Eager to tackle the growing challenge companies face to be both profitable and socially responsible, a group of Notre Dame students have formed a club to develop and test new business concepts. And they have already started winning awards for their ideas.
Elizabeth Simpson, a theology and peace studies major, and Puja Parikh, a political science and psychology major, have been named 2010 Truman Scholars. The Notre Dame juniors were among 60 students chosen from 576 candidates nationwide who applied to the Harry S. Truman Scholarship Foundation this year.
More than 270 students in diverse majors from across the University of Notre Dame’s colleges will showcase their research, scholarship, and creative endeavors on April 30, 2010, from noon to 6 p.m. at the third annual Undergraduate Scholars Conference. The conference opens in 105 Jordan Hall of Science with an announcement of the winners of the inaugural Library Undergraduate Research Award, two of which will be presenting at the conference.
Shannon Drysdale Walsh, a doctoral candidate in Notre Dame’s Department of Political Science, has received an Andrew W. Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Completion Fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies. The fellowship provides a stipend and research fund and covers university fees in the final year of dissertation work. Walsh’s dissertation, titled “Engendering State Institutions: State Response to Violence Against Women in Latin America,” explains variation in the development and practices of the policy agencies, police units, and courts that address violence against women in Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica.
In the midst of one of the most challenging economic climates colleges and universities have ever faced, the University of Notre Dame has announced significant additional internal funding to support nine research initiatives during the second phase of the University’s $80-million Strategic Research Investments (SRI) process. Projects selected for second-round SRI funding represent significant research undertakings in such areas as sustainable energy, environmental change, HIV treatment, nanotechnology, hurricane impact mitigation, and religious scholarship.
University of Notre Dame President John I. Jenkins, C.S.C., and faculty members Scott P. Mainwaring and R. Scott Appleby have been elected members of the 2010 class of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS). They will be formally inducted at an October 9, 2010, ceremony at the Academy’s headquarters in Cambridge, Mass. Since its founding during the American Revolution by John Adams, James Bowdoin, John Hancock, and other scholar-patriots, the academy has elected leading “thinkers and doers” from each generation, including George Washington and Benjamin Franklin in the 18th century, Daniel Webster and Ralph Waldo Emerson in the 19th, and Albert Einstein and Winston Churchill in the 20th.
This spring, the University of Notre Dame continues a 14-year-long tradition of raising awareness about the Holocaust. This year’s approach will be a little different, and it will literally offer “Food for Thought.” The annual Holocaust Project, begun by Rabbi Michael Signer, the Abrams Professor of Jewish Thought and Culture, has always held events highlighting the need for individuals and societies to pursue justice and tolerance and to be on guard against the genocidal inclinations that still imperil the world. Rabbi Signer, who died last year, sought to help students make the connection between the Holocaust and the human family’s cry for solidarity.
Robert Schmuhl, Walter H. Annenberg-Edmund P. Joyce Professor of American Studies and Journalism at the University of Notre Dame, is the editor of a new book that examines both the writer’s art and the role of journalism in American culture. Released this month by Andrews McMeel Publishing, “Making Words Dance: Reflections on Red Smith, Journalism, and Writing,” features lectures by 15 of the country’s most respected journalists and writers, given as part of a Notre Dame lecture series that honors award-winning columnist Walter W. “Red” Smith.
The University of Notre Dame will be the principal sponsor of “Women and Spirit: Catholic Sisters in America,” a traveling museum exhibit on the history of Catholic women religious in the United States, when it visits northern Indiana in fall 2011. A project of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), the exhibit began a three-year nationwide tour last May in Cincinnati and is now at the Smithsonian Institution. It will be at the Northern Indiana Center for History from September 2 to December 31, 2011. “Women and Spirit” includes photographs and items contributed by more than 400 communities of women religious, many of which have never before been placed on public display.
When one out of every 100 children born in this country is diagnosed with autism, treatment for those children requires as much attention as the diagnoses. “Ten or 20 years ago we were lucky to diagnose a child by age four or five,” says Joshua Diehl, assistant professor of psychology at the University of Notre Dame, who specializes in developmental disorders, with an emphasis on autism spectrum disorders and dyslexia.
For most Notre Dame students, a typical Friday afternoon in the spring might include a little Frisbee or pick-up basketball, maybe a movie, certainly dinner with friends. But something a little more atypical attracted more than 200 students to gather on March 26 of this year: 50 young classicists presented “A Night of Greek and Roman Comedy” to a capacity crowd of their fellow students.
Katie Washington, a biological sciences major and Catholic social teaching minor from Gary, Ind., has been named valedictorian of the 2010 University of Notre Dame graduating class and will present the valedictory address during Commencement exercises on Sunday, May 16, 2010, in Notre Dame stadium.
Five University of Notre Dame peace studies master’s students who developed an innovative proposal to advance peace in Colombia presented their recommendations to a panel of experts at the United Nations headquarters in New York on April 9, 2010. The proposal, developed by classmates Maria Helena Ariza (Colombia), Jimena Holguin (Colombia), Rachel Miller (U.S.A.), Patrick Otim (Uganda), and Laura Snider (U.S.A.), was selected for this honor by Students Participating in Resolving International Tensions (SPIRIT), a partnership of the U.N. and Columbia University.
The editorial board of the European Romantic Review and the executive committee of the North American Society for the Study of Romanticism have chosen an article by Julia Douthwaite, professor of French in Notre Dame’s Department of Romance Languages and Literatures, as the winner of their Best Article of 2009 award. “The Frankenstein of the French Revolution: Nogaret’s Automaton Tale of 1790,” written by Douthwaite with former graduate student Daniel Richter, was selected for the prize based on its merits in scholarship, originality, quality of writing, and significance for romantic era studies.
Susan Ohmer, assistant provost and William T. and Helen Kuhn Carey Associate Professor of Modern Communication at the University of Notre Dame, has been appointed interim director of Hesburgh Libraries by University Provost Thomas G. Burish, effective May 19. The University is conducting a national search for a successor to Jennifer Younger, who is stepping down at the end of the academic year after 13 years as the Edward H. Arnold Director of Hesburgh Libraries.
Doug McAdam, professor of sociology, director of urban studies, and director emeritus of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University is the 2010 recipient of the John D. McCarthy Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Scholarship of Social Movement and Collective Behavior. The award ceremony will take place in conjunction with CSSM’s Young Scholars in Social Movements Conference, a gathering of distinguished graduate students and recent Ph.D.s from around the country.
Writer and commentator Frank Deford will deliver the 2010 Red Smith Lecture in Journalism on Wednesday, April 14, 2010, at the University of Notre Dame. “Sportswriter is One Word” is the title of Deford’s lecture, which will begin at 7:30 p.m. in the Carey Auditorium of the Hesburgh Library. Hosted by the Gallivan Journalism Program in the Department of American Studies, the lecture is free and open to the public.