The ticket office had to refund a record $5.1
million to alumni this year because requests for football tickets
overwhelmed the number of tickets available in the annual lottery.
The ticket office received 4,000 additional applications for tickets,
an increase of 6 percent from last season. Alumni have to donate
at least $100 to participate in the lottery. Tickets are $48 apiece
this year, up $5 from last season. . . . The Rigney family
of Rockville, Maryland, had four children attending Notre Dame
this year: twins Errin and Meghan, both seniors, plus their brothers,
also twins, Patrick and Paul, who are freshmen. Asked by South
Bend Tribune reporter Margaret Fosmoe '85 how the family can afford
it, Bob Rigney '70, '73J.D., '75M.A. replied, "We're following
our president. We're deficit spending." . . . "What's
the biggest problem in America?" consumer activist Ralph
Nader asked in a talk on campus earlier this year. "Hands down,
it's the lack of civic motivation." Translation: apathy. Near
the end of his talk Nader asked students to imagine themselves
in the future as grandparents. One day, he said, your grandchild
will be sitting in your lap and will turn to you and ask what
you did to solve the world's problems. "What are you going to
be able to tell him? That you were too busy? That you were otherwise
predisposed? That you spent endless amounts of time looking at
reruns of Cheers?" Nader was invited to campus by the
Law School to talk about legislating corporate ethics. . . . Father
Peter A. Jarret, CSC, '86, '91M.Div., has replaced Father
Richard V. Warner, CSC, '62 as counselor to Father Edward Malloy,
CSC, University president. Warner remains director of Campus Ministry.
Father Jarret remains rector of Keough Hall and continues to teach
a course in the master of divinity program and serve on the provincial
council of the CSCs. Readers may remember that Jarret's niece
Amy Jarret was a flight attendant aboard the United Airlines flight
from Boston that became the second plane crashed into the World
Trade Center. . . . The Department of Chemical Engineering
has turned into the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering.
Other institutions making the same switch include Cornell University
and the University of Illinois. . . . Joan Kroc
is the widow of longtime McDonald's head Ray Kroc, and her past
gifts established the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies
and built the Hesburgh Center for International Studies. Her latest
benefaction, $5 million, will establish an international scholarship
fund for peace and justice in Father Hesburgh's name. . . . If
you don't like or can't drink cow's milk, the dining
halls now offer an alterative: soy milk. Cartons of soy milk have
been available on request in the dining halls the past few years,
but now students can fill up on soy at the milk dispensers. Slightly
more expensive than conventional milk, soy is popular with people
who are lactose-intolerant. The head of Food Services says soy
now accounts for about 10 percent of the milk consumed in the
dining halls. So far only regular flavor is available, but officials
are considering adding chocolate, vanilla or other varieties when
they become available in bulk . . . . The latest addition
to LaFortune's eateries is a taco and burrito takeout
in the Huddle Mart called Buen Provecho. It replaced the deli
stand. . . . Want to fly from South Bend to a
Notre Dame away football game this fall? You won't find better
fares than those offered by David A. Melkey '93MSA, an instructor
in the Master of Science in Administration program. Melkey, also
a pilot, was looking for passengers to share the cost of flying
his private plane to all of the away football games this year
except Stanford. He said he expected to have 2-3 seats available,
depending on whether his wife decided to come. He estimated the
cost per passenger at $40 to $100 round-trip depending on distance.
To see if there are any seats still available, write to melkey.3@nd.edu.
. . . After being gone for six years, a pilot
training course returned to campus this fall. The three-credit
course offered by the Air Force ROTC prepares students to take
the FAA's ground school written exam and begin flight training
to become either a military or civilian pilot. There's no actual
flying in the class, but the student-led Notre Dame Pilot Initiative,
a force behind bringing back the course, promoted enrollment by
flinging paper airplanes at guests in the dining halls last spring.
The Air Force ROTC offered a similar course complete with flight
instruction from 1973 to 1997, at which point it was discontinued
because of liability concerns. . . . For years,
students taking final exams in large, 100-level courses have been
startled to see a fellow student jump up in the iddle of the exam,
throw the test paper in the air, scream something like "I
can't take this any more," and race out of the room. Some
students are convinced the screamers are teaching assistants planted
by their instructors as a joke to puncture test-taking tension.
But administrators say they know of no faculty who have pulled
or would pull such a stung. They suspect it's a prank, perpetuated
by seniors. . . . Joe Moore, the offensive line
coach under Lou Holtz who sued the University for age discrimination
and won after Holtz's successor, Bob Davie, decided not to retain
him, died in July at age 71. He had reportedly been battling lung
cancer. . . . "One of the worst places I've
ever lived in my life" is how Kevin Coyne described Turtle Creek
Apartments to an audience last spring at the Sophomore Literary
Festival. He lived in the apartments the entire 1992-93 academic
year, chronicled in his terrific book Domers. Coyne's
latest book is Marching Home: To War and Back With the Men
of One American Town, about six residents of his hometown
of Freehold, New Jersey, who went off to fight in World War II.
. . . . Father Gustavo Gutierrez, O.P., Notre
Dame's John Cardinal O'Hara Professor of Theology, is credited
with writing the foundational text for "liberation theology,"
the church's vocation to resist the oppression of the poor. Earlier
this year he was awarded the Prince of Asturias Award for Communications
and the Humanities. Prince Felipe of Spain presides over the foundation
that presents the Asturias Awards each year in Asturias, Spain.
. . . Junior Charlie Ebersol's dad, Dick Ebersol,
chairman of NBC Sports and NBC Olympics (and husband of actress
Susan Saint James), won a charity auction to have singer-songwriter
Carly Simon whisper in his ear the secret of whom she's singing
about in her 1972 hit "You're So Vain." Ebersol bid $50,000 to
learn the identity, which he had to promise not to reveal. He
also received a private performance and a lunch of peanut butter
and jelly sandwiches with the singer. Charlie Ebersol is working
in the entertainment industry himself this year as chair of the
Student Union Board. . . . Unlike the live leprechaun
mascot seen on the sidelines at football games or the jut-jawed
Fighting Irish leprechaun emblem, the 9-foot inflatable mascot
of the Notre Dame Kids Club has acquired a name: Clancy. The Kids
Club, just renamed Clancy's Kids Club, is a fan club for children
14 and younger. For $15 a year members get a T-shirt and free
admission to more than 100 athletic events, including the Blue
and Gold spring football scrimmage and a selected hockey game
and a men's and a women's basketball game. Inflatable Clancy debuted
last fall. . . . Visit Notre Dame during the
summer and you may be surprised by the number of families with
young children frolicking on campus. They're most likely residents
of Notre Dame Family Hall. Each year the Alumni Association rents
out rooms in one of the dormitories (this year it was Walsh) for
rates that can't be beat: $25 a night for two adults in one room.
For an additional $10 per night two children can stay in an adjoining
room. (It's $5 extra per room on Friday and Saturday nights).
The weekly rate is $125 for the one room and $150 for the two.
The summer program, said to be a rarity on U.S. college campuses,
is popular with wedding parties, parents of sports-camp attendees,
and former classmates who want to meet up on campus and bring
along spouses and kids. Guests get free use of bicycles and some
facilities, and there are free programs during the day for kids.
This past summer the hall hosted more than 2,000 guests and was
full every weekend. You don't even have to be an alumnus to get
in on this deal. One drawback is that the designated dorm is never
one of the air-conditioned buildings, which are reserved for other
summer programs.
(October 2003)
