Imagine
you're allergic to dust and mold and need 10 hours of sleep every
night. For some strange reason you've been appointed resident
director in a men's college dormitory. You wouldn't last a week,
right?
Wrong. Father George Rozum, CSC, '63, '80M.S., has lasted 27
years as the abundantly allergic, sleep-dependent rector of Notre
Dame's Alumni Hall. With the start of the academic year he broke
the record for longest tenure in charge of the same dorm.
"I thought I'd try it for a year," the soft-spoken 66-year-old
recalls of when he took the job in 1978. He insists that he's
always felt inadequate for the position because he's never been
able to get to know the hall's 269 residents (the capacity was
289 when he started) as well as he thinks he should.
Originally from Mitchell, South Dakota, Rozum came to Notre
Dame after eight years serving in a parish in Austin, Texas. He
says the climate there took a heavy toll on his health, as he
discovered he was allergic to, among other things, grass, trees,
dust and mold. He was particularly plagued by the pollen from
cedar trees, which seemed to follow him around like a yellow cloud.
After a year's sabbatical at Moreau Seminary to recover his health,
he became assistant rector in Holy Cross Hall (now demolished).
The following year he was put in charge of venerable Alumni, which,
along with Dillon Hall, celebrates its 75th anniversary this year.
Rozum says during the school year he gets his requisite sleep
between the hours of 2:30 a.m. and noon or 12:30 p.m. "I could
go to bed earlier, but I need to be up when they're (students)
up." He makes the astonishing claim that "They're pretty quiet
here." Only occasionally does he have to resort to ear plugs and
usually only in the morning when students head off to classes.
Before this year the record for continuous service as rector
of one dorm belonged to the legendary Father Matt Miceli, CSC,
'47, who headed Cavanaugh Hall from 1963 to 1990. Miceli is believed
to still hold the record for longest total service as a rector.
He was in charge of Stanford Hall for three years before Cavanaugh.
Miceli says that if someone was going to break his longest-heading-the-same-dorm
record he's happy it was Rozum. "I like George. He is an old-fashioned
type of rector, the type who believes the dorm is his
building. He does all kinds of things for his building."
Miceli has kidded his friend, however, that the new record should
come with an asterisk. That's because he, Miceli, taught a full
load of theology classes while he was a rector and Rozum has never
taught.
Rozum is reluctant to single out particular students as the
most memorable from the thousands who have passed through Alumni.
As for the scariest moments he's had as rector, he says, they
have all been the same.
"Every year you'll have two or three who drink too much and maybe
have to take them to the hospital or sit with them through the
night and hope it will be all right. And it always has been. They
don't understand that alcohol is real. After that they don't generally
have a problem again."
He says he plans to continue as rector as long as his health
holds. Asked what advice he would give to his eventual successor,
he says it would be same he was given by Father Greg Green, CSC,
'58, now staff chaplain for Student Affairs, when Green put him
in charge:
"'Love them well.' I think that's the most important thing."
(October 2005)
