. “The case studies and research generated will offer support to communities both nationally and globally.”

The Housing and Community Regeneration Initiative began in 2021 and has since conducted eight Dean’s Charrettes throughout northern Indiana and southwest Michigan. It seeks to provide ideas and opportunities for partnership among participating municipalities. Each charrette comprises a series of community listening sessions followed by a weeklong public planning and design session. It results in a final report with recommendations and action items for community leaders to begin to rebuild and revitalize their city’s downtown and neighborhoods.

With the goal of growing the network of participants, the summit will include keynote addresses and roundtable discussions post-charrette on key topics that include next steps, creating action plans, overcoming barriers and economic and physical changes.

Contact: Carrie Gates, associate director of media relations, 574-993-9220 or c.gates@nd.edu

‘Show kindness and compassion’: In Fr. TED Talks, Notre Dame community explores what we owe each other

2024-11-05T15:00:00-05:00

University President Rev. Robert A. Dowd, C.S.C., speaks at the Fr. TED Talks event on Oct. 29. (Photo by Matt Cashore / University of Notre Dame)

Last Monday and Tuesday evenings (Oct. 28 and 29), hundreds gathered under a tent on the Library Lawn to attend a Notre Dame Forum event titled “Fr. TED Talks: Ideas from the Catholic Social Tradition That We Find Inspiring.”

The event featured a series of eight speakers from the Notre Dame community, culminating in a talk by University President Rev. Robert A. Dowd, C.S.C. Each explored the question at the heart of the 2024-25 Notre Dame Forum: “What Do We Owe Each Other?”

The two-night festival, co-sponsored by the Office of the President in partnership with the Notre Dame Ethics Initiative and the Institute for Ethics and the Common Good, was named in honor of legendary University of Notre Dame President Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, C.S.C. The idea for the talks originated with the institute’s undergraduate core team.

“Father Bob has asked us to spend this year thinking as a campus community about what we owe each other — a question that is at the very heart of the Catholic social tradition,” said Meghan Sullivan, the Wilsey Family College Professor of Philosophy and director of the Institute for Ethics and the Common Good and the Notre Dame Ethics Initiative, who introduced the event.

“While many of the Forum events feature speakers from outside of our community, with this event, we want to shine the spotlight on all of the incredible insights we have right here within our Notre Dame family. So tonight, all of you, our whole community, you are the stars of the Forum. Fr. TED Talks are a chance for us to ask the question of what we owe each other a little bit more personally and a little bit more face to face.”

The event was emceed by Iliana Contreras, the young alumni/student program director in Notre Dame’s Alumni Association. Each night included four 10-minute talks touching on common themes and values including dignity, responsibility, community, solidarity, home, family and love.

Featured speakers included Notre Dame alumni Nathaniel “Nano” Burke, who spoke about an 80-day, coast-to-coast bicycle trip he took with a friend and the “radical generosity” they received from strangers along the way; Alex Sejdinaj, whose encounter with a Notre Dame adviser encouraged her to pursue her passions and ultimately led her to found South Bend Code 91��Ƶ — an organization dedicated to making technology education accessible to learners of all ages; and Dr. Jim O’Connell, president of the Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program.

O’Connell spoke about his work with the homeless population, particularly one man named Michael, whom he had helped to care for for decades. “I think we owe each other to stick with each other,” O’Connell said. “It’s walking with people through the thick and the thin, the bad and the good, but being there with them.

“We used to think it was the outcomes we were looking for, and we stopped thinking like that. We’re in it to take care of people and take care of each other — no matter what happens — because standing with each other is what it’s all about.”

Three Notre Dame undergraduate students also shared insights related to their research and personal experiences. Toni Akintola, a junior majoring in computer science and economics, focused on using technology to transform the world and uplift the vulnerable. Artificial intelligence, in particular, he said, has the potential to eradicate institutional instabilities, raise the standard of health care and end educational inequity globally. Junior Meera Bhakta, a science preprofessional studies major, shared her experience conducting research in Ethiopia on the decision-making factors behind women seeking treatment for breast cancer and how it helped her to understand that “being fully known and truly loved is a fundamental human need.” Monica Caponigro, a senior majoring in film, television and theater, explored how an improvisational theater technique called “yes, and” can be used to demonstrate the power of active listening to cultivate deeper relationships.

And Cecilia Lucero, director of the Balfour-Hesburgh Scholars program and an advising professor, centered her talk on the healing power of storytelling. She spoke of seeing firsthand the power of sharing one’s experiences — through an oral history project she encountered while volunteering, where refugees were able to process trauma by sharing their stories, and through the annual student-produced “Show Some Skin” monologues at Notre Dame, for which she is a faculty adviser.

Father Dowd concluded the event by reflecting on two interrelated crises the world faces today — a crisis of civility and a crisis of sustainability — and proposing action steps to address both issues. He encouraged the audience to take four key actions: to develop a greater awareness of the problems, to take time to reflect and be in touch with the spiritual, to align actions with intentions and to promote change in positive ways.

In his talk, Father Dowd cited two of his personal heroes, Gandhi and Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., noting that both helped to create a more civil, humane and just society.

“So how do we do this? Show kindness and compassion, making sure that we’re not engaged in self-righteous behavior that demonizes others,” Father Dowd said. “Collaborate. Be willing to work together and even find common cause with those with whom you don’t agree. Take the long view. Don’t be hoodwinked by short-term objectives.

“Notre Dame is a place where we hope that all of our research and all the teaching and learning that goes on here makes the world more humane and just, more civil and sustainable. Notre Dame is a place where we believe that spirituality is important, and hopefully, everyone here at Notre Dame feels an invitation to get in touch with the spiritual — that deepest part of ourselves that calls us to turn outward in service of others.”

A reception on the lawn followed the talks on both evenings, with performances by student bands Block 250 on Monday and the Mourning Doves on Tuesday.

Recordings of the talks are available at forum.nd.edu.

Notre Dame Forum to present ‘Fr. TED Talks’ on Catholic social tradition, featuring President Rev. Robert A. Dowd, C.S.C., and Dr. Jim O’Connell

2024-10-17T13:15:00-04:00

The Hesburgh Library (Photo by Barbara Johnston/University of Notre Dame)

Honoring the legacy of legendary University of Notre Dame President Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, C.S.C., the 2024-25 Notre Dame Forum will host “Fr. TED Talks: Ideas from the Catholic Social Tradition That We Find Inspiring,” a two-night festival on Oct. 28 and 29.

