An International Tradition

Message from the Assistant Provost

This page (begun March 2005) features a quarterly letter from the Assistant Provost addressing news in OIS, special topics, and updates on progress in"internationalizing" the campus. Past messages can be seen by clicking here.

January 15, 2008

Dear Colleagues,

I am writing to inform you that as of summer 2008, Prof. Paul Bradshaw will step down as the Director of the London Undergraduate Program.  A search process will commence in the next weeks for a new director; more details on the position will be forthcoming shortly.  For now, please join me in thanking Prof. Bradshaw for his thirteen years of service and welcoming him back to the Notre Dame Theology faculty. 

The London Program has undergone many changes since Paul Bradshaw took on his position in 1995.  From a medium-sized group housed in a few floors of a rented building, the program has grown into our largest off-campus study program that accommodates 130 students a semester in Notre Dames splendid building on Suffolk Street, located just off Trafalgar Square.  Thanks to Professor Bradshaw’s contacts and administrative talents, the program has been able to hire a number of distinguished faculty members in the Arts and Humanities, and to expand curriculum to include other disciplines as well, so that students in Engineering, the Sciences, and Business Administration can now participate.  Prof. Bradshaw has also been instrumental in unifying student housing into the Landward building near Marble Arch, where students currently reside, and in locating a new residence hall in Clerkenwell where students will reside as of fall 2008.  

Responding to requests for a more focused British Studies orientation, Prof. Bradshaw in recent years oversaw the creation of a new core course, Images of Britain Through the Arts, that gives students the opportunity to explore what "Britishness" means by engaging directly with the Arts as they are represented in London, whether this be classical or contemporary theatre, dance, opera, music, architecture, costume, or portraiture.  Some of the other notable achievements of Prof. Bradshaw’s tenure include:

- Growth in the number of student internships with the British Parliament, the NBC network, the Roman Catholic Church, non-profit organizations in environmental science, and the prestigious Dulwich Picture Gallery;

-Collaboration with the Globe Theater, where students take a class that culminates with a performance on-stage;

-Development of the Riverside School course, which allows students to work with developmentally disabled students and attend weekly tutorials with the headmaster.

The Director of the London Program assures a great diversity of roles, administrative, intellectual, and pastoral. Prof. Bradshaw has done a fine job of juggling these many responsibilities all the while teaching Theology courses to London program students and maintaining a world-class scholarly reputation.  As a specialist in the early history of Christian liturgy, Bradshaw has written or edited over twenty books, most recently Eucharistic Origins (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004).  

Please join me in thanking Paul Bradshaw for his many years of excellent service to the London Undergraduate Program.

Sincerely,
Julia Douthwaite