Adoption

By LIAM KELLY news Writer

i n a press release on a pril 5, the University of notre d ame announced that Professor m ichael h ildreth had been appointed as the new dean of the g raduate s chool. h ildreth had previously served as a professor of physics and astronomy and senior associate dean for research and graduate studies in the c ollege of s cience.

d uring an interview with The o bserver, h ildreth summed up his vision for the g raduate s chool in two words: “excellence and distinctiveness.” i n pursuit of this excellence, h ildreth aims to attract the highest level students and faculty.

“We hear quite often that notre d ame provides an unsurpassed undergraduate education. Why aren’t we saying that we provide an unsurpassed graduate education?” h ildreth questioned.

“The better faculty you have, the better students that you can attract, and the flip side is also true. The better students that we can attract, sometimes the better faculty we can attract,” he said. a ttracting high caliber students and teachers stems from having robust research programs that offer tangible opportunities, h ildreth explained.

“m any students who are thinking about going to graduate school want to see how their research can have an impact, much more rapidly than ‘o h, i’m doing basic science, so maybe 30 years from now someone will use this.’ They want to see tangible benefits of their work,”

Part of demonstrating these tangible benefits includes improving career services, h ildreth said.

“We actually have quite strong career services for graduate students that have been built up over the last 10 years or so, [but] i don’t think as many graduate students as possible have been taking advantage of that,” he stated.

“ i don’t think that we have enough engagement between graduate students and their mentors, or even, maybe they need more mentors to figure out how to discern their future careers.” h ildreth said he also intends to expand internship opportunities for graduate and postdoctoral students. h ildreth emphasized that having a strong graduate research program is central to the University’s mission. i f we want to advance the University from a research perspective, these folks are the engines that drive the research enterprise of the University,” h ildreth said. h ildreth proposed that this could be accomplished by putting a greater focus on questions of ethics, encouraging community outreach and fostering interdisciplinary studies. h ildreth expressed confidence that his time in the c ollege of s cience that focused on research and graduate studies has prepared him well for his role as dean of the g raduate s chool, both through the work he has done and the people he has interacted with. h ildreth also praised former dean Laura c arlson, who served in the position from 2013 through 2022, for the work she accomplished during her tenure. a bove all, h ildreth conveyed a sense of optimism about his new role.

“We were doing some of that, but i think we could do more,” he said.

“The graduate students and postdocs are critical to both the research and teaching missions of the University.

When it comes to the part of his vision that focuses on distinctiveness, h ildreth said he aims to lean into the c atholic character of the University.

“i s there a way that we can create a graduate curriculum that reflects notre d ame, and notre d ame’s vision as a c atholic research university?” he questioned.

“i’ve been interacting with the g raduate s chool and trying to understand and implement graduate policies and supporting graduate students and postdocs throughout my time in the d ean’s office here in the c ollege of s cience,” he said.

“The previous dean of the graduate school, Laura c arlson, … did a great job in terms of figuring out what kind of support services the students needed and really put a lot of these career services support structures in place. The graduate life is much, much better than it was when she started 10 years ago,” h ildreth said.

“i think we’re in a pretty good place,” he said. “o ur task really moving forward is how do we get from good to excellent?”

Editor’s Note: A previous version of this story was published online 4/20/23

Contact Liam Kelly at lkelly8@nd.edu block miscarriage care designed to save people’s lives or keep them out of the ic U in the name of preventing what those states called abortions.”

The anticipated ruling is regarding b rackeen v h alland — a case which will take up the constitutionality of the i ndian c hild Welfare a ct of 1978’s policies on adoption. The law was enacted to protect a merican i ndian children from removal from their tribes to be adopted by noni ndigenous families, though the states of Texas, i ndiana and Louisiana, as well as individual plaintiffs, argue that the law violates the 10th a mendment.