The event will be held from 7 to 9 p.m. both days on the Library Lawn and will feature a series of short talks exploring how the pillars of Catholic social tradition animate our lives together, as part of this year’s Notre Dame Forum theme, “What Do We Owe Each Other?”

“Catholic social thought gives us robust tools to think about how to engage with people whose perspectives are different from our own, and how we might promote healing in the midst of suffering, division and injustice,” said University President Rev. Robert A. Dowd, C.S.C. “I look forward to hearing the various talks as we reflect on our responsibilities to one another as individuals and as part of the Notre Dame community.”

Co-sponsored by the Office of the President, in partnership with the Notre Dame Ethics Initiative and the Institute for Ethics and the Common Good, the talks are free and open to the public.

“The Catholic social tradition is the beating heart of Notre Dame’s community, and we’re thrilled to partner with Fr. Dowd and the Notre Dame Forum on a two-day festival to celebrate all of the ways this spirit inspires us,” said Meghan Sullivan, the Wilsey Family College Professor of Philosophy and director of the Institute for Ethics and the Common Good and the Notre Dame Ethics Initiative.

“We hope that this will become another chapter in Notre Dame’s tradition of building up our hearts alongside our minds.”

The idea for the event originated with the Institute for Ethics and the Common Good’s undergraduate core team, explained Adam Gustine, associate director of signature course fellowships, education and formation. “I was impressed with the students’ commitment to highlighting voices from every corner of campus, bringing unique perspectives to the question of what we owe each other.”

Each night will feature four 10-minute Fr. TED Talks, ending with addresses by Notre Dame alumnus Dr. Jim O’Connell on Monday and Father Dowd on Tuesday.

O’Connell, the president of the Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program and an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical 91��Ƶ, has dedicated his career to caring for the homeless population. He has served as the national program director of the Homeless Families Program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and is the editor of “The Health Care of Homeless Persons: A Manual of Communicable Diseases and Common Problems in Shelters and on the Streets.”

In addition to Father Dowd and O’Connell, six speakers were selected through an application process open to all members of the Notre Dame community. The speakers include alumni Nathaniel “Nano” Burke and Alex Sedinaj; undergraduate students Toni Akintola, Meera Bhakta and Monica Caponigro; and Cecilia Lucero, director of the University’s Balfour-Hesburgh Scholars Program.

The event will be emceed by Iliana Contreras, the young alumni/student program director in Notre Dame’s Alumni Association. A short reception will follow on both nights, including refreshments and performances by student bands.

Contact: Carrie Gates, associate director of media relations, 574-993-9220, c.gates@nd.edu

‘Great powers don’t mind their own business’: Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice warns of perils of US isolationism at Notre Dame Forum event

2024-10-16T09:00:00-04:00

Former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice talks with Notre Dame President Rev. Robert A. Dowd, C.S.C., during a Notre Dame Forum event titled “The Perils of U.S. Isolationism.” (Photo by Matt Cashore/University of Notre Dame)

As part of the 2024-25 Notre Dame Forum, Condoleezza Rice, the 66th U.S. Secretary of State, the Tad and Dianne Taube Director of the Hoover Institution and a University of Notre Dame alumna, returned to campus Friday (Oct. 11) to speak to an overflow crowd of more than 1,000 people in the DeBartolo Performing Arts Center and hundreds more online.

In a conversation with University President Rev. Robert A. Dowd, C.S.C., Rice stressed the importance of the United States continuing to engage globally amid current challenges.

John McGreevy, the Charles and Jill Fischer Provost, opened the event by welcoming Rice and Father Dowd to the stage and introducing this year’s Forum theme, “What Do We Owe Each Other?”

Father Dowd then introduced Rice, “a fellow political scientist,” and asked her to elaborate on her recent Foreign Affairs article in which she wrote, “The world still needs the United States and the United States still needs the world.” Rice warned of emerging trends she terms “the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse” — populism, nativism, isolationism and protectionism — noting that they tend to ride together.

“I understand that Americans may feel tired after almost 80 years of international leadership,” she said, “and what I really want to say to Americans is that great powers don’t mind their own business. They try to shape the world. And if we don’t shape it, the great powers that will shape it are authoritarians like China and Russia. And we won’t like that world.”

Father Dowd and Rice went on to discuss the complex relationship between the United States and China, one in which the two countries are deeply interconnected but also economic and security rivals, and the need for a more nuanced U.S. policy to maintain a workable relationship with China.

Rice encouraged U.S. universities, in particular, to stay open to Chinese students.

“With universities, let’s stay open. Let’s stay true to ourselves,” she said. “If we do what we do best, which is educate, and do it as much as we can without regard to national boundaries, we’ll win the innovation war.”

Father Dowd turned the conversation to Russia, asking Rice what she foresees happening in the war in Ukraine and where the U.S. stands. She outlined three key miscalculations she believes Russian President Vladimir Putin made: failing to recognize Ukraine’s strong national identity, overestimating the prowess of his own army and mistakenly believing that other countries would not come to Ukraine’s aid.

“We need to make him pay for those miscalculations,” she said. “We need to keep supporting [Ukrainians], because if Vladimir Putin wins this war, he won’t stop.”

Rice and Father Dowd also discussed China’s growing influence on other parts of the world — especially on the Global South through its infrastructure development strategy dubbed the Belt and Road Initiative — and what the United States’ role should be in offering alternatives.

“We can’t say, whether it’s to Africa or Latin America, ‘don’t do those deals with China,’ and then do nothing ourselves,” she said. “Our way of doing this has to be to help with the nonprofits that we fund to build the capacity of these countries, to help them fight corruption and to help them improve women’s rights. I’ve often said if I could wave a magic wand and do one thing that would make development easier, I would improve the lot of women in the Global South.”

Rice, who earned a master’s degree in government and international studies from Notre Dame in 1975, also took questions from two Notre Dame undergraduate students. She concluded her remarks by saying how special the University is to her and offering advice to the Notre Dame students in the audience.

“I want to say something, particularly, to the students here: One of the most important values that you can develop is the willingness to listen to those with whom you don’t agree,” Rice said. “It is very easy in the days of the internet to go to your tribe, to your aggregators, your influencers, your websites, and only talk to people who think like you do.

“Particularly in a university, our search for truth means that we all have to be open to the possibility that we are wrong. And I’m delighted that Notre Dame is providing so many opportunities and so many fora for you to do that.”

Rice served on the University’s Board of Trustees from 1994 until 2001 when she was appointed national security adviser by President George W. Bush. In 2005, she became the second woman and first Black woman to serve as secretary of state and remained in that role throughout Bush’s second term in office.

A recording of the conversation is available at forum.nd.edu.

