Tag: student life

Senior Bar

The first Senior Bar building has an unlikely history.  The house was built in 1916 as a private residence and was known as the McNamara House.  In 1951 the house was converted into a home for men in formation to the Brothers of the Congregation of Holy Cross and renamed André House after now Saint Brother André Bessette, CSC.

André House facing Eddy Street, March 1951.
This space is now occupied by the current Legends Restaurant

André House served as a home for the brothers for about a decade.  It was then used as a Faculty Club in the 1960s.  At this same time, the Senior Class would designate a local, off-campus watering-hole as “Senior Bar.”  The location changed yearly and students worked with local establishments to have a private club for Notre Dame seniors and their dates over the age of 21 who purchased membership.

The opportunity for students to move Senior Bar to campus came when the University Club opened in 1968 along Notre Dame Avenue (razed in 2008) and André House was once again vacant.  In January 1969, the Alumni Association took over the old house and opened Alumni Club.  Of-age seniors could gain membership and “senior class managers handled the day-to-day operations of the club” [Scholastic, 12/05/1975, page 18].  Alumni Club could accommodate several hundred people and offered bars, pool tables, and dancing areas.

Students outside of Alumni-Senior Club, c1970s

Students dominated Alumni Club and the Alumni Association backed out of the venture in 1974.  After much negotiation, the club moved under the auspices of the Office of Student Affairs and changed the name to Alumni-Senior Club.  Ever since 1969, the popularity and financial stability of Alumni-Senior Club ebbed and waned.  The 1916 building became cost prohibitive to physically maintain.  In 1982, a new Senior Bar was built on the same location as the old house.  The new building, designed with input from students, offered three times as much space as the old building.  It included three bars, two dance floors, and a game room with pool tables and video games.

 

Senior Bar (Alumni-Senior Club) exterior, March 1999

In 2003, Senior Bar was transformed into Legends Restaurant and the lifetime memberships held by alumni were no longer valid.  One side of Legends houses a restaurant open to the public.  The club side is generally used for private parties or student-only events.

 

Sources:
Scholastic
PNDP 10-An
PNDP 30-Al-02
GPHR 45/1366
GSCO 3/93

Memorial Day

Memorial Day began as Decoration Day to honor the dead soldiers from the Civil War.  However, it did not become a federal holiday until 1967.  When the academic year used to run through June at Notre Dame, students and faculty members participated in local parades and held ceremonies for the fallen military members of the Notre Dame community at the cemeteries.

Notre Dame Military Companies marching in a Decoration Day (Memorial Day) parade in South Bend, 1913/0530

 The ceremonies at Notre Dame included the recitation of Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, addresses by students and patriotic songs, and a requiem mass.  In 1925, Notre Dame created a memorial to her students who died in World War I at the east door of the Basilica of the Sacred Heart, which bears the epitaph “God, Country, Notre Dame.”  Through World War II, Memorial Day Masses and ceremonies were held outside of this door.

Memorial Day Ceremony held outside of the Basilica of the Sacred Heart’s World War I Memorial Door, view from above, 1941/0530

The change in the academic year to end in May and the observance of Memorial Day as a national holiday leaves campus rather quiet.

 

Sources:
Scholastic
PNDP 70-Me-01
GMIL 2/04
GDIS 29/02

 

Notre Dame and Latin America

Part of Notre Dame’s expansion in the second half of the 19th century came from active recruitment of students from Mexico, Cuba, and other parts south of the border.  Considering the high percentage of Catholics among the people in Latin America, it made sense for Notre Dame officials to recruit Latin American students.  According to Arthur J. Hope, “Early in Father [John W.] Cavanaugh’s administration [1905-1919], over 10% of the enrollment was from Latin America.  Notre Dame was one of the pioneers of the ‘Good Neighbor’ policy.”