“a doption and fostering are often seen as particularly generous act a way of bringing a small person into intimate relationship with a household — sometimes of strangers and we’re raising them to adulthood,” b riggs said. “ i t can certainly be that but it’s also about taking someone away from the person who birthed [them] to maybe raise them for a while.” b riggs contextualized adoption through the descriptions of what it does at its best and worst.

“a t best, it’s full of loss for birth parents and child and especially in the case of closed adoptions for generations to come,” b rigg said. “a t worst, adoption and fostering are full of coercion and even violence as police and foster agencies tear a child from the arms of parents or others who love them and fully intend to raise them.” b riggs discussed a statement written by justice s amuel a lito regarding abortion and adoption. b riggs discussed the history of adoption and the effects on i ndigenous communities. “ s tate governments begin going onto reservations or moving children to foster care and adoptions, mostly white homes, as boarding schools begin to enroll fewer and fewer n ative kids, drawing on centuries of efforts to reform i ndigenous peoples’ family, kinship and gender practices,” she said. “ s tates argued that leaving children in the care of grandmothers and other kin ... while living without running water or electricity was tantamount to child neglect.” b riggs discussed the strategy of separating children from tribal nations and provided context into what the ultimate goal may be for the gaming industry. b etting operations threatened by the competition of i ndian gaming want to see an end to the existence of tribal nations, b riggs explained.

“The outcome of outlawing abortion in the state should not trouble us because there’s always adoption so people can simply carry the pregnancy to term, bear the medical risks of it and then not raise the child,” a lito wrote.

“The strategy of separating children from tribal nations means less political power and fewer people willing to fight for nations’ control of resources,” she said. “a s with the gaming context, the ultimate goal may well be to return to the policies of the termination era of the 1950s and 60s when c ongress passed laws to end the legal existence of tribal nations and their control over land, water and minerals.”

Fostering and adoption enforce a racial hierarchy, b riggs said. s he framed the issue by saying that some groups are rendered powerless.

“To intensify the way as a group, it’s rendered powerless and outside the body politic,” she said. “ b ecause if you don’t have the power to raise your own children, if the state or religious groups can reach down to the intimate relationships between parent and child ... without good cause, or due process, you essentially don’t have meaningful rights.” released a new album in three years. s tudents also lamented the hypervigilant s outh b end police that confiscated marijuana paraphernalia from many of those trying to make the night one to remember — or forget.

The standard used in adoption is a best-interests standard, which b riggs said is easily twisted and transfers kids out of their households.

“ i t becomes all too common sense to use the foster care and adoption system to transfer the kids of working and poor folks to middle class households,” b riggs said.

Yet, there was one performance that nobody had anything negative to say about: b ruce s pringsteen in 1978. s tephen b elmont, a student at the show, reflected, “[it was] one of the best rock and roll shows i have ever seen.” b elmont further noted that this was his 15th time seeing s pringsteen live. i n typical s pringsteen fashion, the show lasted three and a half hours and every second of it felt as if the whole of his being was poured out into his music.

While students gave mixed reviews of the performances, it is undeniable that n otre d ame was a hotspot for the biggest names of r ock ‘n r oll in the 1970s. e ven if the i rish were a tough crowd to please, they certainly did not scare anyone off as performers at n otre d ame in the 1980s would prove to be just as significant to music history.

1980s: A spectrum of musical legends

Jan. 29, 1981 | Tim Sullivan | Sept. 21, 1984 | Mark Worscheh | Nov. 11, 1987 | Tom McDonald | Researched by Spencer Kelly

The concerts at n otre d ame in the 1980s featured musical legends from a variety of genres at various stages in their storied careers.

To kick off the eighties, b ruce s pringsteen once again graced the Joyce c enter stage. a ccording to Tim s ullivan, s pringsteen’s previous concert in 1978 had been “the finest rock show produced in the acc … [a] three-hour extravaganza of nonstop vitality and drama [that] displayed the possibilities of the rock’n’roll motif.” h owever, The b oss’ subsequent showing was even better. For s ullivan, this four-hour performance in 1981 “contained too many musical and theatrical highlights to properly list them all” and showed that s pringsteen had “reached the crest of his career. The only question is: h ow long can he maintain his dominance in the popular music industry?”

