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As a child, Emmanuel Katongole went into the forest near his home in Uganda to draw water from the spring and collect firewood for cooking. Now a diocesan priest who has taught theology and peace studies for a decade at Notre Dame, he has worried upon every return home about the intense deforestation destroying his native land. In a country where more than half the population is under age 20, he knew that young people moving to the cities lacked opportunities and needed firewood, leading to rampant tree cutting.

But it wasn’t until reading Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato si’ that Katongole envisioned a solution that uses education to address both problems — protecting the environment and providing economic opportunities. He joined with several colleagues and the local Catholic Church to found Bethany Land Institute (BLI) in a rural area 25 miles north of the capital city of Kampala.

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Intellectual humility — being free to think and listen without being concerned with the need to “be right” — could be an antidote for some pressing personal and societal problems. An interdisciplinary group of philosophers and psychologists, led by Laura Callahan and supported by a John Templeton Foundation grant, are hoping to identify how the characteristic can be used by individuals to improve their lives and how it can be more inclusive.

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In his newest book, historian and Notre Dame Provost John McGreevy examines the Church’s complex role in modern history as it both shaped and followed the politics of nation-states. Through a series of compelling vignettes and detailed analyses, McGreevy traces the events and trends that gave rise to the modern-day Catholic Church, one marked by an unwavering concern for social justice, unprecedented vibrancy in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia and increasing global connections — and one that has significantly expanded the organizational and symbolic reach of the papacy.

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Even the most effective poverty alleviation programs in low-income countries can leave some people behind. Notre Dame’s College of Arts and Letters and the Kellogg Institute for International Studies have a big idea on how to bridge that gap. The new Building Inclusive Growth (BIG) Lab, led by Notre Dame economists Taryn Dinkelman, Lakshmi Iyer, and Joseph Kaboski, will bring some of the world’s best researchers together to develop innovative, long-lasting solutions to help vulnerable populations in developing countries.

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Notre Dame historian Sarah Shortall’s debut book, Soldiers of God in a Secular World: Catholic Theology and Twentieth-Century French Politics, which chronicles an influential French theological movement that reimagined the Church’s role in the public sphere, has now earned four awards in the 10 months since it was published. The assistant professor of history has received the Giuseppe Alberigo Junior Scholar Award from the European Academy of Religion, the Best Book Award from the College Theology Society, the Laurence Wylie Prize in French Cultural Studies from New York University, and the first place Book Award for History from the Catholic Media Association.

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The associate professor will discuss the People’s Republic of China’s strategies for asserting party control over religion, especially through sinicization, which calls on religious believers to integrate party loyalty into all aspects of religious life. She'll offer recommendations for how Congress and the Biden administration can effectively advocate for freedom of religion in China.

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“There are more groups that register to lobby in states with open meetings and they donate more to incumbent politicians," said the Andrew J. McKenna Family Associate Professor of Political Science. "This leads to an ironic conclusion: The laws don’t make citizen representation better, they make it better for interest groups, which aren’t representative of the general public. Because citizens are not fulfilling their role in that relationship, lobbyists are coming in.”

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For generations, North Americans have seen media images of poverty, disease, civil war, and crime in Central America, including photographs and videos of Central Americans fleeing violence and of children, some just 2 or 3 years old, kept in cages at immigration detention camps. Even when well-intentioned, the images can feed into negative stereotypes, said Tatiana Reinoza, an assistant professor in the Department of Art, Art History, and Design. Reinoza has won a competitive Getty Scholar Grant that will support her effort to more fully represent the seven-country region, its people, and their stories with her book project, tentatively titled “Retorno: Art and Kinship in the making of a Central American Diaspora.”

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The European Group for Organizational Studies (EGOS) has presented Notre Dame sociologist Erin Metz McDonnell with its 2022 Book Award for her original contribution to the knowledge about organizations, organizing, and the organized. In her award-winning book, Patchwork Leviathan: Pockets of Bureaucratic Effectiveness in Developing States, McDonnell argues that while corruption and ineffectiveness may be expected of public servants in developing countries, “some spectacularly effective state organizations thrive amid institutional weakness and succeed against impressive odds.” 

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White’s book juxtaposes cultural history with genomic discoveries to analyze how redheads — who carry the genetic variant MC1R — have been alternately abused, glorified and discriminated against through a wide range of times and locations, from ancient Egypt to the present-day United States. Betz will co-direct a project to create a critical edition of F.W.J. von Schelling’s original 1831-32 Munich lectures on the philosophy of revelation, which represent a profound attempt to wrestle with the nature and significance of religion and specifically with claims of divine revelation — or moments of divine self-disclosure.

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Eileen Hunt, a professor in the Department of Political Science, has won the David Easton Award for her 2021 book, Artificial Life After Frankenstein. The annual award from the American Political Science Association’s Foundations of Political Theory section recognizes a book that “broadens the horizons of contemporary political science by engaging issues of philosophical significance in political life through … approaches in the social sciences and humanities.” In the book, Hunt develops a theoretical framework for how to bring technology-based ethical issues — like making artificial intelligence, robots, genetically engineered children and other artificially-shaped life forms — into debates on human rights, international law, theories of justice, and philosophies of education and parent-child ethics.

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Proposals were awarded in four tracks: Convening, Research Accelerator, Infrastructure & Services, and Partnerships. After a substantial review process, the Institute funded 13 projects that involve collaboration among all colleges and schools and are intended to generate translational value for societal benefit.