ND Expert: Han Kang, first Korean writer to win Nobel Prize in literature, ‘has irrevocably changed the landscape’

2024-10-15T09:30:00-04:00

Hayun Cho, assistant professor of Korean literature and popular culture

On Oct. 10, the Nobel Prize in literature was awarded to Han Kang, the first Asian woman writer and the first Korean writer to win the prize. According to Hayun Cho, an assistant professor of Korean literature and popular culture at the University of Notre Dame, Han’s win is moving for many, including for readers of the Korean diaspora.

“Han, whose writing career spans more than two decades, has irrevocably changed the contemporary landscape of Korean literature,” Cho said. “Winning the prize or not winning it does not change this fact. Han’s grounded response to the prize, such as her refusal to hold a press conference, exhibits a courageous dedication to literary practice on her own terms.”

Han’s writing demands “a commitment to witnessing strangeness, difference, violence and transcendence in the human experience,” Cho noted, with the author’s lyrical prose marked by “sharp testimonial instincts, tending to entanglements between the personal and political.”

“Han’s work lingers at what has been silenced and unravels what has been normalized,” she said. “Han has been received by many readers as a feminist writer due to her subversive portrayals of gendered and sexualized embodiment in her fictional works such as ‘The Vegetarian,’ which begins with a corporate worker’s description of his wife, whom he describes as passive and unremarkable. The novel is set into motion through the woman’s refusal to eat meat and wear a bra, revealing fragmented glimpses into her surreal interiority consisting of violent dreams and memories.

“Han’s other novels such as ‘Human Acts,’ which confronts traumas of the May 1980 Gwangju uprising, and ‘Greek Lessons,’ which follows the relationship between a grieving woman and her Greek teacher, interrogate what it means to narrativize loss.”

Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to speak at Notre Dame Forum event

2024-10-04T14:30:00-04:00

Condoleezza Rice, the 66th U.S. Secretary of State, the Tad and Dianne Taube Director of the Hoover Institution and a Notre Dame alumna, will participate in a “fireside chat” with University President Rev. Robert A. Dowd, C.S.C., at 4 p.m. Friday (Oct. 11) as part of the 2024-25 Notre Dame Forum.

The conversation, titled “The Perils of U.S. Isolationism,” will take place in the Leighton Concert Hall in the DeBartolo Performing Arts Center and will also be livestreamed. The event is free, but ticketed, with tickets available on a first-come, first-served basis beginning one hour beforehand.

Rice will discuss challenges faced by the United States and the global community in a post-pandemic world — from the rise of authoritarianism and military expressionism by China and Russia to the declining resolve and effectiveness of international institutions and long-term alliances threatened by ongoing conflicts.

Rice will reflect on the path forward for our nation and the world as part of the exploration of this year’s Notre Dame Forum theme, “What Do We Owe Each Other?”

In a recent Foreign Affairs article, Rice outlined the perils of choosing isolationism for both the United States and the global order and described how to best build an effective internationalist foreign policy to meet the challenges of the current moment.

Rice, who earned a master’s degree in government and international studies from Notre Dame in 1975, served on the University’s Board of Trustees from 1994 until 2001 when she was appointed national security adviser by President George W. Bush. She was the first woman to hold the position. In 2005, she became the second woman and first Black woman to serve as secretary of state and remained in that role throughout Bush’s second term in office.

Before serving on the University’s Board, Rice was a member of Notre Dame’s College of Arts and Letters advisory council. In 1995, she received an honorary doctor of laws degree and was the principal speaker at Notre Dame’s Commencement Ceremony. She joined Bush on the platform during the University’s 2001 Commencement, when the president received an honorary degree and delivered the principal address.

Rice earned her bachelor’s degree and doctoral degree in political science at the University of Denver. In addition to directing the Hoover Institution, she is a professor of political science and a senior fellow on public policy at Stanford University, as well as the Denning Professor in Global Business and the Economy in the Stanford Graduate 91��Ƶ of Business. She served as provost of Stanford for six years in the 1990s. In addition, she is a founding partner of Rice, Hadley, Gates & Manuel LLC, an international strategic consulting firm.

Contact: Carrie Gates, associate director of media relations, 574-993-9220 or c.gates@nd.edu

Notre Dame to host conference on St. Thomas Aquinas, commemorating 800th anniversary of his birth

2024-09-17T11:30:00-04:00

For centuries, the work of St. Thomas Aquinas has informed academic inquiry into issues of human dignity, freedom, economic development, work, poverty, the environment and other matters of global significance.

To commemorate the 800th anniversary of his birth, the University of Notre Dame will host a conference Sunday through Wednesday (Sept. 22-25) celebrating Aquinas’ enduring importance to contemporary cultural, philosophical and theological discussions.

“Aquinas at 800: ‘Ad multos annos’” will be the largest conference of its kind, with more than 500 in-person attendees and more than 150 speakers.

Those interested in participating may also register to attend via Zoom.

Therese Cory

The event offers people who may have preconceived notions about Aquinas a chance to take another look, said Therese Cory, the John and Jean Oesterle Associate Professor of Thomistic 91��Ƶ, the director of the Jacques Maritain Center and one of the event’s organizers.

“If they thought he wasn’t relevant anymore, this conference might offer them reason to think, ‘Wow, his thought is still flourishing and able to help us think through the problems that we have today,’” Cory said. “They’ll have a chance to see how wide and expansive his work really is.”

The conference will begin at 4 p.m. Sunday with an opening Mass at the University’s Basilica of the Sacred Heart. Rev. Kevin Grove, C.S.C., an associate professor of theology, will serve as celebrant.

Three esteemed faculty members from the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas in Rome will present at the conference. Rev. Serge-Thomas Bonino, O.P., the dean of the faculty of philosophy and president of the Pontifical Academy of Saint Thomas Aquinas, and Rev. Thomas Joseph White, O.P., the university’s rector magnificus, will each offer a keynote address. Fr. Wojciech Giertych, O.P., a theologian of the Papal Household and professor of moral theology, will offer opening remarks.

A concluding Mass will be held at 5:15 p.m. Wednesday in the Basilica.

One of Aquinas’ most enduring and important contributions is his ability to bring together concepts that often appear to be in conflict, Cory said, such as faith and reason or human embodiment as flesh-and-blood creatures and human transcendence in communion with God.

“Holding those two dimensions at the same time has always been a challenge for philosophers, and for Aquinas, it informs everything he has to say about who we are as human beings,” Cory said. “I think that’s a crucial lesson for us today, because in our society we have a tendency to emphasize materialistic pleasures and consumerism at the expense of our more transcendent, spiritual needs. At the same time, we are in danger of over-abstractifying our lives as humans — communicating through screens and phones, living in an abstract space in our minds — and forgetting that we are embodied creatures.”

