Campuses respond to Sept. 11 attacks. University completes construction projects. U2 plays at the Joyce. Vagina Monologues performed. Officials introduce new alcohol policy. Campus deals with sexual assault.
By KATE NAGENGAST
News Writer
Sept. 11 Attacks
By far the most shocking and memorable event of 2001, the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center towers in New York and the Pentagon in Washington canceled classes for one day, but traumatized Americans forever. Notre Dame and Saint Mary's initial response to the tragedy was prayer as approximately 7,000 people gathered for Mass on South Quad and an additional 400 filled Regina Hall's chapel that unforgettable Tuesday afternoon.
In the months that followed, as airport security tightened and White House press conferences revealed information about the hunt for Osama bin Laden in the caves of Afghanistan, the campuses continued to pray and started to act.
A series of panel discussions, prayer vigils and fundraisers filled the fall semester — including one such effort during the Notre Dame-Michigan State game that raised $270,981 for the families of firefighters and police killed when the towers crumbled. In the spring, a number of classes were created across academic departments to focus on the history and aftermath of the attacks and America's relationship with the global community.
Now, more than eight months later, soon-to-be graduates searching for jobs continue to feel the economic effects of the attacks on the American economy.
Campus Construction
Notre Dame and Saint Mary's also continued campus expansions and renovations this year. Notre Dame completed construction on Malloy Hall, renovations on Hurley Hall and the Hayes-Healy Center and broke ground for the Marie P. DeBartolo Center for the Performing Arts. The University also began additions to the Hesburgh Center for International Studies and the Stepan Chemistry Building. The Stepan and Hesburgh centers' renovations are scheduled to be complete in the fall. The DeBartolo Center will not be ready until summer 2004.
Saint Mary's broke ground for the Student Center/Noble Family Dining Hall April 19.
The three-level, 80,000-square-foot, $17 million structure will be built in two phases. Phase I is construction of the new Noble Family Dining Hall, which is scheduled for completion in June 2003. Phase II, which includes demolition of the old dining hall and construction of the student center, should be finished by December 2004. Saint Mary's student government donated $12,000 to the project.
U2 Elevation Tour
After months of anticipation and another chaotic ticket distribution, U2 kicked off the third leg of their Elevation Tour on Oct. 10 at Notre Dame's Joyce Center. The crowd of 11,000 with the most fortunate packed inside a heart-shaped catwalk that lead singer Bono and guitarist The Edge strutted across throughout the show, was awed by hits from U2's most recent album All That You Can't Leave Behind as well as their classics.
In their typically politically sensitive manner, the band paid tribute to the heroes of Sept. 11 by bringing New York police and firefighters on stage when they performed a verse of "Peace on Earth" as an introduction to their closing number, "Walk On." Bono also honored students who participate in service programs such as the Alliance for Catholic Education and "change the world" with their dedication to teaching.
Senior Tim Collins was reunited with Bono after first meeting the legend while visiting his girlfriend who studied abroad in Dublin during the spring of 2000. In Dublin with Collins Bono had said of Notre Dame, "It's a place with a lot of soul."
Coach Fiasco
If any chapter in Notre Dame history could be erased, the athletic department would probably pick the coaching search that rocked the University in December.
The torrid month began when Bob Davie was fired less than 12 hours after coaching the final game of his five-year career at Notre Dame. Davie had led the Irish to a BCS berth in the Fiesta Bowl a year before, but after a 5-6 season last fall — the second losing season in three years — fans clamored for his head.
After Athletic Director Kevin White fired Davie, he launched a nationwide search for his replacement. A week later, White returned with former Georgia Tech head coach George O'Leary. At a public press conference where O'Leary was introduced, the University distributed T-shirts that read "By George, it's O'Leary."
But while Davie's reign lasted five years, O'Leary's lasted only five days.
After a reporter discovered that O'Leary's biography contained false information about his college playing career and academic credentials, O'Leary resigned in disgrace after he admitted to Notre Dame he had lied about earning a master's degree and playing football for New Hampshire.
White then resumed the coaching search. In December, White had said he had seven candidates on his list and he had interviewed five face-to-face. He offered the job to two. The first was O'Leary, the second was Stanford head coach Tyrone Willingham.
White actually interviewed Willingham during the first phase of the coaching search, but didn't feel he had a strong love for Notre Dame. When the two talked in late December, Willingham opened up about his love for the Irish, and White had found his man.
Willingham was formally introduced as Irish head coach on New Year's Day, finally ending the month-long nightmarish coaching search that publicly embarrassed Notre Dame.
Monologues strike back
When Saint Mary's banned the performance of Eve Ensler's controversial play "The Vagina Monologues" on campus in winter 2001, students protested with a speak-out, a sit-in and a petition. Although 20 women eventually gathered to read the play before approximately 150 students in the lobby of Regina Hall, the show never received any official recognition from the College.
In February, however, Notre Dame welcomed to its campus the show sponsored by the departments of Film, Television and Theatre Department and Gender Studies as part of a nationwide initiative also developed by Ensler called, "V-Day: Until the Violence Stops."
Directed by senior Kerry Walsh, 35 women performed Ensler's work in DeBartolo Hall before standing-room-only audiences two nights in a row.