Detail from a Notre Dame advertisement in Spanish for prospective students from Mexico, 1883

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, Notre Dame published advertisements, catalogs, and bulletins in Spanish for prospective students.  Scholastic, the student-run weekly publication, also published issues in Spanish.  By 1885, Notre Dame’s student population was so geographically diverse, it made economic sense to purchase a hotel train car.  Rev. John A. Zahm was chaperone for these trips out West and south to Mexico City.

An author for Scholastic described the influx of these new types of students in 1883:

“A very promising scholastic year has just begun.  The attendance of students is large—fully up to the expectations of the most sanguine friends of the University.  Among them is an unusually large proportion of new students. Many of these are from Mexico and remote parts of the United States.  This is a gratifying evidence of how widely known Notre Dame has become. It is likewise an indication of the confidence reposed in it as an  Institution of high rank and solid merit by persons who live even beyond the limits of the great Mississippi Valley.  This fact is duly appreciated by all friends of the University. But to those more particularly identified with its past and present interests—to those who have watched and labored as it grew up from a humble beginning to the high rank it now holds—there is a source of special gratification in the undoubted assurance of its  prosperous present and more than promising future” [Scholastic, 09/18/1883, page 24].

Latin American Club, 1907-1908 academic year

 While many Notre Dame administrators and professors traveled long distances to escort students to South Bend, Notre Dame also sought recruiting help from alumni and other benefactors.  Sam Keeler was stationed in Havana, Cuba, with the United States Army in 1900 when he received a letter from Sister Aloysius, the director of the Minim program.  He responded that he knew of a perspective student and he would surely pass along a catalog if she would send him one.  Keeler replied that he was “[glad] to do anything that will benefit the school of my younger days.  … I am sure he [the prospective student] will like Notre Dame as I did years ago when I was a boy at St. Edward’s Hall” [UPEL 77/04].

Cuban businessman Carlos Hinze, originally from Prussia, sent his family to Muncie, Indiana, in the late 1890s to escape the dangers of the Spanish-American War while Hinze stayed behind in Havana.  Hinze sent his son Carlos to Notre Dame and daughter to Saint Mary’s Academy.  With his connections in Havana, Hinze became a go-between with the Cuban families and Notre Dame, from recruiting new students to checking in on their progress at Notre Dame.  As a business man, Hinze also asked Notre Dame officials for help in bringing Studebaker to Cuba [UPEL: Hinze].

Letter from William Barrett to University President Andrew Morrissey, 1899/0224.   Barrett visited Carlos Hinze in Havana, Cuba, and he recommended Notre Dame to everyone he met.

Sources:
Scholastic
UPEL
PNDP 05/Hi-01
PNDP 05-Me-01
Notre Dame: 100 Years by Arthur J. Hope

Skiving

“Is it better to have ‘skived’ and been caught, than never to have ‘skived’ at all?” [Scholastic, 09/15/1888, page 68]

If students in the 1880s-1930s maintained a Domer Dictionary, “skive,” “skiving,” and “skiver” would be among the common terms in Notre Dame vernacular.  While “skiving” could refer simply to cutting class, it generally had a heavier connotation of a French leave from campus with dangers of getting caught.  Since curfew was in place during these years, “skivers” at Notre Dame would sneak out of the dorms at night and headed into town without permission.

A student “skiving” out of a Corby Hall dormitory window, 1914-1915

Once in town, students would frequent popular hangouts such as Hullie and Mike’s Cigar Store or Jimmie and Goat’s restaurant or take in a vaudeville show at the Orpheum Theatre.  The typical punishment for skiving seems to be demerits, which students could work off with manual labor such as shoveling snow.

Skiving was so common-place it was often the subject of short stories, poems, Scholastic news items, and tall-tales of the alumni.  The following sonnet was published in the 1913 Easter issue of Scholastic (page 382):

Sonnet on the Skiver

WHAT is a skiver? He is one that knows
Each alley, lane, and back street in town;
To him the campus scenes are dingy brown,
And all routine of class is driest prose.
His is the poet’s spirit that arose
Triumphant o’er the prefect’s sternest frown,—
That hies him off, to view a game, a gown.
To eat at Mike’s, or see the nickel shows.

