The theater department staged George Bernard
Shaw's Arms and the Man, about an anti-romantic love
triangle, in Washington Hall in April. It marked the end of an
era -- the last academic production to be performed in the 123-year-old
facility. Beginning this fall shows put on by the Department of
Film, Television and Theatre will be staged in the Marie P. DeBartolo
Center for the Performing Arts, nearing completion at the south
end of campus. Washington Hall will be reserved for productions
by student organizations and residence halls plus some performances
by non-University groups. . . . A crew from the
Travel Channel was on campus for three days in April filming around
Washington Hall. The network is planning a show on Haunted
Campuses. Legend has it that George Gipp caught the cold
that led to his fatal bout with strep throat after sleeping on
the steps of the building. His spirit supposedly can be heard
running across the roof. The show is expected to air this fall.
. . . History professor Kathleen Biddick taught
a class spring semester called Haunted Campus that dug into the
origins of Notre Dame. A class project culminated with a candlelight
procession around campus that honored Native Americans who lived
here before the University was established and also contemporary
tribes people. Representatives of the Pokagon Band of the Potowatomi
Nation and of the Miami Nation participated in the planting of
a "memory tree" with a commemorative plaque outside the log chapel.
. . . Gary Sieber, an adjunct faculty member
in the Film, Television and Theatre department (and WNDU-TV weekend
weather guy) was having lunch on campus one day this past semester
with a visitor, David Welna, National Public Radio's congressional
correspondent. (He's also the brother of Kellogg Institute Associate
Director Chris Welna.) Sieber told the NPR reporter that he had
asked his students how many listened to NPR. The answer: none.
One said he had heard of the network. . . . Fencers Kerry
Walton, a senior this past year, and Forest Walton, who
was a fifth-year senior, are the only brother and sister ever
to earn All American honors at Notre Dame. . . . Sports
Illustrated On Campus and Cool Water Cologne sponsored
a male beauty pageant at Legends, the former Alumni-Senior Club,
in February. The title of Mr. Cool Water went to John Hart, a
junior living in Keenan. He won $100 for himself and his dorm.
Appropriately, representatives from the women's dorms judged.
. . . Students for Environmental Energy sponsored
a contest in February to see which dorm could reduce its energy
consumption the most from same month the year before. Welsh Family
Hall, a women's dorm, shed 8,310 kilowatt hours to win the $100
first prize. The second- and third-place finishers were also women's
halls -- Badin and Welsh's West Quad neighbor, McGlinn. . . .
More than 400 Notre Dame alumni signed a letter
to the University's trustees in January complaining about management
of the football program. Among their suggestions to make the team
better was to have the athletic director concentrate solely on
football. . . . Former Irish and NFL great Paul
Hornung created an uproar in late March when he told a radio interviewer
he thought Notre Dame should lower its admissions standards so
it can recruit more black players and better compete with large
state schools. The University issued this response: "We strongly
disagree with the thesis of his remarks. They are generally insensitive
and specifically insulting to our past and current African-American
student-athletes." Hornung later said he meant to say that it's
hard for all athletes to get into Notre Dame. In an op-ed published
April 4 in The New York Times, Monk wrote that the University's
admissions standards for "special interests" like football recruits
have remained the same for 30 years. He also said fans have called
for easing admissions standards in the past during down periods
only to see the program rebound to win national championships.