This year's performance, too, was not without controversy. Representatives from the Pro-Life Action League of Chicago distributed fliers to play-goes as they entered the theater, describing their belief that the "Monologues" is steeped in vile sexual language, denigrates heterosexual love and marriage and is verbal pornography that donates its proceeds to pro-abortion groups. Members of the Knights of Columbus also wrote letters to The Observer's Viewpoint section and prayed in DeBartolo's upstairs chapel before performances of the play.
Alcohol policy
For a student body typically criticized for its apathy, Notre Dame students responded viciously to alcohol policy changes Father Mark Poorman, vice president for Student Affairs, announced March 19. The new policy targets drinking among undergraduate students by banning "hard" liquor in residence halls, eliminating in-hall dances and rewriting the tailgating policy to permit students of legal age to drink in designated parking lots on football weekends.
More than 600 students marched to the Main Building chanting, "We need a voice" March 21 and lit copies of the student handbook, du Lac, on fire. This initial rally was followed by student speeches at a Campus Life Council meeting with Poorman present, a petition with more 4,000 student signatures and Student Senate resolutions proposing alterations to the proposed policy, none of which inspired any change to date. The policy is to be formally written this summer and take effect next fall.
The spring policy changes were foreshadowed, however, by tailgating crackdowns this fall when state and local police cited hundreds of students for violating du Lac's rule banning students from organizing tailgaters where alcohol is served. In a full-page letter published in The Observer in November, Poorman said alcohol use and abuse has become the most serious health and safety issue at Notre Dame and that tailgaters had become "an opportunity to engage in behavior that would not be tolerated at any other time on our campus or anywhere else."
Sexual Assault
Campus sexual assault also was a divisive issue.
Since September, four cases of alleged rape and sexual misconduct have fueled debate at Notre Dame and Saint Mary's and prompted some tough stands from administrators.
It began in September with the alleged rape of a Saint Mary's student in Keough Hall. Saint Mary's security officials indicated that the woman may have ingested a date rape drug while at an Aug. 31 party in the 4A section of Keough. The student also reported the alleged assault to Notre Dame Security/Police, whose crime log made no mention of a drugging.
The incident prompted scores of letters to The Observer from students, many upset about the paper publishing the hall room numbers where the alleged rape occurred. The allegation eventually was referred to the St. Joseph County Prosecutor, and NDSP closed the case after the prosecutor declined to move forward with criminal charges.
Controversy also swelled in October, when a former Notre Dame football player planned to visit campus as a member of another school's team, despite his alleged expulsion and permanent ban from campus in 1998.
Kori Pienovi, a 2001 University graduate, brought to light Cooper Rego's possible return to campus for the Oct. 13 Notre Dame-West Virginia football game. She called for administrators to uphold the punishment they imposed on Rego following a campus disciplinary hearing for the athlete's alleged rape of Pienovi.
After three days of public outcry, Notre Dame officials released a thinly veiled threat that didn't mention Rego by name but implied he would be arrested if he traveled to campus with his West Virginia teammates. Rego did not come to South Bend.
In November, a Notre Dame student who allegedly fondled and sexually assaulted another student turned the tables on the University by suing the school following his October expulsion and ban from campus.
Former student Ryan Hoadley appealed Notre Dame officials' decision in late October to University President Father Edward Malloy, who reduced the punishment in to a two-year suspension without guarantee of readmission. Hoadley's ongoing suit seeks a court order to bar the University from enforcing the suspension.
In December, a St. Joseph County Superior Court judge denied Hoadley's request for a preliminary injunction that would have temporarily lifted his punishment.
Hoadley was expelled on grounds of sexual misconduct. The allegation stems from a female Notre Dame student who accused him of touching her in an inappropriate manner and subjecting her to a 30-minute sexual assault at Hoadley's Turtle Creek apartment following a night of drinking in September.
Meanwhile, four former members of the Notre Dame football are awaiting word of whether the county prosecutor will file criminal charges against them in connection with a March 28 alleged gang rape of a female Notre Dame student.
The men were expelled following an April 25 campus disciplinary hearing. Officials on Tuesday upheld the decision on appeal.
A 20-year-old woman claim the men took turns raping her after luring her under false pretenses to a house east of campus. Expelled were former sophomores Lorenzo Crawford and Abram Elam, senior Donald Dykes and Justin Smith, a 2001 graduate who was taking graduate courses while finishing a fifth year of athletic eligibility.
As allegations of sexual assault surfaced at Notre Dame during the year , the U.S. Department of Education's investigation into crime reporting procedures continued at Saint Mary's.
The DOE completed an on-site investigation into the way the College compiles and reports crime statistics. The review came in response to a complaint filed by a Saint Mary's student who claimed the school wasn't in compliance with the Cleary Act. The act mandates that schools update crime statistics annually, give students timely warning about crimes that have occurred on campus and educate students about sexual assault.
The Saint Mary's student claimed she reported to Saint Mary's security officials in 1999 that she was raped but that the College's crime statistics listed no incidents of rape for that year.
Saint Mary's and the DOE exchanged correspondence for several months prior to the agency's on-campus investigation. While the DOE said in December that results of the investigation wouldn't come for at least 30 days, officials to date have released no results.
Jason McFarley and Andrew Soukup contributed to this report.
All News Stories for Friday, May 17, 2002