‘Tis true a haunting fear lurks in his eyes.
And drives him oft within the handy door.
‘Tis true he’s never known to win the prize
Of scholarship—or e’en acquire its lore.
What will he do when life’s great tasks arrive?
Prophetic voices answer, “He will skive!”

W. H.

Dome yearbook 1920:  Floor plan of Sorin Hall with the best routes for skiving

 

Sources:
Scholastic
Dome yearbook
GMIL 2/08

Bengal Bouts

“Strong bodies fight so that weak bodies may be nourished”

The 2012 Bengal Bouts final matches will be held Saturday, March 3rd, at 7:00pm in the Joyce Center.  Bengal Bouts is an annual intramural boxing tournament that raises money for the Holy Cross Missions in Bangladesh.  While the first student tournament was  in 1932, charity boxing matches for the Bengal Missions date back to the 1920s.

Advertisement for the first annual Scholastic Boxing Show (Bengal Bouts) from the January 1932 issue of The Juggler

In the 1920s and 1930s, sporting matches of all kinds were organized as a means to raise funds for deserving causes.  This was no less true at Notre Dame and a favorite charity among the students was the Holy Cross work in Bangladesh.  In 1921, the students of Brownson Hall organized a smoker that featured “boxing, wrestling, a tribute to Coach Rockne, and a talk by Father O’Donnell,” and raised $150 for the Bengal Missions. In 1922 and 1923, Brother Alan arranged the Bengalese Boxing Bouts with exhibitions of outside boxers.

February 12, 1932, marked the first annual “Scholastic Boxing Show,” organized by the student magazine Scholastic with Notre Dame students making up the contenders.  This first tournament was set up more like an interhall match, with representatives from each dorm making up the contestants.  Nearly two thousand people from the University and surrounding communities made up the audience, which was a record attendance for a boxing match at Notre Dame.

Interior view of the Fieldhouse set up with the Bengal Bouts Boxing Ring, 1952

The continued success of Bengal Bouts would not have been possible without the oversight of Dominick “Nappy” Napolitano (1907-1986).  Nappy trained and mentored nearly every student boxer for more than fifty years.  He made sure the fights were clean and fair, which was often in contrast to the culture surrounding professional boxing.  As Budd Schulberg witnessed in 1955, “You’ll see boys battling harder for the University championships than some heavyweights have fought for the championship of the world. You will see contestants beautifully conditioned and boxing under rules of safety precaution that have precluded any serious injury in the quarter-century history of the bouts. Here are boys who will fight their hearts out in the five-day tournament for pride and the pure sport of it” [Sports Illustrated].

Dominick “Nappy” Napolitano instructing students for Bengal Bouts boxing matches, February 1975

In the end, the Bengal Missions are the perennial winners of the Bengal Bouts.  For over eighty years, these boxing matches have helped the Congregation of Holy Cross to provide service to the poor of Bangladesh by establishing and maintaining medical dispensaries and educational institutions.

 

Sources:
Scholastic
Dome
Juggler 1932
“The Bengal Bouts:  On the campus, boxing is still a sport,” by Budd Schulberg, Sports Illustrated, April 4, 1955
GPHR 45/1573
GPHR 35m/04025

Sorin Hall Porch

“It was not like that in the olden days, in the days beyond recall,
When everybody got ducked that lived in Sorin Hall.”
[1906 Dome yearbook]

In the latter part of the 19th century, enrollment at Notre Dame continued to swell.  Sorin Hall was built in 1889 and expanded in 1897 to accommodate the collegiate students whose population was outgrowing the living space in Main Building.  Sorin Hall was Notre Dame’s first dormitory building to offer private quarters, and a certain level of freedom, for the collegiate students.  However, Sorin’s famous porch was not added until 1905.  The need for the porch went beyond pure architectural aesthetics.  It was built as a deterrent of student pranks.