The answer: quite long. With 63 shows scheduled around the world in 2023, s pringsteen, while perhaps not “dominant,” remains musically and commercially relevant. i n many ways, s pringsteen’s current status as an aging star that can still draw a sell out crowd mirrors that of two other artists who came to n otre d ame in the 1980s. i n 1984, Willie n elson performed a Wednesday night show at Joyce. c ontrasting with s ullivan’s s pringsteen review, m ark Worscheh (’85) was critical of the country legend’s concert in front of a predominantly non-student crowd. r ecalling the spectacular concerts held at the same venue in recent years, Worscheh expressed disappointment with n elson’s effort. a few years later, an even older artist proved that you didn’t have to jump around on stage a la s pringsteen to give a great show. i n 1987, 71-year old Frank s inatra performed at n otre d ame for the first time in his storied career.

Worscheh argued that Willie appeared rushed, as he cut off the crowd’s clapping by starting the next song after a few seconds. The show ended up being just two hours long and there was only one encore.

“ e ven though he’s no b illy Joel or b ruce s pringsteen in terms of stage performance, Willie owed it to the crowd to be a little more of a showman,” Worscheh wrote.

Like Willie n elson, s inatra crooned for a primarily non-student crowd, something that made concert reviewer Tom m c d onald (‘88) “uncomfortable” as he glanced around the Joyce c enter. h owever, m c d onald seemed to forget about his elderly audience mates as he listened to s inatra’s legendary “baritone voice, periodically lacquered with whisky.”

“ s inatra remains the consummate performer… [and] did not require such distractions as smoke [or] lasers,” m c d onald noted. “ s inatra proved to his audience that a 71 year-old man can still belt out a tune.” o verall, while they received mixed reviews at the time, the concerts of the 1980s are, in hindsight, an impressive demonstration of the spectrum of star power that n otre d ame could attract to northern i ndiana.

Echoes in the Dome: U2 rocks Notre Dame in the 2000s

Aug. 29, 2001 | Jason McFarley | Sept. 11, 2001 | Sam Derheimer | Sept. 21, 2001 | Jason McFarley | Tim Collins | Oct. 11, 2001 | Joanna Mikulsi | Oct. 19, 2001 | Researched by Thomas Dobbs e xcitement was in the air in 2001 as rumors started circulating that the legendary i rish rock band U2 would be performing at the University of n otre d ame’s Joyce c enter. s tudents eagerly awaited confirmation of the concert, and their hopes were soon answered when it was officially announced that U2 would indeed grace the campus with their presence. a s rumors about U2’s performance at n otre d ame circulated in 2001, Joyce c enter events manager Joe s assano braced for a stampede of interest among students from n otre d ame, s aint m ary’s and h oly c ross. i n an effort to quell any anxieties, s assano issued a reassuring statement, promising that “any student who wants a ticket will receive a ticket.” h owever, despite the attempts at organization, the ticket-buying process devolved into chaos, with students enduring l ong lines and hours of waiting. s tudents were nevertheless determined to secure a spot for U2’s highly-anticipated concert, with many waiting in line for over eight hours. “ i t’s utter confusion,” said n otre d ame junior m aria m ahon, but the excitement and anticipation for the concert ultimately prevailed. d uring the concert, U2’s frontman, b ono, gave a moving speech about changing the world through education programs like the a lliance for c atholic e ducation and aid to impoverished countries. i n the concert almost a month following 9/11, he also paid tribute to the heroic firefighters and police officers of n ew York c ity, challenging the audience to use their bravery to combat poverty. b ono’s speech was followed by the performance of “ o ne.”

With anticipation running high, the big day had finally arrived; Joyce c enter was packed to capacity with excited students and fans eagerly anticipating U2’s performance. U2 did not disappoint, putting on an electrifying performance that had the entire crowd on their feet, singing and dancing along to their hits.

