The founder of the Congregation of Holy Cross, Father Basil Anthony Moreau, CSC, moved
one step closer to sainthood in April when the Vatican officially recognized a miraculous healing
attributed to Moreau's intercession. The decree paved the way for the priest's beatification
ceremony in LeMans, France, in 2007. Beatification is the last step before sainthood may be
considered. Father Moreau, a French diocesan priest and seminary professor, died in 1873 at age
73. . . . Another potential Holy Cross saint-in-the-making, Father Patrick Peyton, CSC, was
given the title "Servant of God" in 2001. The designation recognizes that his cause for
canonization is being formally considered by the Vatican. Peyton '37, who was born in Ireland,
produced hundreds of radio and television shows in the 1940s and '50s with Hollywood and
Broadway stars highlighting Catholic values and preaching the importance of family prayer.
Peyton coined the famous slogan, "The family that prays together, stays together." He died in
1992 at age 83. . . . Dodging cars while crossing Juniper Road on campus has become a thing of
the past. In fact, most of Juniper Road on campus has become a thing of the past. During the
summer the section of the road from Douglas to the Joyce Center was removed in anticipation of
greatly increased pedestrian traffic to the new Jordan Hall of Science. A short piece of the
roadway north of Edison Road to the Joyce Center will remain in service until next year when
other campus improvements are completed. . . . In late May and early June, Notre Dame
President Father John Jenkins, CSC, '76, '78M.A. led a six-member University delegation to
China, Hong Kong and Taiwan to gain a better understanding of the region as well as explore
possible collaborative ventures with Asian universities. The group, which included Arts and
Letters Dean Mark Roche, Vice President for University Relations Louis Nanni '84, '88M.A.,
Assistant Vice President for University Relations David Morrissey, and Professors Howard
Goldblatt and Sylvia Lin of the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures, met with
government, education and business leaders as well as local Notre Dame clubs. . . . Notre
Dame's School of Architecture has received high marks from two architecture journals. New
Urban News, which is devoted to the New Urbanism movement of city planning, ranked Notre
Dame second behind the University of Miami. Meanwhile the journal DesignIntelligence placed
Notre Dame 12th out of 75 accredited bachelor's degree programs. The ranking was based on
responses from architecture firms assessing how prepared a school's grads were for "real-world"
practice. . . . Once again proving the maxim that one person's trash is another's treasure, Notre
Dame's annual From Old2Gold Sale of items left behind by homeward-bound students raised
$43,000 for local nonprofit groups. The sum represents 81 tons of furniture, clothing, electronics,
books and other items donated by students. . . . Drop boxes scattered last spring around Notre
Dame, Saint Mary's, Holy Cross, Indiana University South Bend and Bethel collected more than
7,000 unwanted books on the ND campus alone, raising $50,000 to support educational
programming at the Robinson Community Learning Center in South Bend. The collected books
are sold online by Better World Books, a social enterprise founded five years ago by 2001 grads
Chris Fuchs, Xavier Helgesen and Jeff Kurtzman. In five years, the business, whose CEO is
David Murphy '80, has collected more than 1.5 million books from 750 colleges and
universities, raising more than $750,000 for literacy charities. Mary Murphy '80, David's wife,
heads up BWB's campus division in its 12-state southern region, while their daughter Caroline
Murphy '07, is the campus leader for the ND book drive. . . . A trio of two-sport ND athletes
made SI.com's list of the Top 15 Greatest College Athletes: Jeff Samardzija '07 (#14,
football/baseball), Bob Golic '79 (#12, football/wrestling) and Raghib Ismail '94 (#9,
football/track). Notre Dame was the only school to have three athletes on the greats list. . . . Meanwhile, Irish teams scored their best athletic year in history last year, finishing sixth in the
National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics Directors' Cup. Previously the
University's best showing had been 11th place. Notre Dame had 44 All-Americans, 14
Academic All-Americans, a league-record 13 Big East championship teams, while 24 teams
qualified for postseason play and 13 teams finished nationally in the top 15 of their sport. . . . Interest in Notre Dame football is at an all-time high. The September 9 Penn State game and the