Likewise, Aquinas saw science and religion not as separate realms, but as deeply connected, Cory said. “Our scientific endeavors and our thinking about God have to be able to come together into a single space where we’re able to think and reason and talk with other people about what we’re learning and learn from them as well. Aquinas provides us with a model for a harmonious relationship between faith and reason.”

As a Catholic research institution, Notre Dame takes all branches of knowledge seriously — faith and reason, theology and philosophy, and religion and science — making the University an ideal choice to host this flagship event, Cory said.

“Notre Dame is also one of the best places in the world to do medieval philosophy research,” she said. “We have an incredibly strong community in philosophy and theology who work on medieval figures, and particularly on the thought of Aquinas. So, it made sense for us to take the lead in organizing this. We are thrilled to host what will be the largest gathering of scholars celebrating Aquinas during this anniversary year.

“And for our Notre Dame students, the conference allows them to see the sheer number of people who are working on Aquinas and the variety of disciplines, locations and institutions they represent. It lets students see that when they’re studying Aquinas, it’s not just an item on a syllabus — they’re part of this community, too.”

Notre Dame President Emeritus Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C., visits key sites in Lviv, Ukraine

2024-09-06T14:40:00-04:00

Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C., president emeritus of the University of Notre Dame, recently visited the Ukrainian Catholic University (UCU) and key sites in Lviv, Ukraine, as a sign of Notre Dame’s continued support for the university and its students.

It was his first international trip on behalf of Notre Dame since stepping down from the presidency at the end of the 2023-24 academic year.

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, Notre Dame has significantly expanded its support and partnership with UCU. The University’s Standing in Solidarity initiative has brought dozens of students, faculty and staff from UCU to the Notre Dame campus and has supported collaborative research projects between UCU and Notre Dame faculty.

“Notre Dame has for many years, through its Nanovic Institute for European 91��Ƶ, hosted visiting scholars from UCU on campus, and in turn our scholars have spent time there,” Father Jenkins said. “Now, as the Ukrainians resist the Russian invasion of their country, the role of UCU is critical to fostering Ukrainian identity through scholarship and educating the generation who will be tasked with rebuilding their war-ravaged nation and creating a new future for the people of Ukraine.”

Father Jenkins was accompanied on the trip by UCU Senator and former Ambassador of Canada to Ukraine Larysa Galadza, whose mother, Iryna Galadza, was also awarded an honorary degree. They began by visiting the Field of Honor in Lviv, a cemetery where Ukrainian soldiers who have died during the ongoing Russian war against Ukraine are buried.

“Coming to this place, you’re able to see the human cost of the war,” Father Jenkins said, “the brothers, the sons, the husbands who have lost their lives. And it’s represented here powerfully in these beautiful tributes and these flowers and flags. I hope we can find a just peace, a peace that allows Ukraine to be free.”

The delegation also toured the Garrison Church of Saints Peter and Paul and visited Superhumans, a Ukrainian center for prosthetics, reconstructive surgery, rehabilitation and psychological support for adults and children affected by the war. While there, Father Jenkins spoke with soldiers undergoing rehabilitation and offered his prayers and blessings.

“The notion of solidarity means we’re all connected in an important way, and the struggles, the injustices of the people of Ukraine are our problem and something we should be concerned about as well. It’s not just another part of the world — these are human beings that are part of the human family,” he said. “It’s a reminder that we’re all interconnected, and we must always remember that and never tire of working for justice and working for peace around the world.”

Sadly, a day after Father Jenkins departed, a Russian bomb took the lives of UCU student Daria Bazylevych and three members of her family. “We must continue to pray for those at UCU and all of Ukraine,” Father Jenkins said.

Notre Dame researchers create new tool to analyze embodied carbon in more than 1 million buildings in Chicago

2024-09-03T15:30:00-04:00

Ming Hu, associate dean for research, scholarship and creative work in Notre Dame’s 91��Ƶ of Architecture, and graduate student Siavash Ghorbany created the first ever visual analysis tool to evaluate embodied carbon in more than 1 million buildings in Chicago.

The built environment — which includes the construction and operation of buildings, highways, bridges and other infrastructure — is responsible for close to 40 percent of the global greenhouse gas emissions contributing to climate change.

Ming Hu

While many building codes and benchmarks have focused on constructing “greener,” more energy-efficient new buildings, it is not enough to seek to reduce emissions in operations, said Ming Hu, the associate dean for research, scholarship and creative work in Notre Dame’s 91��Ƶ of Architecture. Rather, policymakers and industry leaders must take a broader view by examining the role of embodied carbon in existing buildings.

Embodied carbon represents the amount of greenhouse gas emissions associated with the entire life cycle of a product, including the extraction, production and transfer of materials; the manufacture of the product or building; and its eventual disposal or demolition. In the construction field, materials such as asphalt, concrete and steel, in particular, have dire consequences for the environment.

The impact of embodied carbon in the built environment has been difficult to assess, however, due to a lack of data. To address that knowledge gap, Hu and Siavash Ghorbany, a Notre Dame graduate student in civil and environmental engineering, have created a new way to analyze the embodied carbon in more than 1 million buildings in Chicago.

Their recently published research identifies 157 different architectural housing types in the city and provides the first ever visual analysis tool to evaluate embodied carbon at a granular level and to help inform policymakers seeking to strategically plan for urban carbon mitigation.

“Before, it was often difficult to visualize this concept and to make a case for why we want to preserve and reuse existing buildings,” Hu said. “We feel this is a more clear, direct way to help the policymaker or layperson make informed decisions. If I were the mayor of Chicago, I could look at this and say, ‘OK, before I tear down this building, I have to think twice because there’s already a lot of carbon embedded in this structure. Do I want to retrofit and reuse this building, or do I want to knock it down and build new, which will increase the overall embodied carbon?’”

Siavash Ghorbany

Hu and Ghorbany were able to identify emissions-intensive geographic zones and specific archetypes within the city — delivering actionable data to urban development stakeholders. They also found that increasing the average lifespan of buildings from the current 50 years to 75 years, and reducing their size by just 20 percent, can decrease their carbon emissions by two-thirds.

Hu emphasized that her research has found no scenario where tearing down an existing building to build something new — even if that new building is more energy efficient — makes sense, from an environmental perspective.

