Sorin Hall (aka Sorin College) made it onto The Chronicle of Higher Education’s list of “Digs They Dig,” residence halls considered the prime places to live on campuses. Sorin’s famous oversized turret rooms figured prominently in its selection. The list appeared in the Short Subjects section of the paper’s February 22, 2002, issue. . . . James F. Gaertner, who taught business at Notre Dame in the late 1970s and early 1980s and was director of the Notre Dame London MBA program for a year, has been named president of his alma mater, Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas. . . . Among the new blood at this year’s Sophomore Literary Festival were a rapper and the creator of a column about sexual relationships. Hip-hop-influenced poet and actor Craig “muMs” Grant, who plays an incarcerated poet on the HBO prison drama Oz, read at the festival, as did writer Candace Bushnell, whose “Sex and the City” column in The New York Observer formed the basis for the HBO series of the same name. . . . Students who have perfect attendance and are never tardy to Robert Sedlack’s graphic design classes get a reward: a bowling trophy with the word “perfect” inscribed in the base. The professor says it’s been a great incentive. In one class last semester, six of the 14 students had perfect attendance. But he admits the idea has its drawbacks. Students sometimes come to class when they’re sick and should be home in bed, or they’ll frantically race back to campus after an out-of-town job interview. . . . Brad McDanald carefully chose the day last fall when he was going to propose to his girlfriend of four years, Colleen Sullivan, a Notre Dame law student. But when the day arrived, he couldn’t go through with it; the timing felt all wrong. It was September 11. In a story in the South Bend Tribune, McDanald said he went home to his empty apartment that night and after reflecting on the day’s events realized how quickly life can change. He proposed the next day in front of the Golden Dome. She said yes. . . . A Saint Mary’s junior, 29-year-old Misty Sloman, was killed in March when her car crashed into a tree near her South Bend home. According to reports, her blood-alcohol level was 0.236 percent. The woman was juggling college, a job, and being the single mother of two children, ages 5 and 7. She was pursuing a degree in social work. . . . Many people will remember Meghan Beeler, the swimmer from South Bend who was killed 10 years ago along with Colleen Hipp in an early morning crash of the swim team’s bus. The team was returning to campus in a blinding snowstorm after a meet at Northwestern. This spring Katie Beeler became the third of Meghan’s younger siblings to earn a diploma from Notre Dame. A fourth Beeler, Colleen, will be a junior at Marian High School in Mishawaka this fall. . . . Father Tim Scully, CSC, executive vice president, traveled to Capitol Hill in April to talk about Notre Dame’s Alliance for Catholic Education program, which he helped launch in 1994. ACE recruits new graduating seniors, mostly from Notre Dame, to teach for two years in under-resourced Catholic schools. Participants live in group houses and apartments, receive a living stipend, and take summer classes and workshops that lead to a master’s degree in education. Scully told the House Select Subcommittee on Education that partnerships with the federal AmeriCorps program have helped ACE expand its commitment to disadvantaged children, especially those from traditionally under-educated minority groups. In less than 10 years, ACE has grown from 40 student teachers in four Southern states to 154 in 14 states in the South and Southwest. . . . Notre Dame’s tuition is going up by $1,190 next year to $25,510. Room and board will increase by $300 to an average of $6,510 a year. The increases are the smallest, percentage-wise, for the University in more than 40 years. They’re also small compared with what many other private universities have been doing following a year of recession. The growth of the University’s endowment has helped keep increases moderate in recent years. . . . Notre Dame and Saint Mary’s this year created a SWAT team — as in Students Working At Taxes. The team was a special effort of the Vivian Harrington Gray Tax Assistant Program, a service learning effort through which accounting students help low-income or unemployed taxpayers prepare their federal and state returns. The SWAT teams helped taxpayers unable to visit the 11 assistance centers in the South Bend area. This was the 31st year for the tax assistance program. . . . A *hair dryer sparked *a fire in the West Quad women’s dorm Welsh Family Hall in March. The building’s sprinklers and three Security/Police members first on the scene extinguished the blaze. No residents were hurt, but the Security/Police members and a building maintenance employee suffered smoke inhalation and were treated at the scene.
Notre Dame Magazine, summer 2002