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Twenty-seven University of Notre Dame students were awarded Fulbright grants in the 2016-17 program, placing the University among the top-producing universities in the nation. The Fulbright program is the U.S. government’s flagship international educational exchange program. It awards a one-year postgraduate fellowship for research, study or teaching English abroad. During their fellowship, scholars will work, live and learn in their host country. Of the 27 students to receive Fulbrights last year, 24 were Arts and Letters students—which would place the College sixth in the nation among all doctoral institutions.

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Senior Dan Lopes’ project “Scoop Pet Food Dispenser” received a third-place award, and senior Erin Rice’s project “Lead Animal Control Cage” received honorable mention.

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Beginning Monday (Jan. 16), the University of Notre Dame will host a series of events to mark both Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Walk the Walk Week. The observances celebrate the diversity that currently exists on the University’s campus and offer an opportunity to reflect on how each member of the campus community can take an active role in making the University more welcoming and inclusive.

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Four students from Notre Dame's College of Arts and Letters have been selected to receive the prestigious Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship sponsored by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs to study or intern abroad during the spring 2017 academic term. This is the most Gilman Scholars Notre Dame has had selected in a single competition.

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Watkins, a native of Blacksburg, Virginia, and Doyle, of Los Altos, California, are two of 32 Rhodes Scholars selected from a pool of 882 candidates who had been endorsed by their colleges and universities. They are Notre Dame’s 18th and 19th Rhodes Scholars and will commence their studies at Oxford University in October.

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Three alumni from the College of Arts and Letters—an ambassador, the founder of the University of Notre Dame soccer team, and an Air Force colonel—were among the recipients of five major Notre Dame Alumni Association awards given out this fall.

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In a reflective, frank, and often wryly humorous conversation with U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Monday night (Sept. 12) at the University of Notre Dame’s Purcell Pavilion at the Joyce Center, the justice offered insights into her upbringing, judicial philosophy and hopes for the future of the court.

U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Ann Claire Williams, a Notre Dame alumna and Trustee, asked Ginsburg a series of questions on a wide range of issues.

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p(image-right). !/assets/205288/85x/unnamed.jpg(Gilman Scholarship)! Notre Dame student Stephen "Pete" Freeman, a sociology and gender studies major, has been selected to receive the prestigious Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, to study or intern abroad during the 2016-2017 academic year. Gilman Scholars receive up to $5,000 to apply toward their study abroad or internship program costs. The program aims to diversify the students who study and intern abroad and the countries and regions where they go.

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p(image-right). !/assets/145004/fuentes_icon.jpg(Agustín Fuentes)! Evolutionary science stresses the contributions biology makes to our behavior. Some anthropologists try to understand how societies and histories construct our identities, and others ask about how genes and the environment do the same thing. Which is the better approach? Both are needed, Notre Dame biological anthropologist Agustín Fuentes argues in a forthcoming paper in the journal _Current Anthropology_.

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p(image-right). !/assets/67622/richman_karen_icon.jpg(Karen Richman)! A new report by the University of Notre Dame’s Institute for Latino Studies examines how gender affects Latino men’s and women’s savings for retirement and concludes that there is a need to develop programs to empower lower-income women and men to save for retirement. The research report, directed by Karen Richman, a Notre Dame cultural anthropologist, applies a novel, interdisciplinary approach to the role gender plays in Latinos’ inability to save for retirement, combining anthropological and economic theories and methods.

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p(image-right). !/assets/105820/social_media_icon.jpg(social media)! Cellphones, any parent can attest, play a central role in the lives of college students. Studies show that nearly all college students own a cellphone, and most of those students use text messaging as their main form of communication. Researchers from the University of Notre Dame used the centrality of cellphones in college students’ lives to delve deep into students’ usage habits and how their social networks affect their everyday lives.