“If we look at the building’s entire lifespan, renovating the existing building has significantly lower carbon emissions over its whole life cycle, including operational and embodied carbon,” said Hu, who is also an affiliated faculty member in the College of Engineering. “That’s because the ‘payback period’ for constructing a new building is typically 20 years due to the high level of greenhouse gas emissions created by its construction. So, if we can extend a building’s life cycle to 70 or 80 years, then reusing the existing building definitely makes more sense.

“We should always reuse existing buildings. The real question is just to what extent we want to renovate and retrofit them.”

Hu and Ghorbany selected Chicago for a number of reasons, including its close proximity to Notre Dame, its architectural history — and because the city is ranked as the 8th highest for greenhouse gas emissions in the world. Going forward, they plan to scale up the project to evaluate embodied carbon in cities across the U.S.

The researchers, who received funding from the National Science Foundation, used machine learning and artificial intelligence to create an integrated dataset for their analysis, pulling from a variety of existing datasets, including the National Structure Inventory and Cook County Open Data for Chicago.

They matched the different types of data using their geolocation, then coded and categorized them based on different features, such as structural materials and roof type. From there, they multiplied the housing type’s baseline emissions by the footprint of each building to approximate its total embodied carbon.

Ghorbany, who is also a Graduate Scholar in the Lucy Family Institute for Data & Society and has an undergraduate degree in architecture, said that creating an accessible, interactive mapping tool to help visualize their findings was a top priority.

“Our goal for the end product was to create a user-friendly way to access and engage with this data,” he said. “We created this one so that you can try different scenarios by selecting which types of archetypes you want to see and filtering them by year or types of emissions. I hope that in the future, cities will be able to use this tool to reduce their carbon emissions so that we can help reduce climate change and the impacts we’re seeing from it.”

Hu agreed, and noted that the potential benefits of this research are not only environmental, but also cultural.

“First, it is crucial that we have a clear inventory of the embodied carbon in our built environment,” she said. “It’s something we’ve never had before and still don’t have nationwide. Once we have that, we can make informed decisions about how to reduce our carbon emissions, in part, by extending the lifespan of these buildings.

“And, in addition to the environmental benefits, there is social and cultural value to preserving these buildings that are part of the architectural character of the city.”

Contact: Carrie Gates, associate director of media relations, 574-993-9220, c.gates@nd.edu

ND Expert Julia Adeney Thomas: The reality of the Anthropocene

2024-08-26T11:00:00-04:00

Julia Adeney Thomas

For the last seven decades, Earth has been operating in unprecedented ways, leading many researchers to argue that we have entered a new geological epoch known as the Anthropocene.

“While it may not have been formally accepted onto the geological time scale, the Anthropocene is real and its effects have drastically and irrevocably changed the living conditions on our planet,” said Julia Adeney Thomas, a professor of history at the University of Notre Dame. “It should therefore be treated as a de facto new epoch of Earth’s history.”

That argument is at the crux of an article published today in the journal Nature and authored by Thomas, Jan Zalasiewicz and Colin Waters of Leicester University, Simon Turner of University College London and Martin Head of Brock University.

The article was also co-signed by more than 50 other researchers representing many different disciplines and institutes from around the world. It summarizes the evidence of massive physical, chemical and biological change on the planet, including the rapidly warming climate.

“For many thousands of years, large human populations coexisted with relatively stable planetary conditions and left abundant traces of their existence and their environmental impacts,” Thomas said. “But the planet is now sharply different, and the significance of these changes extends far beyond the Earth sciences to affect the social sciences, the humanities and arts — and to form a now-permanent context for the work of planners and decision-makers.”

The authors emphasize that it makes sense to precisely delimit the beginning of the Anthropocene at 1952. That year not only marks the prominent upturn of artificial radionuclide fallout around the Earth from hydrogen bomb tests, they note, but closely coincides with many other changes, such as the appearance of plastics and many other novel compounds and the rapid growth of greenhouse gases, as well as widespread social, economic and political changes as the postwar world entered a period of unprecedented growth.

“Wide acceptance of such a definition would make for more precise analysis of the many phenomena associated with the Anthropocene, and allow us to communicate clearly,” Thomas said. “The Anthropocene may have been rejected by the International Commission on Stratigraphy — for now. But it is all too alive in the real world, and we should recognize that.”

Contact: Carrie Gates, associate director of media relations, 574-993-9220, c.gates@nd.edu

ND Expert: Will ‘Brat Girl Summer’ translate into an autumn of Democratic victories? ‘It’s anybody’s guess’

2024-07-25T09:00:00-04:00

Sara Marcus

In the past three days, people on social media have embraced British pop star Charli XCX’s online pronouncement that “Kamala IS brat.”

According to Sara Marcus, an assistant professor of English at the University of Notre Dame and author of “Girls to the Front: The True Story of the Riot Grrrl Revolution,” that translates to a declaration that Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party’s presumptive new nominee for president, embodies the sort of messy, complicated, casual womanhood that the singer’s recent album, “Brat,” depicts and celebrates in a series of infectious club anthems.

Harris is credible as a “brat,” Marcus said, because “she does slip into a striking informality of address at times — whether it’s her robust, unguarded laughter or her tendency to speak off-the-cuff.”

“These elements, which had been seen as potential liabilities, and had in some cases actually been wielded as Republican opposition research to discredit her, are instead turning out to be selling points,” Marcus noted. “Young people have grown weary of meticulously fine-tuning their social media presence and of watching a stream of online influencers broadcasting seemingly perfect lives. They crave celebrities who are able to project that elusive quality of ‘authenticity.’”

In light of this, Marcus added, it’s seen as a strength, not a weakness, that Harris doesn’t fit the age-old mold of the airbrushed, focus-grouped politician.

“This shouldn’t be so surprising. After all, it is Donald Trump’s own refusal to fit that mold that has accounted for much of his political success,” she said. “His supporters appreciate that he is unfiltered, that he says what’s on his mind. It is surprising, though, that the Democrats took so long to catch up with the times.

“What happens now? Will the ‘Brat Girl Summer’ translate into an autumn of Democratic victories, or will the ‘authenticity’ engine run out of fuel? It’s anybody’s guess.”

Contact: Carrie Gates, associate director of media relations, 574-993-9220, c.gates@nd.edu

A place in history

2024-07-08T15:05:58-04:00

Spanish immersion teachers travel to DC for a firsthand look into American history and government

On a breezy early summer day, a group of Latina teachers walking through Washington, DC, happened upon a life-size bronze sculpture of 140 migrants huddled together in a small boat, titled “Angels Unawares.”

They found the sculpture—a second casting of the original in St. Peter’s Square commissioned by Pope Francis to honor migrants and refugees—on their first day in the city, after attending Mass at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception nearby.

