Mary McAleese, president of the Republic
of Ireland, will be the commencement
speaker at graduation exercises on May 21. An attorney, journalist
and scholar, McAleese was elected to the largely ceremonial office
of president in 1997 and re-elected unopposed in 2004. She is
a native of Belfast, Northern Ireland, and has maintained a theme
of "building bridges" throughout her tenure in office, working
to heal divisions between Catholics and Protestants. McAleese
will be awarded an honorary doctor of laws degree at commencement.
In 2004, her husband, Dr. Martin McAleese, received an honorary
degree during dedication ceremonies for O'Connell House, the base
for Notre Dame's prograrms in Ireland. . . . Mexico's
congress has nominated Notre Dame sociologist
Jorge Bustamante for the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize. An authority
on U.S.-Mexican immigration and an outspoken advocate of human
and labor rights for immigrants, the Eugene P. and Helen Conley
professor of sociology said the nomination itself was an award,
noting that typically just 100 people are nominated each year.
Bustamante has been a vocal critic of legislation that would deny
citizenship to the American-born children of undocumented immigrants
The prize will be presented December 10 in Oslo, Norway. . . .
In another international honor, the French Ministry
of National Education named Associate Professor of Romance Languages
and Literatures Catherine Perry a chevalier ("knight") in the
Ordre des Palmes Academiques. The award was created in 1808 by
Napoleon I and is presented to outstanding scholars whose work
promotes French language, culture and educational activities.
Perry is an authority in 19th and 20th century French literature
and serves as undergraduate advisor for the Program in French
and Francophone Studies at Notre Dame. . . . Of the 1,241
applicants receiving early acceptance letters from the
admissions office this year, 22 had perfect SAT scores. . . .
The Mendoza College of Business' MBA program
ranks among the best internationally in terms of commitment to
social responsibility, according to the World Resources Institute
and the Aspen Institute. In the recent article "The Best in the
Class," Time magazine noted that seven of nine required
Notre Dame MBA courses examine the social impact of business practices,
while another course is devoted to ethics. Other schools in ND's
class include Stanford, the University of Michigan and the University
of Navarra in Spain. . . . Notre Dame's efforts in
accounting education also have garnered high
marks. In its annual ranking, the Public Accounting Report rates
Notre Dame's undergraduate and graduate programs third in the
nation behind the University of Texas at Austin and Brigham Young
University. . . . Lieutenant Colonel Gary Masapollo, who
is executive officer of Notre Dame's Army ROTC,
has been assigned to the Guantanamo Naval Base to serve on a board
that determines who among the 550 enemy combatant detainees, mainly
from Afghanistan and Pakistan, will remain imprisoned. Previously
Masapollo, who holds a law degree, took part in the U.N. war crime
tribunals in Kosovo. . . . Moody's Investors Service,
which provides credit ratings, research and analysis,
continues to think Notre Dame offers a good investment opportunity
in the bond market. The firm re-confirmed the University's Aaa
credit rating. Notre Dame is one of only nine private universities
to receive the Aaa rating. Other schools include Columbia, Harvard,
Princeton, Rice, Stanford, Yale, Dartmouth and MIT. Moody's cited
Notre Dame's "robust operating performance" with "ample balance
sheet resources driven by superior investment returns and strong
fundraising.". . . At the student-organized conference
"The Edith Stein Project: Redefining Feminism" in a Catholic
context, Notre Dame anthropologist Cynthia Mahmood spoke to a
hushed audience about political violence inflicted on women in
very personal terms. In 1992 Mahmood had been conducting research
on a tribal group in India and was warned not to speak with a
certain scholar. After meeting with the scholar any way, the anthropologist
was jumped by a gang of masked men, beaten and gang raped because
power holders felt threatened by her work. "How do you go from
there, where you have felt the hatred of yourself as a woman.
. . . How do you come back from that and heal from that?" she
asked. Mahmood, who studies militant groups, said her experience
has caused her to reconsider how she thinks about gender violence.
