College of Arts & Letters | Latest News

In the years following the COVID-19 pandemic, an ideal vision of family life would have shown that parents are continuing to share in caregiving responsibilities and spending quality time with their children — dads, in particular. Many people hoped that the behavioral changes caused by lockdowns would persist, allowing dads more time and flexibility in the long term and ultimately reshaping how w…

Playwright and Notre Dame alumna Dolores Díaz returned to campus for a staged reading of her play, George Washington’s Mexican Birthday, and a day of conversation with students and faculty.

Seniors Joseph London and Brianna Tennes will study abroad this summer as part of the Critical Language Scholarship (CLS) Program, a language-based scholarship program sponsored by the U.S. Department of State.

David Campbell, the Packey J. Dee Professor of American Democracy at the University of Notre Dame, has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, one of the nation’s oldest learned societies and independent policy research centers. Campbell was one of the 252 leaders in academia, the arts, journalism, policy, and science announced today as members of the newest Academy class. Othe…

Americans say they love compromise. But elected officials — people who want to keep their voters happy and secure reelection — are increasingly choosing conflict and polarization instead, unwilling to be seen as working across the aisle. James Kirk and Abigail Hemmen are digging into this political…

Richard Clark The College of Arts & Letters has appointed new leaders to run a program that helps Notre Dame students explore the…

The Wilson Sheehan Lab for Economic Opportunities (LEO) at the University of Notre Dame has named Holly Kuzmich as its next managing director following a national search. She will begin her role on July 7. Kuzmich brings experience across venture philanthropy, national policy, and organizational leadership. Most recently, she served as a managing director at the Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation,…

In this podcast episode of Notre Dame Stories, Melissa Kearney, the Gilbert F. Schaefer Professor of Economics…

What is one of the greatest threats to American democracy? According to a recent study from the University of Notre Dame, voters who neither agree nor disagree when asked about substantive issues relevant to upholding democracy might be the largest group to blame for democratic decline in the United States. These “democratic neutrals” could be considered some of the most dangerous voters in the c…

The Franco Family Institute for Liberal Arts and the Common Good hosted its inaugural Dorothy Day and Thomas Merton Culture and the Public Good Symposium on April 10. Named for two of the foremost socially engaged Catholic thinkers of the 20th century, the signature annual event culminated a year of themed research support at the institute. This year's speakers were Vauhini Vara, journalist and a…

Having grown up in both Louisiana and Morocco, Faiza Filali arrived at Notre Dame as a speaker of seven languages with plenty of global experience. So when she started planning her academic path in international politics, she could’ve easily gotten a head start in a number of specialties. But instead, Filali used her background to decide what not to do. “I was interested in building expertise in …

Jon Bullock’s research has brought him around the world, and he’s brought the world into his O’Neill Hall office. Bullock is an ethnomusicologist specializing in the music of the Kurds, an ethnic group that lives at the juncture of Iraq, Iran, Turkey, and Syria. His interest in Kurdish music began when he came across an article about Iraqi Kurds in a 1975 issue of National Geographic — which curr…

Literature rarely stays in one place. Texts and their writers travel across borders and languages, reaching new audiences with new ideas. But they can’t do it on their own. They need editors, publishers, translators, donors, and supportive spouses — people Michel…

The University of Notre Dame’s Joyelle McSweeney, the William P. and Hazel B. White Professor of English, has won the Windham-Campbell Prize for her work in poetry. McSweeney, who chairs the Department of English in the College of Arts & Letters, was one of eight writers to win the prestigious annual global literary award, administered by Yale University’s Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library,…

Victoria Erdel Garcia ’19 was known on campus as the girl obsessed with fighting trafficking. She was drawn to the issue because victims’ stories rarely sustained attention—and too often elicited only sympathy. For Erdel Garcia, change has to go further than that. She just had to find a way to get people to listen. So, she started a podcast.

Areas of Excellence The search for and pursuit of truth spans the disciplines in the College of Arts & Letters, and exceptional research is found in all departments and programs. Finding Solutions to Fight Poverty The Wilson Sheehan Lab for Economic Opportunities (LEO) is the nation’s first research center that partners academics with a national network of domestic social-service providers to con…

Beyond the Dome hosts seven career communities where students discover all the opportunities they have to utilize their majors in a career that interests them. Programming is composed of workshops, speaker series, and networking events to maximize student exposure and hands-on interactions with peers and employers.

Undergraduate Programs An ampersand is just a symbol. The shortest part of the College of Arts & Letters. Easy to overlook. But '&' defines our students — what they do in their time at Notre Dame and where they go after graduation. Because Arts & Letters offers more than 60 programs across the arts, humanities, languages, and social sciences, every student is able to customize their academic expe…

With permission, juniors and seniors may take one non-major, non-required elective course each semester on a pass/fail grading basis.

Undergraduate Programs An ampersand is just a symbol. The shortest part of the College of Arts & Letters. Easy to overlook. But '&' defines our students — what they do in their time at Notre Dame and where they go after graduation. Because Arts & Letters offers more than 60 programs across the arts, humanities, languages, and social sciences, every student is able to customize their academic expe…