It felt like a sign.

The 15 teachers, who are almost all immigrants to the US themselves, were in DC to learn more about American history and government, with support from Notre Dame’s English as a New Language program through the Alliance for Catholic Education (ACE). But first, they took a moment to reflect on their own journeys and how they fit into the larger history of migration—from the Holy Family to the present day.

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Notre Dame to host US Poet Laureate Ada Limón and poets Carmen Giménez and heidi andrea restrepo rhodes

2024-04-03T13:00:00-04:00

Ada Limón, Carmen Giménez and heidi andrea restrepo rhodes

The University of Notre Dame’s Institute for Latino 91��Ƶ (ILS) and Creative Writing Program will present a poetry reading and discussion on Wednesday (April 10) at 4:30 p.m., featuring Ada Limón, the U.S. Poet Laureate; Carmen Giménez, executive director and publisher of Graywolf Press; and poet and scholar heidi andrea restrepo rhodes, who uses they/them pronouns and styles their name with all lowercase letters.

The event, which takes place in the Reyes Family Board Room in McKenna Hall, is free and open to the public. It will be moderated by Laura Villareal, a poet and Letras Latinas associate. A reception and book signing will follow at 6 p.m.

The discussion is part of a yearlong celebration of the 20th anniversary of Letras Latinas — a literary initiative within ILS that strives to enhance the visibility, appreciation and study of Latino literature on and off campus.

“Throughout the life of the institute, there have been initiatives that have come and gone. But Letras Latinas is the longest standing and is still here 20 years later,” said Francisco Aragón, founder and director of the initiative. “I’m really proud of our longevity and I think this program has burnished the institute’s reputation both within the Latino literary community and nationally.”

The Letras Latinas initiative, which emphasizes programs that support newer voices, has also helped forge connections between the three poets, Aragón said. Limón and Giménez have each served as a final judge for two national poetry prizes administered by the initiative. Limón selected the winner of the Andres Montoya Poetry Prize in 2018, and Giménez chose the winner of the Lorca Latinx Poetry Prize in 2022.

“Both Ada and Carmen, years apart and independent of each other, selected heidi as the winner of those two prizes,” he said. “So, on April 10, they will both be reading with the same emerging poet they selected, which makes this roster very special.”

In addition to the public event, Limón, Giménez and rhodes will spend time visiting with undergraduate and graduate creative writing and poetry classes while on campus.

“It is a really meaningful experience when our students get to interact with writers they’ve been studying in their classes,” Aragón said. “Part of the mission of Letras Latins is to not only enhance the education of our students, but to create situations where writers are in community with each other. So, I’m particularly excited that these three poets will be able to spend this time here, forming bonds with each other and connecting with our students.”

Limón is the author of six books of poetry, including “The Carrying,” which won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry. As the 24th Poet Laureate of The United States, her signature project, “You Are Here,” focuses on how poetry can help connect us to the natural world. Giménez is the author of numerous poetry collections, including “Milk and Filth,” a finalist for the NBCC Award in Poetry, and “Be Recorder,” which was a finalist for the 2019 National Book Award in Poetry, the PEN Open Book Award, the Audre Lorde Award for Lesbian Poetry and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. She is publisher and executive director of Graywolf Press. A poet, scholar, educator and cultural worker, rhodes won the 2018 Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize for their poetry collection, “The Inheritance of Haunting.” They are a 2023 recipient of the Creative Capital Award, a VONA alum, and have received fellowships from Zoeglossia, CantoMundo, Radar, and Yale’s Center for the Study of Race, Indigeneity, and Transnational Migration.

The event is the fourth in a series of nine events in 2024 commemorating the initiative’s 20th anniversary, featuring a total of more than 20 poets. Following the series, Aragón and Villareal will guest edit a folio of the poets’ work, which will be published in the December 2024 issue of Poetry Magazine.

Claire Babineaux-Fontenot, CEO of Feeding America, to receive 2024 Laetare Medal

2024-03-10T09:00:00-04:00

Claire Babineaux-Fontenot (photo by Barbara Johnston/University of Notre Dame)

Claire Babineaux-Fontenot, the chief executive officer of Feeding America, will receive the University of Notre Dame’s 2024 Laetare Medal — the oldest and most prestigious honor given to American Catholics — at Notre Dame’s 179th University Commencement Ceremony on May 19 (Sunday).

Feeding America, a national network of more than 200 food banks and 60,000 charitable and faith-based partners, works to rescue, store and distribute food to more than 49 million people facing hunger each year. It also conducts research on food insecurity and potential solutions.

“Claire Babineaux-Fontenot has devoted herself to answering Christ’s call to feed the hungry and care for those who are most vulnerable, and in doing so has created a network that sustains millions of Americans every day,” said Notre Dame President Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C. “Under her visionary leadership, Feeding America has become a beacon of hope not only to the individuals and families it serves, but for all who share her vision of eliminating food insecurity in this country.”

Prior to joining Feeding America, Babineaux-Fontenot was executive vice president of finance and global treasurer at Walmart — the culmination of 13 years on Walmart’s leadership team and a career spanning three decades of increasingly high-profile leadership positions in government, law firms and private corporations.

However, in 2015, she felt strongly that she was being called by God to a higher purpose.

“I knew that there was someplace I was being guided to, and I knew it was going to require faith and confidence in Him,” she said. “I truly did not feel afraid, and I am so grateful for that guidance. I just trusted that He would take me to where He wanted me to be.”

Hunger is a cause that has always been close to Babineaux-Fontenot’s heart. Growing up in Opelousas, Louisiana, she was one of 108 siblings. Through a combination of birth, adoption, and fostering, her parents built a large and loving family and worked tirelessly to help children in need — many of whom had faced neglect, abuse and food insecurity before joining their home.

Serving as CEO of Feeding America feels like a full-circle moment for her, she said.

In the last six years, Babineaux-Fontenot has led the organization through a number of challenges, including navigating a global pandemic and the ensuing increase in food insecurity. Under her direction, Feeding America became the nation’s largest charitable organization in 2022, according to Forbes, and the network distributed 5.3 billion meals in 2023.

But there is still much work to do, said Babineaux-Fontenot.

“Over 10 million children are food insecure here, in the richest country in the history of civilization,” she said. “That means we need to continue to get the word out. We should help people to understand that the game isn’t over. Notre Dame knows a thing or two about football, right? You don’t leave the field before the game is over. The game’s not over with hunger.”