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For 45 years, Swartz taught everything from introductory courses to interdisciplinary seminars. The popular professor received Notre Dame's highest teaching honor in the College of Arts and Letters — the Sheedy Award. He also introduced a summer program at the University's study abroad site in London and was president of the Faculty Senate.

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A $997,387 award from Lilly Endowment Inc. is preparing graduate students in the Department of Theology to better serve in, and learn from, a diverse and changing world. The five-year project builds on the University’s commitment to serve a world in need and to learn from the wisdom, faith, and struggles of marginalized peoples through that engagement.

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“I am thrilled to have the opportunity to serve in this capacity, and hope I can use my skills and expertise to solve problems that affect people’s daily lives, particularly those of children and families." Gibbs' one-year tenure begins this month on the council charged with offering the president of the United States objective economic advice based on data, research, and evidence to support the formulation of both domestic and international policy.

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In addition to teaching, Hedlin will assist with curriculum design and outreach, and work with faculty and staff to build a robust and intellectually serious community around the study of business and the practice of the liberal arts. “My courses are all about experiential learning," she said. "I want students to be active, to try something new together.”

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Shakespeare at Notre Dame recently won a prestigious award for its efforts to convene Shakespeare in prison practitioners from around the world as well as a new grant for its work bringing the Bard to a local residential treatment facility for juveniles. “Shakespeare at Notre Dame is the social justice mission of the University in action through the performing arts,” said Scott Jackson, Mary Irene Ryan Family Executive Director. “We can be a community driver of change.”

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It's important to understand how programs affect the cycle of poverty, said Chloe Gibbs, assistant professor of economics. “Head Start set the first-generation kids on a different trajectory, and now their kids are better off. I think this is exactly what we hope to do through these kinds of social programs.”

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The annual honor recognizes Jeff Harden as the top scholar in the field of state politics and policy who has earned a Ph.D. within the previous 10 years. He said it’s a meaningful time to be studying state legislatures because they have enormous power in what people's lives look like as citizens of this country.

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Michelle Karnes, a Notre Dame associate professor of English, has been chosen as a Mellon Fellow by The Huntington, a collections-based research and educational institution in California. During the yearlong fellowship that begins in July, Karnes will work on journal articles and a chapter for her next book project, tentatively titled “Interanimalia: The Species of the Medieval World,” which focuses on the value of species diversity in the natural world.

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Ying (Alison) Cheng is a professor of psychology, a fellow of the Institute for Educational Initiatives, and associate director of the Lucy Family Institute for Data and Society at the University of Notre Dame. In this interview, she discusses her research on psychological and educational measurement, and how she and her team use statistical models to improve academic testing, making them more efficient, informative, and fair for students and educators.

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Douglas Kinsey, an artist and professor emeritus in the Department of Art, Art History, and Design, died May 21 at his home. He was 88.

Kinsey joined the Notre Dame faculty in 1968 after earning his M.F.A. at the University of Minnesota and his bachelor’s degree at Oberlin College. Before coming to Notre Dame, he taught at Oberlin, the University of North Dakota, and Berea College.…

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In March 2019, Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C., announced that the University would provide funding to support research projects that address issues emerging from the Church sexual abuse crisis. Since that announcement, 10 grants have been administered through the Church Sexual Abuse Crisis Research Grant Program to researchers in the College of Arts and Letters, the Institute for Educational Initiatives, the Keough School of Global Affairs, the Law School, and the Mendoza College of Business. 

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Fathers remain understudied when it comes to contributions they make to their children's health and well-being. “There’s a lot of interest in how dads and other caregivers can help shape the future health of children, and this new work provides insights about the biology that may contribute to those outcomes,”

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Even after accounting for demographic variables (gender, race/ethnicity, parental educational attainment), researchers found that undergraduate students who reported greater pandemic-induced stress tended to have greater test anxiety and were less confident in their computer skills.

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The Office of the Provost presented Kimberly Belcher, Ann-Marie Conrado, Blake Leyerle, Forrest Spence, and Michael Macaluso with Joyce Awards for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching and presented Maureen Dawson with a Dockweiler Award for outstanding advising.

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Michel Hockx, Timothy Matovina, Jason Ruiz, and James Rudolph won grants from Notre Dame Research for their respective projects involving Foreign Office files for India, the Gustavo Gutiérrez, O.P. Papers, materials documenting Native American and Catholic encounters, and advancing the cross-disciplinary user experience lab: equipment restoration and renewal for faculty and graduate level research in the Design Department. 

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David Ladouceur, an associate professor emeritus in the Department of Classics, died May 8 at his home. He was 73. Ladouceur joined the Notre Dame faculty in 1976 after earning his Ph.D. in classics at Brown University and his bachelor’s degree at Cornell University. He served as department chair for nine years, leading the Department of Modern Classical Languages and then the Department of Classical and Oriental Languages at a time before regional language groups were separated into their own departments.

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Tobias Boes is an associate professor of German and a Fellow of the Nanovic Institute for European Studies at the University of Notre Dame. His research focuses on cultural relationships between Germany and the world at large, especially during the first half of the 20th century. In this interview, he discusses his book on Thomas Mann, his research on cultural dimensions of nationalism, and why he's developed an interest in the environmental humanities.

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There’s a lot at stake for the narrator of an audiobook — their ability to reflect the traits of the characters can make or break the listening experience. That’s where Siiri Scott has shined, as she’s proficient in more than 40 dialects. Her methodology for researching and designing dialects for theater, film, and voiceover work is a skill she teaches to Notre Dame students as head of acting and directing in the Department of Film, Television, and Theatre and one she uses as a rising star in the world of audiobook narration.

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