She noted that some violence directed toward women in non-Western
cultures, such as genital mutilation, is not viewed in the culture
as an act of hatred but as an act of tradition and love. Rather
than focusing on why people hate, Mahmood concluded that it is
more helpful to figure out a way "in a legal, political and social
arena that we can co-exist." . . . You might say
one good president begets another. Apparently that's what the
Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities believes. The
organization awarded Father Edward A. "Monk" Malloy, CSC, Notre
Dame president emeritus, the Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, CSC, Award
in February. The organization honored Malloy for his service to
higher education and his efforts to combat alcohol and drug abuse.
. . . Meanwhile, Father Hesburgh, CSC, who preceded
Malloy as ND president, was among the winners of the 2005 National
Caring Awards, annually presented by the Washington D.C.-based
Caring Institute to people who inspire others in the tradition
of Mother Teresa. . . . One thing a Notre Dame
athletic coach can say to a recruit with iron-clad
confidence is "Come to Notre Dame, and you will graduate." According
to the NCAA's Graduation Success Rate (GSR) scale for the 26 Division I-A football schools, Notre Dame's
98 percent GSR for all its student athletes ranks second, behind
only the U.S. Naval Academy, which had a 99 percent GSR. Using
another scale, the federally mandated Graduation Rates Report,
which covers students who enrolled between 1995 and 1998 at all
Division I schools, Notre Dame compiled a four-year graduation
average of 90.4 percent, ahead of Duke (89.6 percent), Stanford
(88 percent) and Northwestern (86 percent). . . . Rapper
Chuck D, a founder of the influential rap group Public
Enemy, gave the keynote lecture during Notre Dame's observance
of Black History Month in February. Speaking to a standing room
only ethnically diverse audience for almost three hours, the Adelphi
University graduate, whose real name is Carlton Douglas Ridenhour,
covered everything from a history of rap music and black culture
to the shallowness of American reality TV culture. "America is
reaching the point where anti-intellectuallism and dumbassification
are coming into vogue. I spent a lot of my time outside this country
and the rest of the world is a beat ahead," he told the audience.
. . . . . . . We're No. 5 when
it comes to the highest percentage of students participating in
study abroad programs among American research universities, according
to the Institute of International Education. In 2003-04, the most
recent academic year for which statistics are available, 53.6
percent of Notre Dame students had participated in study abroad
programs. The University of Saint Thomas in Saint Paul, Minnesota,
ranked first with 61.6 percent. . . .Next to the Indianapolis
Speedway Notre Dame is said to be the biggest tourist
attraction in the state of Indiana, and freshman Jim Zenker is
evidence of that fact. On the day of the Notre Dame-Syracuse football
game last fall, Zenker, who was showing the campus to guests,
became the two-millionth visitor to the University's Eck Visitor's
Center since its opening in 1999. The stunned Notre Dame student
was congratulated by University officials and Frank Eck, benefactor
of the center. Zenker left the center with a basket of Notre Dame
gifts and a job as a student tour guide, having impressed the
center's assistant director, Jamie Cripe. . . . Work
on a proposed Notre Dame/South Bend research
park may begin later this year, according to South Bend Mayor
Stephen Luecke. The joint effort between the University and the
city of South Bend will offer space for research and business
and will be located on a triangular plot of land west of the new
Twyckenham Drive extension and south of Edison Road. . . .
The price tag for a year of undergraduate Notre Dame
education will go up to $42,137 next year, which includes a 5.8
percent increase in tuition. In his letter to parents and guardians
announcing the increase, Notre Dame President Father John Jenkins,
CSC, noted, "the University remains committed to being affordable
and accessible to a talented and diverse student body." University
financial aid is steadily moving way from loans to monetary scholarships.
Over the past 15 years scholarship aid has increased from $5.4
million to $60 million per year, and it remains a priority in
fund-raising efforts. . . . The public editor of
the Chicago Tribune, Don Wycliff '69, has been named
associate vice president for news and information and the University's
chief spokesman. A former member of The New York Times
editorial board, Wycliff served as the Tribune's
editorial page editor from 1991 to 2000, when he was named
public editor. He succeeds Matt Storin '64, who was editor of
The Boston Globe before serving at Notre Dame.
(April 2006)