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p(image-right). !/assets/39090/beyerlein_icon.jpg(Kraig Beyerlein)! Police are less likely to show up at protests involving religious actors or organizations -- unless the protesters are fundamentalist Christians, according to a new study. Notre Dame sociologist Kraig Beyerlein, the lead author of the study, analyzed protest-event data from daily editions of _The New York Times_ published between 1960 and 1995 and found that, in general, police were more likely to leave alone protests from religious groups. However, fundamentalist Christian groups were more likely to be policed than secular groups were.

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p(image-right). !/assets/30931/mother_baby_hp_crop.jpg(mother baby hp icon crop)! As far as titles in academic journals go, it’s quite the attention-getter. “There is no such thing as infant sleep, there is no such thing as breastfeeding, there is only breastsleeping,” reads the title of a new peer-reviewed commentary piece by University of Notre Dame anthropologists James McKenna and Lee Gettler that appears in the prestigious European journal _Acta Paediatrica_.

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p(image-right). !/assets/73149/desch_al_icon.jpg(Michael Desch)! Trends in political science are marginalizing the subfield of security studies, argues Michael Desch, a professor in the Department of Political Science, in a new piece in the journal _Perspectives on Politics_. Desch believes there is a disconnect between political science’s self-image of balancing rigor and relevance with the reality of how political scientists actually conduct their scholarship most of the time.

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p(image-right). !/assets/101357/mcneil_icon.jpg(Nicole McNeil)! It’s both the bane of many parents and what has been called a major national vulnerability: the inability of many children to learn mathematics. Understanding that problem and developing strategies to overcome it is the research focus of Nicole McNeil, "Alliance for Catholic Education":http://ace.nd.edu (ACE) Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Notre Dame, and the researchers in her lab.

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p(image-right). !/assets/105087/kasey_buckles_icon_2013.jpg(Kasey Buckles)! Many mothers can relate to the experience of having hundreds of pictures of their first-born child, but far fewer of their younger children. A new study by University of Notre Dame economist Kasey Buckles finds that those younger children often get less attention in other ways as well.

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p(image-right). !/assets/145004/fuentes_icon.jpg(Agustín Fuentes)! An interview and discussion radio program based at the University of Notre Dame will air on WVPE-HD beginning Sunday, February 1. The program, titled _Vantage Point_, is hosted by Agustín Fuentes, professor and chair of Notre Dame’s Department of Anthropology, and offers the insights of academic experts on issues related to politics, religion, history, culture, society, and the arts.

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p(image-right). !/assets/149758/hui_icon.jpg(Victoria Hui)! Victoria Hui, an associate professor of political science and faculty fellow of the Liu Institute for Asia and Asian Studies at the University of Notre Dame, will testify Thursday, November 20, before a Congressional Executive Commission on China hearing titled “The Future of Democracy in Hong Kong.” The hearing will examine China’s commitments to Hong Kong and the international community in light of recent pro-democracy protests. It will assess whether an increasingly polarized Hong Kong will be able to find a mutually acceptable plan for electoral reform and how the protests taking will place will continue to shape that debate. It also will focus on what the protests mean for the future of human rights and democracy in Hong Kong and China.

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p(image-right). !/assets/146944/nsf_icon.jpg(National Science Foundation (NSF))! In recognition of their excellence in research, The National Science Foundation (NSF) has selected eight University of Notre Dame faculty members from the Colleges of Arts and Letters, Engineering, and Science to participate in the Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER). The CAREER program, which was established by the NSF in 1995, recognizes and supports outstanding junior faculty who exhibit a commitment to stimulating research while also providing educational opportunities for students. It is the NSF’s most prestigious award given to junior faculty.

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p(image-right). !/assets/134439/mikejindrabio_icon.jpg(Michael Jindra)! A new article by University of Notre Dame anthropologist "Michael Jindra":http://www3.nd.edu/~mjindra/ offers a fresh and provocative statement of how culture contributes to inequality and argues that there is an unrecognized dilemma involving two major, contentious features of contemporary life: diversity and equality.

