As is the case at many businesses, to make an
outside call from a Notre Dame telephone, you have to dial 9 first.
But so many people accidentally dial 9-1-1 (which connects to
campus Security/Police emergency) that telephone users are being
asked to dial 8 instead of 9. For now both 8 or 9 work, but starting
in September, only 8 will. . . . Speaking of numbers,
in response to student requests and concerns about identity theft,
the University has discontinued using students' Social Security
numbers as primary identifiers. Social Security numbers still
must be provided for admissions and financial aid applications,
but they'll no longer appear on printed lists within the University.
. . .The Observer had a rough February
on the word-usage front. An inside columnist described her family
station wagon's gradual demise as a "dissent to death." (She meant
descent.) A front-page headline declared "Study abroad decisions
eminent" (Make that imminent.) The sub-headline on a wire service
story about Notre Dame Provost Nathan Hatch's future as president
of Wake Forest University read, "Wake Forest has previously lead
the post-industrial revival for the city of Winston-." Not only
was the second-half of Wake Forest's home city, Winston-Salem,
cut off, but it should have read "led," not "lead.". . . In
May 2005, Bishop John D'Arcy celebrated 20 years as leader
of the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend. It is estimated that
16 percent of the overall population in the area defined as the
diocese is Catholic. . . . Seven students who
headed to a pub downtown one night this winter saved the life
of a woman along the way. According to a newspaper account, after
parking their car near the Library Irish Pub on Lakewood Drive,
the students spotted a woman lying unconscious on the ground beside
a car. One of them realized she was suffering from hypothermia
and used his cell phone to call 911. The woman spent four days
recuperating in the hospital. . . . Architecture professor
Thomas Gordon Smith showed up on PBS's This Old House
this past season. An expert on Greek Revival style, he spoke with
the show's host about how the style crossed geographic, political
and socio-economic boundaries, and how it could affect the program's
25th anniversary project, the restoration of an 1849 farmhouse
in Carlisle, Massachusetts. . . . Freshman Adam Boocher
competes in National Scrabble Association tournaments, and in
April he hosted one of his own, in the Knights of Columbus Hall
on campus. The event attracted 58 competitors from across the
United States. . . . Students from various residence
halls fanned out to neighborhoods in South Bend and Mishawaka
one Saturday in April and came back with about 4,000 pounds of
food for the Food Bank of Northern Indiana. The drive was the
idea of four students who worked with the residence halls and
the Center for Social Concerns. . . . The champion
women's team in this year's Bookstore Basketball tournament included
a pair of freshman roommates -- from the 1980s. Jill Bodensteiner
'91, associate vice president and counsel, and Sara Liebscher
'91, '93MBA, assistant director in athletics advancement and a
former varsity basketball player, lived together in Pasquerilla
West in 1986 and were Bookstore Basketball teammates as seniors.
This year they joined with Christy Yarnell, senior academic counselor
for student athletes, the basketball coach at Saint Mary's and
a Saint Mary's senior to form team Anthony Travel. In the finals,
they beat a team that featured the women's varsity team's starting
center, Teresa Borton. . . . Three members of
the Crow Creek Sioux Tribe of South Dakota (one named Adrienne
Twohawks) sniffed out an apparent electrical fire in the Perkins
restaurant near campus before anyone else noticed it. All three
had experience as ambulance emergency workers, and they had stopped
at Perkins for dinner while on their way home from a training
program in Pennsylvania, according to the account in the South
Bend Tribune. Stepping outside, the found flames coming from
an area above the restaurant entrance. Perkins was evacuated and
the fire department called. No one was seriously injured. . .
. Ron Powlus '97, the four-year starter at quarterback
for the Irish in the 1990s who set positive records but never
approached the Heisman-level glory predicted for him, is back
with the football program. He was hired to manage the team's recruiting
efforts as director of personnel development. . . . Carlos
Gutierrez wrote an open letter to the Notre Dame community
in December. Not Carlos Gutierrez the former CEO of Kellogg cereals
whom President Bush picked as his next secretary of commerce.
This was Carlos Gutierrez the senior finance and political science
double major. The younger Gutierrez said that after the cereal
executive was nominated for the cabinet post, he, the student,
received 27 emails of congratulations. His letter to The Observer
explained that, unlike his namesake, he's not from Cuba but Mexico
City, has never worked for Kellogg's, doesn't have a mustache,
and "most importantly, I have yet to find a job." . . . A
couple of seniors dressed as ninjas pulled the traditional
prank of disrupting a final exam in Stepan Center this spring.
But in making their getaway, they managed to break a glass door
on the geodesic multipurpose building. The pranksters were quickly
apprehended by campus Security/Police, which is now based a stone's
throw away from Stepan in the new Hammes Mowbray Hall. . . . With
what was once known as the campus infirmary scheduled
to undergo a complete renovation, University Health Services moved
into the vacated former Security Building (behind the Rock). And
the Counseling Center, which was also in the infirmary, relocated
to the vacant post office. The new post office shares Hammes Mowbray
with Security/Police. The two health operations will remain in
their temporary locations for a year. . . . Chandra Johnson,
the assistant to Father Malloy who shaved her head last fall in
protest of the firing of Tyrone Willingham, moved to a new job
when Malloy stepped down June 30. While working in the president's
office, Johnson, who remains bald, also held the title of assistant
director of Campus Ministry. She'll be returning to Campus Ministry
full time as associate director of cross-cultural ministry. .
. . The flourishing Keough Institute for Irish
Studies hosted a massive conference on campus in April. "Ireland
Beyond Borders," the title for this year's annual meeting of the
American Conference for Irish Studies, lasted five days and featured
some 300 speakers participating in nearly 100 discussions. The
event attracted nearly 600 people, according to an estimate by
a conference organizer. . . . Father Ted traveled
to Atlanta in April to receive the inaugural Humanitarian Award
at the annual Turner Broadcasting Trumpet Awards ceremony. The
awards highlight the accomplishments of African Americans and
their champions from all walks of life. Because of failing eyesight
and walking difficulty, Hesburgh, 87, rarely travels anymore.
He told a reporter he had to go to this event "for various reasons
. . . not the least of which being the fact that Atlanta was always
the most civil of southern cities during the movement leading
to the signing of the Civil Rights Act." Hesburgh was honored
for his "pivotal role in helping to achieve equality and justice."
He was a charter member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.
(July 2005)