The emotional and powerful song, combined with b ono’s inspiring words, left a lasting impression on the n otre d ame community and reminded them of the power of music to inspire change.

Joanna m ikulski (‘03), a columnist for The o bserver, praised U2 for not only putting on an incredible show, but also using their platform to convey a meaningful message to the audience. The band’s focus on social justice and activism resonated with the n otre d ame community and left a lasting impact on many students.

“The songs of the b ackstreet b oys, b ritney s pears and n * s Y nc offer no particular message... They sing of themselves,” noted m ikulski.

The concert was a testament to the enduring popularity of U2, who had been entertaining audiences for over two decades by this point. Their blend of rock and roll, social commentary and meaningful lyrics had won them countless fans around the world, and their performance at n otre d ame was no exception.

“They are once again the best band in the world and have taken their place alongside the greatest rock ‘n’ roll artists of all time,” said n otre d ame student Tim c ollins (‘02) in an editorial review.

For many students, the concert was not just a night of music and fun but an unforgettable experience that they would cherish for years to come.

Contact Thomas Dobbs at tdobbs@nd.edu

Contact Cade Czarnecki at cczarne3@nd.edu

Contact Spencer Kelly at skelly25@nd.edu just the people on campus,” Tabor said. “We want to highlight not just giving, but what notre dame means to the world and what people do in the name of notre dame.” sophomore nalani malackowski, a member of notre dame’s ultimate frisbee team, said notre dame day funds ensure that the club remains accessible.

“This year, we traveled to Florida and north c arolina, and we have to take a bus which isn’t cheap,” malackowski said. “r aising money for nd day would be huge. it gives us an opportunity to keep our dues low because we want everyone to be able to play and cost not be a factor in that.” malackowski, a competitive high school athlete, said she joined the ultimate frisbee club on a whim during activities night.

“i like running. There’s running in it. so i just like picked it up and tried it,” malackowski said. “[ d ue to] the team atmosphere on the first day of practice, i just fell in love and kept coming back.” now serving on the club’s social committee, malackowski said the frisbee team has impacted her time at notre dame on and off the field.

“We have practice three days a week and workouts the other two days. it keeps you on a schedule for your academics, which was really important to me,” malackowski said. “but honestly, the community is the most important part. it’s like 100 best friends that you get to go and play sports with, and i just love it.”

The 100-person ultimate club frisbee club is divided into four teams: a and b teams for both men and women. malackowski said her team is currently ranked number one in the region.

“We have regionals coming up, the week before final exams, and if we make out of regionals, we’re going to qualify for nationals,” malackowski said. “We have a good chance this year and want to be able to go if we make it.” morrissey manor rector Zack i mfeld said in an email that his hall uses notre dame day money to give morrissey crewnecks to every first-year, offset the cost of the hall retreat and fund the dorm’s signature event, the o utdoor Gamewatch.

“The beauty of nd day funds is that it gives hall leaders the chance to fund more initiatives or enhance traditions already in the hall,” i mfeld wrote. on top of direct gifts from donors, causes have numerous opportunities to win a share of the $500,000 available in notre dame day challenge and prize money, Tabor said.

“The biggest piece of that pie is the $250,000 c hallenge Fund,” Tabor said. “i f your cause receives a gift from a donor, you get a share of that fund. i n the past, those shares have translated to [from $9 to $20 for each donation.]”

For patrons who don’t know where to give, Tabor said notre dame day recommends three causes that impact all students: financial aid, student experience and the rockne athletic Fund.

Tabor just wants to see people supporting the things they love here at notre dame, he added.

“i f that’s the ultimate frisbee club, great. i f you’re like, ‘i love my residence hall, i love my major, i love this club,’ do that,” Tabor said. “somebody helped shape your experience here at notre dame. a nd it’s everyone’s responsibility, all of us, to help shape the next generation too.”

Contact Peter Breen at pbreen2@nd.edu