Sorin Hall exterior, c1890s

Pranks are inevitable in a close-knit setting among college students.  In the early 1900s, students would amuse themselves by throwing water out of upper-level windows of Sorin Hall, much to the chagrin of passers-by entering the dorm.  The final straw was when the beloved “Colonel” William Hoynes, dean of the Law School and Sorin Hall professor-in-residence, supposedly fell victim to this popular prank.  Immediately thereafter, construction of a porch began on the eastern facade of Sorin Hall to protect visitors from an unexpected deluge of water.  The porch was completed in April 1905.

Sorin Hall residents posed on the front steps of Sorin Hall, c1890s. “Colonel” William Hoynes is in the center with a top hat.

The water pranks did not completely cease with this addition, as students could crawl out on top of the flat-roofed porch.  However, the pranksters had to be slier as they were more exposed to getting caught.  Stories of the Hoynes incident lived on in the inaugural 1906 Dome yearbook and for a few years there after.  As a happy accident, this stately porch has become a significant part of Sorin Hall’s identity as a place to gather and as a stage for concerts, speeches, and the annual talent show.  Even Colonel Hoynes himself, who had a flare for the theatrical, often entertained alumni and visitors on the very porch that might not exist if it weren’t for a fateful prank.

Sorin Hall exterior with an American flag and blue banner on the porch that reads “God, Country, Notre Dame,” August 2002

 

Sources:
CNDS 14/29:  Sorin Hall histories by Philip Hicks, 1979-1980
Dome yearbooks 1906-1907
GGPP 2/16
GGPP 2/11
GMDG 7/21

Vetville

Like many other American universities in the late 1940s, Notre Dame saw an influx of a new type of student:  a World War II veteran on a G.I. Bill with a wife and possibly children.  Since Notre Dame did not have married student housing at the time and alternate housing in South Bend was scarce, “Vetville” was created to fill this need.  Vetville opened in the Fall of 1946, housed 117 families, and occupied areas of Mod Quad along Bulla and Juniper Roads.  Each building consisted of three two-bedroom apartments with a kitchen and bathroom and was constructed of “thirty-nine prisoner-of-war barracks [from] a military camps in Weingarten, Missouri” [Schlereth, page 191].

Cover of the Scholastic issue 10/08/1948.
Caption: “With a bow to the Vet Gazette’s Tracey Cummings from whom Scholastic stole the idea for this week’s cover, we present a problem which plagues Diaperville each time the team plays ball in the stadium. Mr. and Mrs. Chuck Perrin and recalcitrant Junior, roped securely to the old homestead, typify the difficulties of going anywhere sans offspring. Junior, never fear, will exact his pound of flesh by an orgy of mural-painting on the living room wall during his parents’ absence.”

Vetville was its own village, with six wards, council representatives, and a mayor “who was charged to negotiate with the University administration for better garbage collection, paved streets, food cooperatives, and playgrounds.”  In addition to carrying a full academic course-load, most of the students and many of their wives held down full-time jobs, trying to make ends meet, while also raising a family in tight living quarters [Schlereth, pages 191-192].

Vetville construction, October 1946

The lives of the married students and their families are well documented through the weekly newspaper, which debuted on April 30, 1947, and ran in one form or another through 1962.  It announced events, accomplishments, guidance, and other information for the Vetville families.

Three students playing with their children on a playground at Vetville, c1955. The American Baby Boom arrived at almost every house in Vetville.  Averaging one hundred births a year, Vetville was also known as “Fertile Acres.”

Notre Dame did not intend the barracks of Vetville to be permanent housing.  As the enrollment of veterans with families waned in the late 1950s, plans for new, modern residence halls, library, and chapel were laid out in the early 1960s.  The Vetville buildings and Navy Drill hall were demolished by 1962 to make room for the new construction.  However, Notre Dame also recognized the need for married students housing and the Cripe Street Apartments for married students was completed in 1962 as Vetville vanished.

On June 11, 1966, former Vetville Chaplain Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, CSC, dedicated a plaque on the hill just north of the Memorial Library (now called Hesburgh Library) to the families who spent their years at Notre Dame in Vetville.  It reads, “This area was the site of ‘Vetville,’ married student housing 1945-1962.  Many were the trials — Thanks to the Holy Family for the many blessings needed to persevere.”