Babineaux-Fontenot is ready to continue the fight. She and her team at Feeding America are seeking new ways to address food insecurity and championing new legislation in Congress. They recently announced a partnership with the Department of Health and Human Services to explore the link between food insecurity and health outcomes.

“Success for Feeding America is having a place at the table in thriving communities where people are creating solutions for themselves,” she said, “and an America where no one — no one — has to wonder where their next meal is going to come from, or the one after that or the one after that.

“That’s my vision, and it’s all possible. These are not pipe dreams.”

Babineaux-Fontenot holds a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette; a Juris Doctor from Southern University Law Center in Baton Rouge, Louisiana; and a Master of Laws in taxation from Southern Methodist University Dedman 91��Ƶ of Law in Dallas. In 2020, she was named one of the world’s 100 most influential people by Time magazine and was featured in the 2022 Forbes “50 over 50” list.

The Laetare (pronounced lay-TAH-ray) Medal is so named because its recipient is announced each year in celebration of Laetare Sunday, the fourth Sunday in Lent on the Church calendar. “Laetare,” the Latin word for “rejoice,” is the first word in the entrance antiphon of the Mass that Sunday, which ritually anticipates the celebration of Easter. The medal bears the Latin inscription, “Magna est veritas et praevalebit” (“Truth is mighty, and it shall prevail”).

Established at Notre Dame in 1883, the Laetare Medal was conceived as an American counterpart of the Golden Rose, a papal honor that antedates the 11th century. The medal has been awarded annually at Notre Dame to a Catholic “whose genius has ennobled the arts and sciences, illustrated the ideals of the Church and enriched the heritage of humanity.”

Previous recipients of the Laetare Medal include Civil War Gen. William Rosecrans, operatic tenor John McCormack, President John F. Kennedy, Catholic Worker founder Dorothy Day, novelist Walker Percy, Vice President Joe Biden and Speaker of the House John Boehner (awarded jointly), Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, labor activist Monsignor George G. Higgins, jazz composer Dave Brubeck, singer Aaron Neville and actor Martin Sheen.

Researchers use AI, Google Street View to predict household energy costs on large scale

2024-02-26T11:15:00-05:00

Notre Dame researchers analyzed Google Street View images of residential buildings in Chicago to predict household energy expenses.

Low-income households in the United States are bearing an energy burden that is three times that of the average household, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.

In total, more than 46 million U.S. households carry a significant energy burden — meaning they pay more than 6 percent of their gross income for basic energy expenses such as cooling and heating their homes.

Passive design elements like natural ventilation can play a pivotal role in reducing energy consumption. By harnessing ambient energy sources like sunlight and wind, they can create a more comfortable environment at little or no cost. However, data on passive design is scarce, making it difficult to assess the energy savings on a large scale.

Ming Hu (Photo by Barbara Johnston/University of Notre Dame)

To address that need, an interdisciplinary team of experts from the University of Notre Dame, in collaboration with faculty at the University of Maryland and University of Utah, have found a way to use artificial intelligence to analyze a household’s passive design characteristics and predict its energy expenses with more than 74 percent accuracy.

By combining their findings with demographic data including poverty levels, the researchers have created a comprehensive model for predicting energy burden across 1,402 census tracts and nearly 300,000 households in the Chicago metropolitan area. Their research was published this month in the journal Building and Environment.

The results yield invaluable insights for policymakers and urban planners, said Ming Hu, associate dean for research, scholarship and creative work in the 91��Ƶ of Architecture, allowing them to identify neighborhoods that are most vulnerable — and paving the way toward smart and sustainable cities.

“When families cannot afford air conditioning or heat, it can lead to dire health risks,” Hu said. “And these risks are only exacerbated by climate change, which is expected to increase both the frequency and intensity of extreme temperature events. There is an urgent and real need to find low-cost, low-tech solutions to help reduce energy burden and to help families prepare for and adapt to our changing climate.”

In addition to Hu, who is a concurrent associate professor in the College of Engineering, the Notre Dame research team includes Chaoli Wang, a professor of computer science and engineering; Siyuan Yao, a doctoral student in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering; Siavash Ghorbany, a doctoral student in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Earth Science; and Matthew Sisk, an associate professor of the practice in the Lucy Family Institute for Data and Society.

Matthew Sisk (Photo by Barbara Johnston/University of Notre Dame)

Their research, which was funded by the Lucy Institute as part of the Health Equity Data Lab, focused on three of the most influential factors in passive design: the size of windows in the dwelling, the types of windows (operable or fixed) and the percent of the building that has proper shading.

Using a convolutional neural network, the team analyzed Google Street View images of residential buildings in Chicago and then performed different machine learning methods to find the best prediction model. Their results show that passive design characteristics are associated with average energy burden and are essential for prediction models.

“The first step toward mitigating the energy burden for low-income families is to get a better understanding of the issue and to be able to measure and predict it,” Ghorbany said. “So, we asked, ‘What if we could use everyday tools and technologies like Google Street View, combined with the power of machine learning, to gather this information?’ We hope it will be a positive step toward energy justice in the United States.”

The resulting model is easily scalable and far more efficient than previous methods of energy auditing, which required researchers to go building by building through an area.

Over the next few months, the team will work with Notre Dame’s Center for Civic Innovation to evaluate residences in the local South Bend and Elkhart communities. Being able to use this model to quickly and efficiently get information to the organizations who can help local families is an exciting next step for this work, Sisk said.

“When you have an increased energy burden, where is that money being taken away from? Is it being taken from educational opportunities or nutritious food? Is it then contributing to that population becoming more disenfranchised as time goes on?” Sisk said. “When we look at systemic issues like poverty, there is no one thing that will fix it. But when there’s a thread we can pull, when there are actionable steps that can start to make it a little bit better, that’s really powerful.”

The researchers are also working toward including additional passive design characteristics in the analysis, such as insulation, cool roofs and green roofs. And eventually, they hope to scale the project up to evaluate and address energy burden disparities at the national level.

For Hu, the project is emblematic of the University’s commitments to both sustainability and helping a world in need.

“This is an issue of environmental justice. And this is what we do so well at Notre Dame — and what we should be doing,” she said. “We want to use advancements like AI and machine learning not just because they are cutting-edge technologies, but for the common good.”

Contact: Carrie Gates, associate director of media relations, 574-993-9220 or c.gates@nd.edu

In the presence of Giants

2024-02-14T10:24:00-05:00

Decades before Jackie Robinson became the first Black man to play in the major leagues, the Foundry Giants—a team of Black players working in the Studebaker factory’s foundry—were making a name for themselves as one of the strongest independent baseball teams in the Midwest.

