A television executive from San Antonio, who
is the father of two current undergrads, was hired as the University's
new vice president for public affairs and communication, a division
that includes Notre Dame Magazine. J. Roberto Gutiérrez,
45, co-founded the Hispanic Telecommunications Network, which
produces the weekly television series Nuestra Familia,
the only national Catholic evangelization series for the nation's
Latino community. He received an honorary doctorate from Notre
Dame in 1999. In the Latino neighborhoods of San Antonio where
he grew up, he said, every kid attending Catholic school dreamed
of going to Notre Dame. He said he felt "uniquely called by God"
to his new post. . . . Aaron Perri '02, a graduate
of the film, television and theatre program and of the business
school's entrepreneurship courses, is producing what he believes
will be the first video yearbook for Notre Dame. The two-hour
production will cover events from throughout the year, including
commencement, he says. Copies must be ordered in advance - $30
for DVD, $25 for VHS. The South Bend native says he began producing
video yearbooks for local high schools six years ago. For the
Notre Dame project, he has the sponsorship of the Alumni Association,
meaning the association will get a cut of the profits in return
for letting him market it under the group's name and use the association's
mailing list. Most of the footage is being shot, digitally, by
film and TV production majors receiving internship credit. To
see stills from what's been recorded so far or to order a copy,
visit his company website, www.aptproductions.com. . . . The
following lead from a front-page story in The Observer
demonstrates how student journalists sometimes have a hard time
deciding where to place the time element in a sentence: "In her
State of the Student Union address, Student Body president Libby
Bishop announced that the student union is founded upon the idea
of making a difference on Wednesday." . . . Just so nobody
thinks the pros are perfect, in a report from the Notre
Dame football team's preseason practices the Chicago Tribune
mentioned that defensive back Jason Beckstrom had suffered a possible
season-ending biceps injury. Except the story didn't say Jason
Beckstrom. It said "Jason Backstop." . . . Talk of a possible
war with Iraq prompted members of the Notre Dame Peace
Coalition to chalk antiwar messages on sidewalks around campus.
That prompted some unidentified students to write sarcastic counterslogans
including "Down With the Marshall Plan" and "Get Our Boys Outta
Nam." . . . The young man who inspired the entire
Notre Dame family a few years ago by earning his diploma (communications
and theater) despite being born with no arms and with only one
leg, traveled to his native Colombia last October to see his family
for the first time in 18 years. Alex Montoya '96 was sent to live
with an aunt and uncle in San Diego when he was 4 because his
parents knew his medical and educational opportunities would be
greater in the United States. He says he's kept in close contact
with his parents and siblings over the years but that travel expenses
prevented him from making the trip to the family home in Medellin.
He hadn't been back since a two-month visit during summer vacation
when he was 10. Alex now works for San Diego's Hispanic Chamber
of Commerce. He said he's also had bit parts in two movies, AI
and Minority Report, ushers at San Diego Padres
and Chargers games, and maintains a humorous online discussion
group about Notre Dame football, themontacoreport@yahoogroups.com.
. . . Kerri Castello of Mobile, Alabama, would
be a freshman at Notre Dame now if she hadn't died of bone cancer
last spring. During the weekend of the Stanford home football
game last October, her parents joined alumni from Mobile and others
to dedicate a memorial tree and bench behind Columba Hall facing
Saint Joseph's Lake. At the ceremony, ophthalmologist Richard
Duffey '79 of the Mobile alumni club said the memorial's location
was appropriate. In the University's early days the site consisted
of swampland believed responsible for outbreaks of typhus and
other diseases that threatened the school's future. Duffey said
he hoped someday a Notre Dame student helped by the memorial scholarship
in Kerri's name might discover a cure for cancers like the one
that ended her life at age 18. . . . According to
the Wall Street Journal, the American Jewish Congress
is suing the Corporation for National & Community Service
(AmeriCorps) over education grants AmeriCorps awards to participants
in Notre Dame's Alliance for Catholic Education program. ACE places
recent graduates in under-resourced Catholic elementary and secondary
schools, mostly in the South and Southwest. They teach for two
years and take classes leading to a master's degree in education.
The Jewish group argues that ACE and two similar programs amount
to taxpayer support of religious indoctrination, even though participants
aren't allowed to earn credit toward the grants while teaching
religion. . . . Notre Dame's MBA program has
climbed into the top tier of BusinessWeek magazine's
national rankings at No. 29. Previously Notre Dame was in the
second tier, within which schools are listed alphabetically. In
other recent rankings, the Mendoza College of Business is 31st
out of 50 in the Wall Street Journal's 2003 guide to
the nation's top business schools. And a new directory of the
world's best MBA programs, published by The Economist, places
the Notre Dame 18th worldwide. . . . The Irish Guard
was banished from the home game against Pittsburgh in October
after TV cameras caught some of the kilted giants sleeping on
the sidelines during the Stanford game the week before. An official
in Student Affairs said the action came in response to the guardsmen's
lack of decorum representing the University. Embarrassing shots
of snoozing guard members during NBC's national telecast later
showed up on ESPN's SportsCenter. Student Affairs reinstated
the guard after a meeting in which members expressed remorse along
with regret at not living up to their own high standards of conduct.
. . . Near the end of the home game against Michigan,
devoted Irish fan J. Terence Reilly '60, seated in a row high
in the south end of the stadium, began complaining to those around
him of chest pains, then lost consciousness. Typical of any large
crowd of Notre Dame alumni, several doctors were seated nearby,
including at least one heart specialist. They performed CPR until
the stadium's emergency medical care personnel could make their
way through the exiting throng with a defibrillator. But efforts
to revive him failed. The 64-year-old was taking medicine for
high blood pressure but had never suffered a heart attack and
was feeling fine, his family told the South Bend Tribune.
Mr. Reilly lived in suburban Chicago and attended nearly every
home game. He had driven to the Michigan game with two friends,
but they were seated elsewhere in the stadium. So was son Bart
Reilly '87, who told the paper he knew his father was at the game
but didn't know where he was seated. He saw aid workers trying
to revive someone in the stands at the end of the game and said
a quick prayer on the victim's behalf. It wasn't until he was
back home in Chicago that someone phoned with the news and he
realized it had been his father. . . . It was more expensive
to park on campus for football games this fall. The price of general
parking rose from $10 to $15, and special reserved spaces in the
paved lots jumped from $20 to $30. Why? To help meet the athletic
department's goal of funding the maximum number of grants-in-aid
for so-called Olympic sports (soccer, swimming, rowing, etc.).
The hope is that by being able to recruit as many scholarship
athletes as allowed, Notre Dame can become nationally competitive
in all sports. The extra revenue also will help fund overall athletic
operations and support the recreational sports program. . . .
High over the stadium during the first game of
the 2002 season an airplane pulled a banner reading "Dominiack
Mechanical, for a million reasons." It was a clever self-deprecating
slogan if you knew the background. Dominiack Mechanical is a heating
and air conditioning contractor in South Bend whose former bookkeeper
embezzled more than a million dollars and used some of the money
to lavish gifts and trips on Notre Dame football players. Among
other repercussions, the incident led to the dissolution of the
team's booster club, of which she was a member. . . . . The lucky
visitor got a gift basket and unexpected welcome from Monk and
other University officials. . . . At a luncheon
honoring staff employees, Father Malloy talked about making the
most of one's abilities and not dwelling on inabilities. Here's
what he said were some of his inabilities: "I cannot sing or play
a musical instrument. I cannot swim. I cannot shop."
