The Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies
started fall semester without its star faculty recruit, a Muslim
scholar named by Time magazine as one of the most influential
people in the world. In August, the State Department, acting on
a request from the Department of Homeland Security, revoked the
work visa of Tariq Ramadan, a Swiss citizen. No reason was given
to Ramadan of the Kroc Institute. But various federal agency spokespeople
quoted by news organizations said the reversal was made under
a provision of the USA Patriot Act and related to federal law
provisions that apply to foreigners who have used a "position
of prominence within any country to endorse or espouse terrorist
activity." Ramadan is a widely known scholar and considered
a moderate by many in the Muslim world, but some Jewish groups
have called him anti-Semitic, and there have been unsubstantiated
accusations connecting him to terrorist groups. In a statement
issued in late August, the University said it knew of no reason
for the problem and that it was hopeful that the State Department
would reconsider. . . . The Notre Dame Concert Band
played a 12-day concert tour in Australia and New Zealand in May.
It was the band's first visit to the South Pacific in its 159-year
history. The tour culminated with a sold-out performance (more
than 2,500 people) at the famous Sydney Opera House. Sixty students
went on the trip. . . . Students no longer have
to dread their parents seeing their grades when they're mailed
home at the end of the semester. They aren't mailed home anymore.
The change began last year and is in line with the trend at most
colleges, the registrar's office says. Undergrads can now look
up their final fall and spring semester grades on an online password-protected
site, saving them time and the University money. Students can
fill out a form and receive a paper grade report in the mail if
they wish (or their parents order them to). Or they can give their
parents the password to look online. Still being mailed home are
midsemester grades for all freshmen and deficiency reports for
any upperclassmen getting a D or F in a class as of midsemester
. . . . A study of 82 students who fought in
the Bengal Bouts found no signs of a decline in their mental abilities
after their competitions. The study didn't examine whether a decline
of that sort preceded their decision to take up boxing. Seriously,
the findings suggested that the Bengal Bouts, like most other
amateur boxing, is relatively safe because fighters wear headgear
and the bouts are shorter than in the pros The study was led by
James Moriarty, M.D., '72, chief of medicine at Notre Dame. .
. . A survey of participants in the Center for
Social Concerns' popular Urban Plunge seminars found that before
the taking the Plunge about 16 percent of business majors considered
"personal laziness" to be a leading cause of poverty. Afterward
the figure dropped to just over 3 percent. The No. 1 poverty cause
cited by all Plunge participants, before and after, was lack of
education. Urban Plunge is a one-credit seminar course built around
a 48-hour immersion in an urban center during winter break. .
. . Notre Dame has a Flint Thomas, professor
of aerospace and mechanical engineering, and a Thomas Flint, professor
of philosophy and director of the Center for Philosophy of Religion.
Yes, they often get each other's mail. . . . Members of
the new President's Circle donor recognition group (for
benefactors who give an unrestricted $25,000 or more to the University
in a given year) were invited to Washington in early July to meet
National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice '75M.A. and Meet
the Press host Tim Russert. They also dined at the Library
of Congress. Begun last year, the President's Circle had about
60 members at the time of the trip. University fund-raisers hope
to expand the number to 100 by the end of this year. . . . Of
the 88 former Irish football players who appeared on
NFL opening-day rosters between 1996 and 2003, 82 of them -- 93
percent -- had their college degrees, according to a published
report. By the University's reckoning, since 1962, 99 percent
of scholarship football players who remained at Notre Dame at
least four years earned degrees. . . . The constitutional
separation of church and state exists not to keep religion
out of public life but to keep government out of religion, Associate
Professor of Law Richard W. Garnett told a Senate judiciary subcommittee
in June. Speaking at a hearing titled Beyond the Pledge of Allegiance:
Hostility to Religious Expression in the Public Square, Garnett
said the church-state divide was intended "not to 'put religion
in its place' -- after all, in our tradition, the government lacks
the power to determine religion's 'place' -- but instead to protect
religion by keeping the government 'in its place.'" . . . A
group of drunken off-duty police officers in Fremantle,
Western Australia, made a group of Notre Dame study-broad students
kneel on the ground outside their dorm and then taunted them about
their nationality and the United States-led invasion of Iraq.
Following an independent investigation of the May 25 incident,
a police official issued a formal apology to the U.S. consulate
and the University of Notre Dame Australia, where the students
were taking classes. According to published reports the incident
began when the students were celebrating a 21st birthday at a
nightclub in Fremantle. A fight broke out between at least one
student and the off-duty police. After the students left the club
the police apparently tracked them back to their dorm. One student
was initially charged with assault in connection with the club
fight, but the charge was later dropped. Notre Dame Australia
hosts the study-abroad program but has no other financial or legal
ties with the South Bend campus. . . . Running pals
and future president's-office-suite neighbors Father John I. Jenkins,
CSC, '76, '78M.A. and John Affleck-Graves ran South Bend's Sunburst
Marathon together on June 5. The Reunion Weekend race ends at
Notre Dame. Jenkins, 50, president-elect, and Affleck-Graves,
53, executive vice president, finished the 26.4 miles in a respectable
3 hours 51½ minutes. . . . Members of the campus's
Mystery Science Theatre 3000 Club (for fans of the former
cable TV show that featured characters making incessant wisecracks
during bad movies) kidded their new president, Eric Houston '05,
that his e-mails announcing the particulars of the next weekly
meeting were too short. So he lengthened them. His first message
in the new format ended with the entire first chapter of The
Great Gatsby.
(October 2004)