The South Bend team played in Studebaker’s otherwise all-white industrial league in the 1920s and 1930s and saw about a half dozen of its players go on to play in the Negro Leagues.

Now, nearly a century after John “Big Pitch” Williams faced down his last batter and Dusty Riddle and Alonzo Poindexter cracked their last singles and doubles, the Giants are inspiring a new generation of ballplayers at Foundry Field.

Scheduled to open this summer, Foundry Field is a new public-access baseball field in Southeast Park and a collaborative community project led by the Sappy Moffitt Field Foundation, the University of Notre Dame’s Center for Social Concerns, the Indiana University South Bend Civil Rights Heritage Center, and South Bend Venues Parks and Arts.

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Notre Dame confers honorary degrees at academic convocation in Rome

2024-01-29T15:00:00-05:00

Honorees and University of Notre Dame administrators following an academic convocation at the Rome Global Gateway. Top row, left to right: University of Notre Dame Executive Vice President Shannon Cullinan, President-Elect Rev. Robert Dowd, C.S.C., Provost John McGreevy and Provincial Superior, U.S. Province of the Congregation of Holy Cross, Rev. William Lies, C.S.C.. Seated, left to right: University of Notre Dame Board of Trustees Chairman Jack Brennan, honoree Roberto Benigni, honoree Barbara Jatta, honoree Bishop Brian Farrell, L.C. and University of Notre Dame President Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C.

At an academic convocation on Monday (Jan. 29) at its Rome Global Gateway, the University of Notre Dame conferred honorary degrees on three distinguished leaders: Barbara Jatta, director of the Vatican Museums; Bishop Brian Farrell, L.C., secretary of the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity; and Roberto Benigni, an internationally acclaimed actor, director and poet.

John T. McGreevy, the Charles and Jill Fischer Provost and Francis A. McAnaney Professor of History, opened the convocation by welcoming the honorees and an audience that included distinguished officials of the Roman Curia and Vatican City State, members of the diplomatic corps and leaders from Italian universities.

John J. Brennan, chair of the Board of Trustees, and University President Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C., conferred the honorary degrees.

The citation for the honorary degree described Benigni as “a beloved storyteller, known for his sharp comedic wit, boundless joy and authenticity. Intent on drawing renewed attention to biblical and historical Christian texts, from the Ten Commandments to Dante’s ‘Divina Commedia’ to St. Francis’ Canticle of the Sun, he brings these treasures to life for millions of people — and in so doing, earns the admiration even of His Holiness Pope Francis.”

An ebullient Benigni offered brief remarks, noting that it was a joy to be with members of the Notre Dame community and, spreading his arms wide, saying, “I would like to give you my heart to express my thanks.”

He went on to offer a meditation on the Virgin Mary and her many representations in art. “I now have a degree in Fine Arts, but what can I say? I have immense admiration towards this prestigious University. It is dedicated to Notre Dame [Our Lady], so all we have to do is talk about the Virgin Mary.”

Benigni went on to describe three world-renowned Italian paintings — the “Madonna del Parto” by Piero della Francesca, “The Annunciation” by Lorenzo Lotto and the “Sistine Madonna” by Raphael. Della Francesca’s Madonna, he said, has “the face of a human woman, as if there were no room for the divine,” and illustrates Mary’s “particular devotion so much so that God entrusted the birth of his son to her.” For that reason, Benigni said, “she has remained in my heart.” He concluded by reciting tercets from Dante’s “Paradise” dedicated to Mary.

In conferring an honorary degree on Bishop Farrell, the University cited his generosity in placing “his life at the service of the Church in its work of unity and reconciliation” and providing “exemplary service to three popes.”

“This gentle and dedicated successor of the apostles has held fast to the conviction that the message of the Gospel is diminished by divisions among believers, that unity is a fruit of the Spirit, which must be cultivated by all the faithful, and that the imperative of ecumenism, by its very nature, calls us to attentive reverence to the worldwide oneness of Christ’s followers.”

Bishop Farrell was “immensely grateful,” he said. He outlined the many ways his work for ecumenical dialogue and Christian unity have intersected with Notre Dame, including the “Notre Dame Consultation,” a dialogue between Catholics and four Protestant denominations convened by Father Jenkins, and Notre Dame’s support of the Tantur Ecumenical Institute in Jerusalem.

“The honorary doctorate I am receiving today I see as recognition of the hugely important cause of Christian unity,” said Bishop Farrell. “The more Christians move from conflict to reconciliation and communion, the more we will be a sign and instrument of peace and the unity of the whole human family.”

The first woman to lead the Vatican Museums, Jatta was commended for her transformative leadership, knowledge of the history of art and conservation, and extraordinary dedication to the Church.

Jatta has “transformed the Museums with a vision that blends innovation and tradition,” the citation stated. “She approaches her work with the conviction that art can bridge even the deepest divides, embracing Pope Francis’ conviction that ‘art is the clearest proof that the Incarnation is possible.’”

After receiving her honorary doctorate, Jatta thanked Notre Dame leaders and acknowledged the work of the Vatican Museums staff.

“It’s a real honor for me to be here and receive this honorary degree,” said Jatta. “It’s not for my person, but [for] the Vatican Museums, and all the staff and people behind this institution.”

Jatta offered the convocation address, reflecting on the unique role of the Vatican Museums and their mission. She emphasized that the goal of the Museums is not to gain acclaim or high status, but rather to offer “a journey of spirituality and beauty.”

“This idea of preserving and sharing our heritage made up of beauty is the same mission driving us today,” said Jatta. “It’s beauty that tells us so much about faith and devotion.”

The convocation included a performance of sacred music by soprano Marianna Ivashchenko, countertenor Federico Mauro Marcucci and pianist Davide Bucci.

You can watch a full recording of the convocation at https://youtu.be/w6wxtqr6XQc.

Painting with light

2024-01-23T09:19:00-05:00

For Stephen Hartley, the path to becoming a better architect involves getting your hands dirty.

Hartley, an associate professor of the practice in Notre Dame’s 91��Ƶ of Architecture, wants his students to have a deeper appreciation for the work craftspeople do to fulfill an architect’s vision—by learning the vocabulary of the trades, understanding their history, and, when possible, trying out the tools.

That was the goal behind a new class he created last fall, called Painting with Light, that explored the significance and long history of stained glass as an artform and architectural element.

During the course, students had the chance to try their hand at various techniques including cutting and painting glass, as well as creating and presenting their own window designs. The class also worked with St. Adalbert Catholic Church on South Bend’s westside to assess and document the condition of its stained-glass windows.

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