In the week leading up to Valentine's Day, the
Gender Studies Program and the departments of English, anthropology
and film, television, and theatre (FTT) joined with Gay and Lesbian
Alumni/ae of the University of Notre Dame and Saint Mary's College
(GALA- ND/SMC) to sponsor the first-ever Notre Dame Queer Film
Festival. The four-day event included screenings of films with
gay or lesbian characters and subject matter, appearances by writers
and directors, panel discussions and a screen-writing workshop.
Among those returning to campus for the festival were two alums:
author Tom O'Neil '77 (Movie Awards; The Emmys; The Grammys)
and Director Don Roos '77 (The Opposite of Sex, Bounce).
The event attracted outsized media attention because of Notre
Dame's Catholic identity and because last year's Princeton
Review ratings of "the nation's best 351 colleges" (based
on surveys of students) placed Notre Dame first under the heading
"Alternative Lifestyles Not an Alternative." . . . A total
of 180 residents of Dillon Hall -- more than half the
dorm -- grew mustaches for three weeks starting in late January
to raise money for charity. Participants, including Rector Paul
Doyle, CSC, '65, '75M.Div., accepted pledges for each day they
went without shaving between nose and lip. By the end of the three
weeks some participants had little, facially, to show for their
efforts. But the so-called 'Stache Bash brought in a total of
about $7,500 in pledges, said Alex Pagnani '02, the hall's assistant
rector and law student who came up with the idea. The donations
are earmarked for the Ulman Fund for testicular cancer research
and awareness. The campaign ended with a semi-formal dance at
Beacon Bowl. The next day nearly all participants took up clippers
and razors in what was described as a "Valentine's Day present
to the women of Notre Dame." . . . The first economic
impact study ever commissioned by the University found
that Notre Dame infused $833 million into the local economy in
2002. That figure takes into account 673,000 visitors attracted
to campus from outside Saint Joseph County, 455,000 hours of volunteer
work performed by faculty, staff and students, $285,000 in property
and innkeeper taxes paid to South Bend and the county, and $306
million spent by the University in Saint Joe county alone on goods
and services. . . . Brother Edward Sniatecki, CSC, '25,
'33M.A., who entered Saint Joseph's Novitiate at Notre
Dame a few months after Knute Rockne completed his third season
as football coach, died in January at age 101. He was believed
to be Notre Dame's oldest living alumnus. Brother Ed appeared
in the photo accompanying the "Hall Portrait" of Carroll Hall
in this magazine two years ago. He lived in Carroll, then known
as Dujarie Hall, from 1921- 23 and was originally given the religious
name Brother Hyacinth. He went on to a long career as a teacher
and administrator at Catholic schools and was the founding principal
of Central Catholic High School in South Bend from 1934-41. Among
those who attended his 100th birthday party at Dujarie House,
the Brothers' assisted-living facility adjacent to Holy Cross
College, were members of the Class of 1938, the high school's
first graduating class, now in their 80s. . . . More than
2,000 people signed a petition to hold the ROTC programs'
annual all-services Presidential Pass in Review ceremony outside.
It's now held inside the Loftus Center, in the spring. University
officials are reluctant to move it outside because of possible
weather complications and because no other event takes over the
South Quad as it might. Some around campus remember when the ceremony
was held on the quad several years ago. It drew complaints from
some who thought a military parade was unseemly on the campus
of a religious university. Many of those in favor of holding the
ceremony outside see it as a slight to the military or a concession
to political correctness to move it indoors. The Pass in Review
has been held indoors every year but one since the late 1980s,
but before that it was held outdoors annually going back as far
as 1943, an ROTC commander says. It appears that the best chance
the pro-outdoor forces have of getting the ceremony moved is to
attract so many people they overflow Loftus. That's a longshot
because audiences in recent years have been modest in size. .
. . A new conservative student newspaper,
The Irish Rover, debuted on campus shortly before Christmas
break. The paper's masthead contained this disclaimer: "The ideas
presented herein are not necessarily those of the University,
although they probably should be." . . . Members of the
Women's Boxing Club first traded punches publically in
six bouts held in conjunction with the 2003 Bengal Bouts, but
those were non-scored exhibitions. Last fall the women competed
for real in 19 scored matches as part of their own Charity Bouts.
Proceeds from the event and other activities of the club totaled
more than $5,000, a portion of which is earmarked for the Honduras
Sports Camp for Girls, which encourages women's athletics in the
Central American country. . . . A few weeks before Christmas,
students in the Notre Dame Accounting Association took up a collection
of money and non-perishables to make care packages to send to
military alumni and students' family members serving in the Middle
East. . . . English Professor Valerie Sayers
donated the $2,000 she received with her 2003 College of Arts
and Letters Sheedy Award for Excellence in Teaching to seed a
scholarship fund for the benefit of underrepresented (minority
and first-generation) undergrads. The fund is designed to grow
with contributions from other faculty and staff. She says she
hopes it helps create a Notre Dame student body that isn't so
homogenous. . . . One day each month Dan Lindley,
assistant professor of political science, sits down at a table
in the South Dining Hall and talks international relations issues
with whomever wants to join him over lunch. "I have a nifty sign
and I bring my inflatable globe." . . . Vice President
and Associate Provost Carol Ann Mooney '77J.D. is about
to become the 11th president of Saint Mary's College. She takes
office June 1. She's the first lay alumna and the first former
Notre Dame administrator to lead Saint Mary's. Mooney earned a
bachelor's in English from Saint Mary's in 1972 and will succeed
Saint Mary's first lay female president, Marilou Eldred, who is
retiring. Interestingly, the first woman to become a vice president
of Notre Dame, Sister M. Alma Peter, CSC, was once acting president
of Saint Mary's (1970-72). In 1971 Sister Alma was named vice
president for special projects, a role created in connection with
Notre Dame's proposed merger with Saint Mary's. That job evaporated
in 1972 when the University opted to go co-ed instead. She retired
in 1984 but still lives at Saint Mary's. She's 94. . . . Campus
Ministry has begun a new program of speakers and informal
discussions on religious topics. The events are set in an unlikely
place -- the nightclub section of the new Legends restaurant complex.
The Theology on Tap program meets a couple of times a month with
free food and fountain soft drinks. The first get-together looked
at "Dating and Relationships at Notre Dame" and drew just under
100 people, the program's organizer said. Nearly double that attended
the second one, on "Catholic Sexual Ethics: How Far is Too Far."
. . . In an Inside Column in The Observer
photographer Allison Nichols of Saint Mary's described how
she accidentally (and irretrievably) flushed her cell phone down
the toilet. It fell out of her sweater. . . . In another
Inside Column, freshman Kate Gales, the paper's wire
editor, said she felt "an odd sense of deja vu" when she walked
into her first college party last fall, in room 313 of Zahm Hall.
Why? Because it was the room where her dad, Charlie Gales '82,
lived freshman year. . . . It's been many years
since sophomores were the only ones organizing, sponsoring, performing
or attending readings at the famed Sophomore Literary Festival.
So this year the 37-year tradition adopted a new more inclusive,
if predictable, name: the Notre Dame Literary Festival. . . .
Producers of the Hallmark cable channel's broadcast
of Sunday morning Mass from the Basilica try to be unobtrusive,
but congregants know they're on TV. Until a few months ago, the
celebrant would preface the service with an announcement that
the cameras focus primarily on the altar and choir but occasionally
pan over the congregation. Congregants were therefore encouraged
to sing and otherwise participate in the service but not "yawn
or check their watches." The revised announcement simply encourages
full participation.
* * *
(April 2004)
