Each year at Notre Dame is filled with highlights, achievements and accomplishments. Here are some of the significant moments from the 2010 calendar year:
- In his five-plus years as Notre Dame’s president, Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C., has emphasized the University’s research efforts, while maintaining its historic strength as an undergraduate university and enduring commitment to its Catholic character – to be the Catholic research university for our time. Significant evidence of Notre Dame’s progress in this regard was the nearly $119 million in external research awards for fiscal year 2010, an increase of some $40 million from the previous year and $80 million from a decade ago. In addition, the University provided a second round of $40 million of internal funding for a wide array of projects.
- Four Notre Dame faculty and staff members associated with the University’s Haiti Program escaped serious injury when a 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck the island nation Jan. 12. A Notre Dame junior participating in a service program sponsored by the University of Miami and a recent alumnus who was working in Haiti also survived the catastrophic quake. Notre Dame’s Haiti Program is based in Léogâne, about 30 kilometers west of the Port-au-Prince. Staff members work in conjunction with Hôpital Sainte Croixe on a major initiative to eradicate lymphatic filariasis, a debilitating mosquito-borne disease that affects some 120 million people around the world and manifests itself as elephantiasis.
- Father Jenkins joined some 400 students for the annual March for Life in Washington, D.C., in January. The student trip was organized by the Notre Dame Right to Life Club. The University’s Task Force on Supporting the Choice for Life, which was established by Father Jenkins in the fall of 2009, recommended that he participate in the March for Life. Other recommendations from the task force included creation of an institutional statement in support of the Church position on the sanctity of life, principles on charitable giving, and an office for life initiatives, all of which were acted upon.
- Father Jenkins and other University officials participated in several events celebrating the arrival in January of Bishop Kevin C. Rhoades as bishop of Fort Wayne/South Bend.
- Father Jenkins was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, along with Notre Dame historian Scott Appleby and political scientist Scott Mainwaring.
- Richard C. Notebaert, chair of the Board of Trustees, was elected to a new three-year term at the Trustees’ spring meeting.
- NBC news anchor Brian Williams was the principal speaker and Dana Gioia received the Laetare Medal at the University Commencement Ceremony in May. The valedictory address was delivered by Katie Washington, who is thought to be Notre Dame’s first African-American valedictorian.
- The University’s already strong commitment to international studies received a significant boost with the appointment of Nick Entrikin from UCLA as the first vice president for internationalization.
- Ronald D. Kraemer from the University of Wisconsin was appointed vice president and chief information officer, leading all aspects of the University’s Office of Information Technologies.
- Rev. Thomas P. Doyle, C.S.C., succeeded Rev. Mark L. Poorman, C.S.C., as vice president for student affairs.
- Notre Dame is ranked No. 1: The Year in Review on a list compiled by Bloomberg of undergraduate colleges attended by chief executive officers of the 100 largest U.S. financial firms.
- In other rankings news, the Mendoza College of Business was rated No. 1 in the nation in the fifth annual Bloomberg Businessweek evaluation of undergraduate business schools; the University is ranked 19th nationally by U.S. News & World Report and 63rd globally in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings, and is the No. 1 Catholic university in the world; Mendoza’s MBA program is ranked 24th by Businessweek; the Law School is No. 22 in the U.S. News rankings; and Notre Dame doctoral programs in aerospace engineering, English, history, theology, philosophy, mathematics, civil engineering and biological sciences fared well in the long-awaited rankings by the National Research Council.
- Stinson-Remick Hall of Engineering and the Law School’s Biolchini Hall were dedicated, and construction began on a new building for the Alliance for Catholic Education and other elements of the Institute for Educational Initiatives.
- Eddy Street Commons, the mixed-use development adjacent to the southern boundary of the campus, continued to grow with the addition of a hotel, two restaurants and several other retail establishments. In addition, the Notre Dame Investment Office and components of the Development Office moved into space on the southwest corner of Eddy Street and Angela Bouleveard.
- Gregory P. Crawford, dean of the College of Science, and his wife, Renate, marked the newly strengthened collaboration between Notre Dame and the Ara Parseghian Medical Research Foundation by cycling more than 2,200 miles this past summer from the foundation’s headquarters in Tucson, Ariz., to South Bend. The foundation, named in honor of legendary Notre Dame football coach Ara Parseghian, seeks to find treatment and cure options for Niemann-Pick Type C (NPC), a rare and deadly neurodegenerative disease that primarily strikes children before or during adolescence and took the lives of three of Ara’s grandchildren.
- Notre Dame’s police, fire and risk management and safety departments were aligned under a new Office of Campus Safety.
- Thousands of students, faculty and staff gathered for a Mass of Remembrance in late October at the Basilica of the Sacred Heart for Declan Sullivan, a junior who died while a hydraulic scissor lift from which he was videotaping football practice fell over. The University is conducting an internal investigation of the accident, as is Indiana’s Occupational and Safety Health Administration. In a letter to the campus community, Father Jenkins wrote: “There is no greater sadness for a university community than the death of one of its students under any circumstances. Yet this loss is more devastating, for Declan died in a tragic accident while in our care. For that, I am profoundly sorry. We are conducting an investigation and we must be careful not to pre-judge its results, but I will say this: Declan Sullivan was entrusted to our care, and we failed to keep him safe. We at Notre Dame — and ultimately I, as president — are responsible. Words cannot express our sorrow to the Sullivan family and to all involved.”
- Pulitzer-Prize-winning New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman was the featured speaker for the 2010 Notre Dame Forum, “The Global Marketplace and the Common Good.”
- Father Jenkins led a contingent of Notre Dame leaders to the Vatican on Oct. 17 for the canonization of Saint André Bessette, the first member Notre Dame’s founding religious community, the Congregation of Holy Cross, to be proclaimed a saint.
- Rev. Richard V. Warner, C.S.C., director of Campus Ministry at Notre Dame, was elected the 12th superior general of the Congregation of Holy Cross.
- Notre Dame took the football weekend experience on the road for the second time in November with a home-away-from-home game at Yankee Stadium in New York against Army. The Irish football team ended the season with three consecutive wins to finish 7-5 in Coach Brian Kelly’s first year and earn a berth in the Dec. 31 Sun Bowl against Miami.
- The Irish women’s soccer team won the national championship with a 1-0 victory over Stanford.
- The Notre Dame fencing teams finished third in the nation.