Twenty-one students have been announced as awardees of the Naughton Fellowships for 2019. The research fellowships were awarded to undergraduate and master's students from the University of Notre Dame and from five universities in Ireland. This year’s winners from Notre Dame represent the Colleges of Arts and Letters, Engineering, and Science.
While there are more than 200 community-based classes across Notre Dame, few faculty members have jumped in with more commitment than those in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures, especially those teaching Spanish. CBL classes engage in a sustained partnership with community centers and schools through service or educational activities relevant to coursework. Spanish students in these classes average about 1,500 hours of service per year in South Bend.
Shelene Baiyee’s time at Notre Dame has been characterized by connection – whether it’s with faculty, other students, or seemingly unrelated subject matters. The rising senior may be busy with clubs, service, research, and more, but never loses sight of what drives her forward — the connection between it all. “It’s really important, especially as a black female in America, to understand the history of race in America, and to acknowledge a lot of history that has been left out of history books,” she said. “Having two extremely different majors allows you to see the interconnectedness of certain topics and life in general, because what you can understand through science can be aided by history.”
What is the design major like at Notre Dame? “If you're creative minded and like solving problems, I would say this is the perfect major for you,” said industrial design major Alexis Dorsey. Design majors pursue their passions while developing skills such as critical and analytical thinking, research, ideation and implementation, and visual literacy.
Congratulations to the Class of 2019! This video, screened at the Arts and Letters Diploma Ceremony, features several seniors reflecting on their time at Notre Dame and in the College of Arts and Letters.
After Hurricane María caused severe damage to Puerto Rico in September 2017, critics said federal government aid was too little, too late. Other organizations saw the need and decided to step in, including Notre Dame. Here are recent efforts, including the faculty-led Listening to Puerto Rico project and a spring break storytelling trip by journalism students..
Gianna Van Heel’s time studying abroad while at Notre Dame was immersive and comprehensive — the nearly yearlong experience included coursework, research, an internship, and embracing the Italian way of life. She knew it was the best way to truly learn another language. Van Heel, who won the College of Arts and Letters’ Robert D. Nuner Award for the language major with the highest GPA, studied Dante during her time abroad and was captivated by his writing.
When Joseph Weiler was 8, he sustained his first concussion — and he's wanted to study the complexities of the brain ever since. Now a neuroscience and behavior major in the College of Arts and Letters, Weiler's senior thesis oversaw the implementation of the Cogstate Cognigram — a test designed to track early cognitive symptoms of concussions — in Notre Dame’s Baraka Bouts women’s boxing competition for the last two years.
Sofia Carozza, a neuroscience and behavior major in the College of Science with a supplemental major in theology and a minor in philosophy, politics, and economics, has been named valedictorian of the 2019 University of Notre Dame graduating class. Annelise Gill-Wiehl, an environmental engineering major with a minor in international development studies, has been selected as salutatorian.
Hesburgh, a critically acclaimed documentary to be released nationwide on May 3, tells the story of Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, C.S.C. — reaching far beyond the borders of the Notre Dame campus to tell an epic American saga. But the making of Hesburgh is very much a Notre Dame story. Documentary filmmaker Patrick Creadon ’89 has a history of hiring Notre Dame students and alumni — and sought out no less than 19 of them to help create Hesburgh.
Led by students from the University of Notre Dame, a group of 45 fifth-graders from Clay International Academy in South Bend gathered in adjacent classrooms recently to learn Latin as part of a pilot Aequora program sponsored by the Department of Classics. The program introduces K-8 students to the basics of Latin vocabulary and grammar, Roman culture and mythology and the connections between Latin, English, and Spanish with specially designed lessons and activities.
One of the greatest assets of a Notre Dame degree is the University’s incredible global network. But those connections aren’t only with alumni — senior Nick Gabriele believes that, sometimes, the most important mentors can be fellow students. Gabriele, an economics and Spanish major who will begin working as a consultant with McKinsey & Company after graduation, launched Consulting Connect — an organization designed to educate students about the diverse field of consulting, prepare them for the recruiting process, and connect them with potential employers.
Arts and Letters graduates Jeremy Cappello Lee and Lily Falzon, both members of the class of 2018, have been invited to study at the Yenching Academy of Peking University in Beijing, China, as two of approximately 125 Yenching Scholars from across the globe. Established in 2014, the Yenching Academy offers a one-year master’s degree program for students with outstanding academic backgrounds and broad curiosity. The program pushes the study of China beyond the traditional boundaries of the humanities and social sciences.
Joan Becker, a senior majoring in the Program of Liberal Studies, has traveled to Germany, Belgium, France, and Wales to explore real-world places important to the Arthurian legends. Now, Becker is funneling her experiences abroad and in her PLS classes into a unique senior thesis — a handmade and hand-bound book about King Arthur, in the style of the first books printed in the late medieval era.
Senior Prathm Juneja, of South Bend, Indiana, has been named a 2019 Truman Scholar. Juneja is among 62 students — mostly juniors but also seniors in five-year degree programs — selected for the honor from a pool of 840 candidates from 346 colleges and universities nationwide. He is the eighth Notre Dame student — all from the College of Arts and Letters — to win the award since 2010.
