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Volume 52, Issue 8 | wednesday, august 30, 2017 | ndsmcobserver.com
University hosts student activities night Annual event provides students with chance to learn more about various campus organizations By COURTNEY BECKER News Editor
Over 450 student clubs, organizations and campus partners gathered in the Notre Dame Stadium concourse Tuesday night to offer new students the opportunity to become more involved in activities on and off campus. Activities night, an annual event hosted by the Student Activities Office (SAO), is a chance for old groups to recruit new members and new clubs to inform students about the organization. “This is our first official time at the activities fair, so it’s exciting for us to be here and kind of share our new club mission,” senior Emily Sedlacek, co-president of the Media Industry Club, said. Already-established groups hope to attract students by
presenting the best opportunities their groups have to offer. Senior and co-captain of Notre Dame men’s boxing Patrick Lawler said the group intentionally brought two students who have traveled to Bangladesh to experience the service aspect of the group. “We have two guys here who actually went on the [international summer service learning] trip to Bangladesh, so we’re really trying to put our best foot forward to let the guys who are interested in the club know what we’re trying to do, and what we actually do,” Lawler said. In addition to student clubs and organizations on campus, Devon Sanchez-Ossorio, assistant director of student activities, said SAO invites other campus partners to see ACTIVITIES PAGE 3
One-man show remembering Fr. Sorin to premiere By MARIE FAZIO News Writer
In 1842, 28-year old Fr. Edward Sorin arrived in Indiana with his Holy Cross brothers — none of whom spoke a word of English — and founded Notre Dame. 175 years later, four University graduates — director Patrick Vassel (’07), playwright Christina Telesca Gorman (’91), projection designer Ryan Belock (’11) and actor Matthew Goodrich (’09) — banded together with the development office to create a masterpiece that would tell the story of Notre Dame through Sorin’s story. At 6:42 p.m. Wednesday, the first performance of the one man play “Sorin: A Notre Dame Story” will open in the DeBartolo Performing Arts Center. “For as much lore and history and tradition as we have at Notre Dame, there’s a lot about our founder that people just don’t know,” Vassel, who is also currently involved in “Hamilton,” said. Goodrich, who will take on the
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role of the University patriarch, said he agrees. “I don’t think I knew anything about Sorin [when I was a student] other than that there was a dorm named after him,” Goodrich said. “ ... Everyone thinks of him as the old patriarch that we see on the statue on God Quad, but he was a young man when he got here and had tenacity and fire and vision. And he carried that through his life.” From the beginning stages of development for the play, those involved thought a one-man show would best capture the essence of the Notre Dame story as well as give people the opportunity to “spend an evening with Fr. Sorin,” Vassel said. “Some of the first conversations we had was, ‘a hip-hop musical about Alexander Hamilton sounds like a crazy idea. A one-man play about Fr. Sorin also sounds like a crazy idea,’” Vassel said. “Both, I think, turned out to be quite smart see SORIN PAGE 4
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ANNIE SMIERCIAK | The Observer
Students sign up for the Notre Dame history club at the annual activities night. The event, sponsored by the Student Activities Office, took place in the concourse of Notre Dame Stadium this year.
College senior reflects on time as football manager By JORDAN COCKRUM News Writer
Upon arriving to campus her first year, Saint Mary’s senior Ashley DeJonge said she knew she wanted to participate in the football student managing program. “I knew about the student managing program before I even stepped on campus as a student,” DeJonge said in an email. “I know a couple people who were involved as a manager for other sports and spoke very highly of the program, so I thought I’d give
it a try.” Students interested in the program must join during their freshman year, so DeJonge began her involvement during her first year of studies. “I’ve been a manager for the football team since my freshman year,” she said. “That’s when anyone who is interested needs to get involved because of the way continuing on in the program works.” Within the program, she works both practices and games in order to assist the team. “We work every practice and
walk-through the team has, set up the locker room before game days and work on the sidelines of the home games,” DeJonge said. “Some of us even get the opportunity to travel to all the away games.” DeJonge said her participation in the football management program has given her an introduction into the sports industry — a field in which she said she hopes to continue working after graduation. “My dream is to work in the see MANAGER PAGE 3
ND offers new languages By CIARA HOPKINSON News Writer
Many Notre Dame students fulfill their language requirement with one of the typical language offerings: French, Spanish, Italian and German. In recent years, however, the Center for the Study of Language and Culture
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(CSLC) has begun to offer Less Commonly Taught Languages (LTCLs). The most recent additions include Swahili, Bengali, Turkish and Vietnamese, Denise Ayo, associate director of the CSLC, said. “The way this program works is by piggybacking on the Fulbright Foreign Language
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Teaching Assistant Program that’s sponsored by the State Department and administered by the Institute for International Education in New York,” she said. The Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant Program seeks to deepen see LANGUAGES PAGE 4
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