September 16 Michigan game are the two highest-requested games in the history of the ticket
lottery; four home games are among the top 10 for requests; the November 25 away game at
USC is the all-time most requested ND road game. The ND ticket office mailed a record $11.7
million in refunds -- more than twice as much as a year ago -- to unsuccessful lottery
participants in the ticket distribution for contributing alumni, monogram winners, undergraduate
parents and benefactors. . . . Concrete proof -- literally -- of restored Irish football mania is
offered by the South Bend Regional Airport. Because of heavier demand for private plane
parking space on game days, airport officials decided to fast track the $715,000 expansion of the
landing field's general aviation apron, completing the 1,600-by-200-foot concrete strip late this
summer, instead of 2007 as originally planned. At last year's USC game, parking space was
strained to the breaking point when 300 private aircraft landed in South Bend. Since more than
225 planes were expected for the Irish home opener this year, officials prudently decided to
move the project up. . . . Notre Dame's Alliance for Catholic Education (ACE) program and
its Institute for Educational Initiatives launched an "English as a New Language" (ENL)
program last summer for licensed teachers in Catholic schools in which English is a new
language for at least 10 percent of the students. The program also is open to bilingual teachers
who teach at schools in the United States or abroad where English is not the primary language.
Upon completion of the six-class program, two of which are taken during summer session with
the remainder online, teachers will earn an ENL license from the state of Indiana, which is
honored reciprocally by other states. . . . Meanwhile, after a series of legal moves on both sides,
a federal appeals court ruled in July that a lawsuit may proceed against Notre Dame and the U.S.
Department of Education over a $500,000 grant to replicate the ACE program at other
universities. The American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana had filed suit contending the grant
violates the First Amendment separation of church and state because the ACE program trains
teachers for religious schools. "The University expects to pursue its case at the district court
level and feels confident that it has in no way done anything illegal," said Don Wycliff '69,
Notre Dame associate vice president for public affairs and communication. . . . In July, in
Burundi, Africa, Notre Dame's Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies co-sponsored the
Third International Conference of the Catholic Peacebuilding Network. More than 100 Church
leaders, including 14 bishops, and specialists in peace and reconciliation met in the central
African country to examine creative ways to lessen conflict in the war-torn region, which
includes Rwanda, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The conference program,
list of participants, papers presented at the conference as well as a video of the conference may
be accessed at the website http://cpn.nd.edu/. . . . Cathy Mazurkiewicz, the mother of Montana
Mazurkiewicz, the 10-year-old boy whose dying wish was to call a football play for Notre Dame
died in May of melanoma. Notre Dame Coach Charlie Weis, who met the boy last fall, honored
the wish, calling for "pass right" on the first play of the Washington game even though the Irish
were on their one-yard line. Brady Quinn '07 completed the pass to Anthony Fasano '06 for a
gain of 13 yards. Montana's mother knew her own health was failing at the time but refused to
draw attention to herself. . . . "Jesus" earned two As in Spanish courses this summer at Notre
Dame. Actor Jim Caviezel, who portrayed Christ in Mel Gibson's epic film The Passion of the
Christ, hopes to earn a degree from Notre Dame and plans to continue studying at the University
as his work schedule allows. The 37-year-old is not enrolled in the fall semester but is expected
to return to class next summer. . . . The annual U.S. News and World Report ratings ranked
Notre Dame No. 20 among national universities, two places lower than last year. Meanwhile, Washington Monthly magazine ranked Notre Dame 13th in its survey of national universities and
the Kaplan/Newsweek "How to Get into College" guide lists Notre Dame among the "new
Ivies," schools that it says rival the Ivy League for stature and quality. Other schools on the "new
Ivy" list include Emory, New York, Rice, Vanderbilt and Washington universities, UCLA, and
the universities of Michigan, North Carolina and Virginia.
(October 2006)