. . . A feminist student group has been granted
official recognition for the first time. The Feminist Voice grew
out of an informal club started last fall in Pangborn Hall by
then-junior Mayra Gomez. As many as 25 women and men students
from Notre Dame and women from Saint Mary's would meet Sunday
evenings to discuss things like myths about feminism -- as in,
feminists are all women, gay, hate men, promote abortion or oppose
Catholicism. The club's adviser, Pangborn Rector Heather Rakoczy,
had to relinquish her role with the club when she was named director
of the new Gender Relations Center in LaFortune. She'll be continuing
as Pangborn's rector. She says Feminist Voice will aim to educate
the campus community about feminist ideals like social, political
and economic equality. . . . It was bound to happen:
The highly visible "Gay? Fine by Me" orange T-shirt inclusiveness
campaign spring semester spawned innumerable spoofs, including
"Zahm? Fine by Me," "Heretic? Fine by Me" (at the Irish Inquisition)
and "Girls -- What's Not to Like?" The trend continued into Bookstore
Basketball with team names that included "Straight? Fine by Me,"
"Fat? Fine by Me" and "Marvin Gaye? Fine by Me.". . . Saint
Patrick's Day usually falls during spring break, so the
campus escapes the effects of the intoxicated overcelebration.
This year the holiday fell during the week after break, with predictable
results. On a whim, an estimated 40 to 50 students living off-campus
marched onto campus carrying a banner with one word printed in
large green letters: "PARADE." A few of the group played musical
instruments. The revelers eventually entered DeBartolo Hall, singing
and dancing while classes were in session until they were ejected
from the building. In a more serious incident, a student fell
a second-floor balcony during a party at the College Park apartments
near campus and had to be hospitalized. Six others students at
the party were arrested and charged with underage drinking or
public intoxication. . . . Police caught 21 underage
Notre Dame and Saint Mary's students in The Library Irish Pub
in April. It was the second bust in a year at the bar downtown
on East Wayne Street. . . . M. Paul Serve '61, '65Ph.D.
came out of retirement spring semester to teach the classes his
friend and former teacher, chemistry professor Rudy Bottei, would
have been teaching if Bottei hadn't died in April 2003 at age
73. Serve, who knew Bottei for more than 40 years, was a member
of the chemistry faculty at Wright State University in Dayton,
Ohio, for 38 years until he retired in February 2003. Notre Dame
asked him to teach General Chemistry and Environmental Chemistry
for a semester while the chemistry department searches for a permanent
replacement. The un-retiree reports that he scored a great success
after spring break when he decided to discuss the chemistry of
licit and illicit drugs. "It really turned the students on. The
classroom was a filled with students, not just the ones who signed
up for the course." He said he thinks the interest grew out of
media reports about students dying and buildings catching fire
in explosions at illegal methamphetamine labs. . . . Students
collected more than $4,000 during Lent for Operation
Rice Bowl, a program primarily affiliated with Catholic Relief
Services. Participants were given small boxes and encouraged to
keep filling them with change throughout the Lenten season. .
. . The museum store in the Snite Museum of Art
closed in March after nearly 18 years in business. A museum official
attributed the demise to reduced foot traffic that began when
the stadium expansion gobbled up nearby parking spaces, the need
for more gallery space as the Snite's collection grows, and competition
from the enormous new bookstore on Notre Dame Avenue. . . . Current
and former members of the men's crew team will make waves
this fall as they race on the Saint Joseph River in the organization's
annual alumni varsity row. The event is scheduled for the morning
of the October 2 home football game against Purdue and will kick
off with a Mass out on the river. For more information, visit
the team's website at www.ndcrew.org.
. . . In one of the more memorable installments of its
"Ten Questions With" feature, Scholastic magazine interviewed
Juan Alba, a 6-2, 285-pound senior who puts shot and throws discuses
and hammers for the track and field team. Alba's distinction?
He is reportedly only the second person ever to eat, in one sitting,
three extra-meat burritos from Boracho Burrito, an eatery near
Ironwood and 23. Boracho is known for its generous portions. The
first person to finish three extra-meats, the magazine said, was
former Irish football center Jeff Faine, now with the Cleveland
Browns. The final question put to Alba by Scholastic
was if he would try to break the record. He said no. "When you're
eating three extra-meat burritos with sour cream, there's just
something that takes over your mind and says you should never
eat burritos again. Four would mean 10 pounds of meat inside you.
I'll go [back to Boracho Burrito], but I'll just eat pizza puffs."
(July 2004)
