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Notre Dame People
The university's people: Sorin, Corby, Hesburgh, and the line of presidents
1842 – 2015
The Rev. Edward Sorin (1814–1893): the founder. A French priest of the Congregation of Holy Cross, ordained two years when his superior sent him to the Indiana missions, Sorin was 28 when he reached Vincennes in the fall of 1841.…
Ivan Meštrović: the sculptor in residence
1883 – 1962
Ivan Meštrović (1883–1962): the Croatian sculptor who ended a world career as South Bend's professor. Born in Croatia in 1883, Meštrović was by the 1940s among the most honored religious sculptors alive; the Ustaše regime…
Francis L. Sampson: Notre Dame's chaplain, boundary-printed
1944
The boundary, stated first: Francis L. Sampson was born at Cherokee, Iowa, and was not a South Bend man by birth, residence, or entry into service. He stands in this record on Notre Dame's ground and by Notre Dame's tie alone: he…
Luigi Gregori: the Vatican painter who founded the department
1819 – 1896 · Notre Dame's professor of art 1874 – 1890
Luigi Gregori (1819–1896): the first artist of the record, and the founder of art teaching on this ground. Born in Bologna in 1819, he was apprenticed at fourteen to Giovanni Battista Frulli, trained at Rome's Accademia di San…
Josip Turkalj: the student who raised the Moses
1924 – 2007 · Meštrović's assistant 1957 – 1962 · his successor in the studio
Josip Turkalj (1924–2007): the Croatian sculptor — in America he spelled the name Joseph Turkaly — whom Meštrović brought to South Bend to succeed him. Born in Croatia in 1924, the eldest of three sons, he learned carving at his…
John Bednar and Eugene Kormendi: the filling of the niches
the 1940s · the campus beautification project
The project: In the early 1940s, in the middle of the Second World War, Notre Dame set out to fill the empty niches on its buildings — some twenty of them, several vacant for decades — with sculpture. The men who filled them were…
Anthony Lauck: the father of art at Notre Dame
1909 – 2001 · art faculty 1950 – 1973 · department chairman 1960 – 1967
The Rev. Anthony J. Lauck, C.S.C. (1909–2001): the priest-sculptor who built Notre Dame's modern art life and brought Meštrović to it. Born in Indianapolis in 1909, he took a diploma from the John Herron Art School there, then…
Robert Leader: the painting professor
1924 – 2006 · Notre Dame art faculty from 1953
Robert A. Leader (1924–2006): the painter who carried Notre Dame's art teaching through the postwar decades. Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on May 26, 1924, he interrupted his studies at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts…
Charles L. O'Donnell — and the campus poetry line
1884–1934 · NOTRE DAME'S POET-PRESIDENT
The tie. Charles Leo O'Donnell, C.S.C., was born at Greenfield, Indiana, on 15 November 1884, was formed by Notre Dame, taught English there from 1910 — the appointment came, on his own account, because the university needed…
William O'Rourke — the program's founder, on paper
NOTRE DAME FACULTY, 1981–2015
The tie. William O'Rourke taught English at the University of Notre Dame from 1981 to 2015 and founded its graduate creative writing program — the institution's course stands in Arts, and the program's own tribute history names…
Matt Cashore and Barbara Johnston: the university's cameras today
1990–present — the present office
The staff line now: Matt Cashore, Notre Dame class of 1994, has photographed the university since he arrived as a student in the fall of 1990 — beginning with the Dome yearbook, where he was photo editor — and has been a staff…
The Presidential Medal of Freedom: Theodore Hesburgh, seated here
14 September 1964
The honor: The Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, was awarded by President Lyndon B. Johnson to the Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, C.S.C., on 14 September 1964 — following, in the university's own…
The Congressional Gold Medal: Hesburgh again, thirty-six years on
13 July 2000
The honor: Congress voted Father Hesburgh its own highest civilian honor, the Congressional Gold Medal, and President Bill Clinton presented it to him in the Rotunda of the Capitol on 13 July 2000, in recognition — the…
The Presidential Medal of Freedom: Lou Holtz, for the Notre Dame years
3 December 2020
The honor: On 3 December 2020, President Donald Trump awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Lou Holtz in an Oval Office ceremony, the White House calling him one of the greatest football coaches of all time. The tie is a…