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Volume 57, Issue 30 | WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 2022 | ndsmcobserver.com
NDBridge replaces SSLPs CSC begins new summer community engagement program By TESS BRENNAN News Writer
The summer service learning program (SSLP) and its international counterpart (ISSLP) have been phased out by the Center for Social Concerns. NDBridge is the University’s new summer community engagement program, limited to rising sophomores. The previous programs were open to students in each of their three summers. NDBridge will continue to offer eight-week service-based immersion experiences, a onecredit supplementary course and international options through NDBridge-International to the smaller applicant pool. JP Shortall, associate director of the CSC, said that the new program will build on the SSLP framework. “NDBridge will combine the
best elements of the SSLP/ISSLP programs while also providing additional resources and structures to enhance and deepen the experiences of our students as they engage in domestic and global service-learning opportunities,” Shortall wrote in an email to The Observer. Shortall cited the difficulties the previous programs faced over the past three years as the reasoning behind the CSC’s decision to replace SSLP and ISSLP with NDBridge. “The past three years have presented significant challenges for community engagement programs both at Notre Dame and around the country,” he wrote. “As disruptive as these challenges were, they offered us an important opportunity to assess best practices in community-engaged
learning, both nationally and globally,” he wrote. “In light of these assessments and changing student interests on campus, we decided it was a good time to make some changes to our summer community engagement programs.” The program’s goal is to “get students to think hard about injustice, work with communities around the world that face it and consider their responsibility to the common good while at Notre Dame and beyond,” according to the NDBridge website. Shortall added that he hopes the Notre Dame community can gain “a sense of connection to communities around the country and the world, a sense of solidarity with their joys, hopes, griefs and challenges” through the program. see NDBRIDGE PAGE 4
University stages fall theatre performances
ND defends affirmative action By ISA SHEIKH Associate News Editor
Last week, the Supreme Court heard two concurrent cases on the state of affirmative action in college admissions, Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina and Students for Fair Admissions v. President and Fellows of Harvard College. The petitioner in both cases — Students for Fair Admissions, a nonprofit that has taken issue with the race-conscious admission policies at UNC and Harvard — has argued that those policies constitute racial discrimination, especially against Asian-Americans. The University of Notre Dame has taken a side in the case,
News Writer
The “Steel Magnolias” cast takes a bow. They perform at the Decio Theatre in the DeBartolo Performing Arts Center from Nov. 10-13. The production is hosted by the department of film, television and theatre. By KELSEY QUINT News Writer
Notre Dame students are taking the stage this weekend in two different shows. The department of film, television and theatre (FTT) will be staging Robert Harling’s “Steel Magnolias” at the Decio Theatre in the DeBartolo Performing
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Arts Center, Nov. 10-13. Elsewhere on campus, the Not-So-Roya l-Sha kespea re Company (NSR) will be putting on “A Winter’s Tale” at the Washington Hall Lab Theater, November 10-12. Both plays share the label of a “tragicomedy,” which FTT professor Carys Kresny, director of the “Steel Magnolias” production,
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said is sure to ignite all of the audience’s emotions. She said this weekend presents a unique opportunity for a double feature for play-lovers. “People can have a blast going to both,” Kresny said. She also described the nature of the tragicomedy: “A see THEATRE PAGE 4
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Speaker discusses breaking stigma By CHLOE CODDINGTON
Courtesy of Stacey Stewart
signing onto an amicus brief alongside 56 other Catholic colleges and universities, supporting the institutions that have employed affirmative action in their admissions. The brief at one point quotes Notre Dame’s mission statement, which says that “the intellectual interchange essential to a university requires, and is enriched by, the presence and voices of diverse scholars and students.” Asked for comment on why Notre Dame chose to weigh in on the case, University spokesman Dennis Brown said the school’s “position as stated in the brief speaks for itself.” Jennifer Mason McAward ‘94, a Notre Dame law professor who
On Monday night, the Saint Mary’s College director of the Center for Women’s Intercultural Leadership, Emily Rose McManus, hosted Aanya Wig and her talk, “How To Break Stigma.” Wig is a young alumna of the United States State Department program, Study of United States Institute for student leaders (SUSIs). Wig completed the SUSIs scholar program at Saint Mary’s College in 2021. Wig is the founder of Girl Up Rise, a youth-led collective working toward a future where women have menstrual, financial and legal literacy and aid. In addition, Wig is a co-founder of COVID Fighters India and works for UNICEF’s Young People’s action team. Since beginning her humanitarian work, Wig has also given three TEDx talks. Wig graduated from Lady Shri Ram College for Women with a degree in history and a minor in journalism. She reflected on her upbringing and the role of women. “I grew up in a household with a single mother and a sister and for
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me, women were leaders at home, women were leaders in industries. They run households. They did everything right,” Wig said. “But while growing up, I realized that’s not how the world sees women. We’re often looked at as the second sex, or we’re often looked at as the alternative option.” While in college, Wig started a social-entrepreneurship project called Aghaaz that taught underprivileged women skills such as stitching and sewing. Wig discussed the marginalization and poverty these women faced on a daily basis. “We worked towards imparting these skills so that they could use waste cloth material and convert it into bags, into pencil boxes, into so many things,” she said. “And all the money that we would get from selling these products would go back to these women.” While working with COVID Fighters India during the pandemic, Wig began Girl Up Rise as an online platform. She used Zoom for training sessions and workshops for women. These segments were aimed to teach women skills see STIGMA PAGE 4
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