Junior Anja Renkes will bring her three academic disciplines together in an international research experience this summer at the Dublin Global Gateway in the Irish Internship Program. She plans to create paintings of Ireland’s holy wells — small springs with devotional significance — that capture the area’s landscape as pure gift from God.
Melinda Davis, a psychology and peace studies major from New Orleans, has secured a competitive postgraduate placement with the Permanent Observer Mission of the Holy See to the U.N. She is one of four 2019 summer interns selected through a highly competitive global search process.
Two members of the University of Notre Dame Debate Team — freshman Patrick Aimone and sophomore Conrad Palor — took first place Saturday (April 6) in the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) Debate Championship in Washington, D.C.
Colin Rahill’s time at Notre Dame has been defined by learning from some of the world’s great thinkers — whether it be on paper or in a temple on the other side of the globe. An English and philosophy major whose senior thesis focuses on the works of Percy Shelley and Soren Kierkegaard, Rahill spent six weeks last summer in Japan, including a month living at the Shoganji Temple with a Zen monk, Jiho Kongo.
Grace Garvey’s academic curiosity isn’t confined to one subject area. Her interest in human migration manifests in all sorts of different disciplines. She’s an anthropology major who is working closely with an American studies professor on her senior thesis. For her capstone project in the Hesburgh Program in Public Service, she partnered with an economics major. And her coursework while studying abroad in Ireland focused on global perspectives on migration and archaeology. “The world isn't just one discipline — it's a nexus of all these different studies,” she said. “So a liberal arts education is more realistic to the type of knowledge that you need to have moving forward when you graduate.”
From the U.S. House of Representatives in Washington, D.C., to FX Networks in Los Angeles, Notre Dame students gain valuable experience every year through summer internships. While internships are an important opportunity to discern career paths or gain insights into fields of study, costs can deter many students from accepting them. To eliminate this barrier, the Center for Career Development offers grants that enable students to afford living expenses when accepting unpaid or low-paying internships all over the world. Applications for 2019 summer internship funding are due April 2 or April 29.
What is the Japanese major like at Notre Dame? “It's a different way of thinking. Once you have a foothold, you really start developing a sense of mastery,” said student Joshua Kuiper. Japanese majors pursue their passions while developing skills such as cross-cultural engagement, communication, translation/interpretation, and textual analysis.
An innovative Notre Dame course, God and the Good Life, is not only transforming the way students are introduced to philosophy — it is changing their perspectives, trajectories, and lives. Nearly 1,200 students have enrolled in the course since philosophy professor Meghan Sullivan launched it two years ago, and for many, it has become a defining experience in their undergraduate education. It's also drawn an array of prominent guest speakers — including an upcoming appearance by Michael Schur, creator of the philosophy-focused NBC comedy The Good Place.
What is the sociology major like at Notre Dame? “Sociology has really allowed me to not only ask good focused questions about social problems but then when I get an answer, to be able to dissect that answer in a way that allows some kind of positive response,” said sociology major Pete Freeman. Sociology majors pursue their passions while developing skills such as data collection/analysis, scientific method, critical thinking, and collaboration.
MacKenzie Isaac knew she wanted to improve her Spanish skills at Notre Dame. But to be truly fluent, she needed to learn more than the language. That mindset drew the junior sociology major to the Institute for Latino Studies, where she’s found academic inspiration, research support, and a welcoming community. She's also spent two summers doing research at Harvard, added a minor in data science, and hopes to pursue a career in public health.
What is the political science major like at Notre Dame? “A lot of people think that political science is just Democrat versus Republican but that couldn't be further from the truth,” said political science major Sean McFeely. “It's lot about understanding why things are the way they are.” Political science majors pursue their passions while developing skills such as evidence-based arguments, critical thinking, data analysis, and information synthesis.
For junior Alice Felker, it only took eight weeks for a service experience to turn into years of research and volunteer efforts for people with disabilities. The summer after her freshman year, Felker participated in the Summer Service Learning Program, an eight-week service opportunity within marginalized populations run by Notre Dame’s Center for Social Concerns. The following summer, the psychology and applied and computational mathematics and statistics major conducted a study to examine the daytime programs offered for people with disabilities.
Like the character he created, Jorge “Jay” Rivera-Herrans is exuberant and tenacious, but no one could mistake him for a cop out. A junior film, television, and theatre major, he has written the book, lyrics, and music for a new musical — Stupid Humans, which opens Thursday and runs through March 3 — and is also playing the leading role.
Three decades after its founding, the Gender Studies Program is thriving, with more than 70 students currently pursuing gender studies majors, supplementary majors, and minors at the undergraduate and graduate levels, as well as more than 50 associated faculty across campus. Hundreds of students have found a home in the program over the years — including Sarah A. Mustillo ’96, the I.A. O’Shaughnessy Dean of the College of Arts and Letters.
Notre Dame senior Gregory Serapio-García has been selected for the prestigious Gates Cambridge Scholarship to pursue a full-time postgraduate degree at the University of Cambridge in England. A psychology major and Idzik Computing and Digital Technologies Program minor in the College of Arts and Letters, Serapio-García is one of 34 Gates Cambridge Scholars representing 37 colleges or universities across the U.S.