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p(image-right). !/assets/132796/karockquemore_icon.jpg(Kerry Ann Rockquemore)! The University of Notre Dame’s Graduate School recognized 344 master’s and 204 doctoral degree recipients and presented several awards during Commencement ceremonies on Saturday, May 17 in the Compton Family Ice Arena. Alumna Kerry Ann Rockquemore, president and CEO of the National Center for Faculty Development and Diversity, delivered the Commencement Address. The top graduating doctoral students in the humanities, social sciences, science, and engineering were honored with the Eli J. and Helen Shaheen Graduate School Awards.

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p(image-right). !/assets/132796/karockquemore_icon.jpg(karockquemore_icon)! Kerry Ann Rockquemore, who received her doctorate in sociology from the University of Notre Dame in 1999, will deliver the address at the University’s Graduate School Commencement Ceremony at 10 a.m. on Saturday, May 17, in the Compton Family Ice Arena. Rockquemore will receive the Distinguished Alumna Award at the Graduate School Awards Dinner on May 16. Her address will be the centerpiece of the Graduate School Commencement ceremony the next day, when the University will honor its master’s and doctoral degree recipients.

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A presentation by University of Notre Dame anthropologist Lee Gettler at the recent “Building Babies” session at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) highlighted new research that contributes a number of novel insights into our understanding of the way men’s biology can respond to the demands of parenthood and drew significant media attention.

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Building on the momentum of its recent Strategic Research Investment--which committed $80 million in internal resources to 14 research projects--the University of Notre Dame has announced the winning proposals in a new strategic hiring initiative. The initiative, which is a key component in the University's Advancing Our Vision (AOV) program, will create approximately 80 faculty positions in 10 key areas of research across campus, drawing on $10 million in annual funds that have been reallocated from lower-priority expenditures to this academic priority.

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As a new year approaches, the University of Notre Dame’s John J. Reilly Center for Science, Technology and Values has released its annual list of emerging ethical dilemmas and policy issues in science and technology for 2014. The Reilly Center explores conceptual, ethical, and policy issues where science and technology intersect with society from different disciplinary perspectives. Its goal is to promote the advancement of science and technology for the common good.

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A team of researchers from the University of Notre Dame and Texas A&M University are developing an innovative system using smart devices to measure the emotionality of offline communications. The interdisciplinary effort is designed to examine whether the increasing prevalence of online interactions may be inhibiting the development of strong, reciprocal, and emotionally significant offline social ties.

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The Fulbright Exchange Program, Churchill and Clarendon and other national organizations have awarded postgraduate scholarships and fellowships to seven members of the University of Notre Dame’s Class of 2013. Six of them completed majors in the College of Arts and Letters.

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Brad Gregory, professor of history and Dorothy G. Griffin Collegiate Chair at the University of Notre Dame, has been selected as the new director of the Notre Dame Institute for Advanced Study (NDIAS). He succeeds Vittorio Hösle, the institute’s founding director for the past five years and the Paul Kimball Professor of Arts and Letters in the Department of German and Russian Languages and Literatures and concurrent professor of philosophy and of political science.

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As a new year approaches, the University of Notre Dame’s John J. Reilly Center for Science, Technology and Values has announced its inaugural list of emerging ethical dilemmas and policy issues in science and technology for 2013. The Reilly Center explores conceptual, ethical and policy issues where science and technology intersect with society from different disciplinary perspectives. Its goal is to promote the advancement of science and technology for the common good.

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A new, unprecedented national survey of African American Catholics by University of Notre Dame researchers reveals several significant insights into individual religious engagement and identifies several notable demographic trends facing the church. Notre Dame social scientists Darren W. Davis and Donald B. Pope-Davis, who co-authored the report, set out to test the validity of anecdotal accounts that African American Catholics were becoming increasingly disengaged from their religion.

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