 

Sources:
PNDP 10-Ve-01
PNDP 83-Nd-3s
Scholastic
The University of Notre Dame:  A Portrait of Its History and Campus by Thomas Schlereth (1976)
GPHR 45/4144
GPHR 45/2382

Telephones at Notre Dame

On March 10, 1876, Alexander Graham Bell used a liquid transmitter and electromagnetic receiver to relay his famous telephone message to Thomas Watson.  Bell, Thomas Edison, and other inventors raced to perfect the telephone.  The new technology arrived at Notre Dame on April 4, 1878:  “a telephone was attached to the telegraph wires at Notre Dame connecting to South Bend.  Conversation was freely carried on and music played at Notre Dame was distinctly heard at South Bend.”  Over the next several days, crowds gathered at both ends of the phone lines, presenting concerts to one another [Scholastic, 04/06/1878, pages 506 and 522].

Postcard of the Founders Monument, Log Chapel, and Old College, with telephone wires and poles, c1907

 Phones were eventually placed in various offices on campus and grew in number over time.  It wouldn’t be until 1968 when students would have phones in their individual dorm rooms.  In the meantime, students had little privacy when placing and receiving calls, as the phones were placed near the rectors’ offices or in other rather public places.  Even with the convenience of a booth, little was left to the imagination of the casual passer-by:  “The scene, Room 117 in the Main Building.  Back of this room is the Brownson telephone booth, hallowed by the ravings of many a love-lorn student…” [Dome yearbook 1918, page 331].

Over the years, Notre Dame worked with various telephone providers to upgrade the systems and to negotiate better rates.  In 1937, a telephone exchange was established at Notre Dame.  One could now connect to another on-campus phone by dialing directly.  However, out-of-city calls still required assistance from a Notre Dame operator.  Many Notre Dame engineering alumni who were employed by Indiana Bell Telephone Company worked on this major upgrade to the campus telephone system [Scholastic, 05/14/1937, page 7].

In 1963, the University switched to a Centrex system, which helped to lower the costs of long-distance calls and allowed for all faculty members and most administrative staff members to have their own lines.  The switchboard was no longer needed for long-distance incoming or outgoing calls, but was retained for informational services.  This system change also laid the groundwork for students to finally have their own phones, although it took five years to get there [Notre Dame, Fall 1963, page 11].  In 1968, “the impenetrable lines to Saint Mary’s finally broke in January when private phones were installed in each room” [Dome yearbook 1968, page 234].

Two students in a telephone booth in the Hesburgh Library basement, 1969-1970

The 1992 upgrade resulted in the prefix of all University phones changing to the now familiar 631 (ND-1) prefix for faculty and staff lines and 634 (ND-4) for student lines.  Voicemail access became 634-7474 (ND-IRISH).

In the 1990s, students registered for classes via Direct Access Registration by Telephone (DART).  The allotted fifteen minute registration time was made stressful by busy tones, closed classes, and the fear of a disconnection.  By the early 2000s, class registration was made more efficient by using the internet.

Student Hockey Athlete Matt Eisler using Direct Access Registration by Telephone (DART) to register for classes, March 1995

 In 2006, Notre Dame removed land-line phones in each dorm room as few students were actually using them in favor of their cell phones.  The Office of Information Technologies (OIT) installed house phones on every floor of the dorms for student use, reminiscent of the lamented system in place in the 1960s.  Students can still opt-in to have a land-line in their rooms, at an added charge, although few do.

In 2011, Notre Dame migrated phone service to “the computer data network instead of the traditional phone line” [http://myphone.nd.edu/], which also provided faculty and staff with many new calling features.  Other than getting used to a new handset, many of the changes were not apparent to the end user.

 

Sources:
“Timeline of the Telephone,” wikipedia.org
PNDP 30-Te-2
Scholastic
Dome yearbook
PNDP 83-Nd-3s:  “Now – Dial Any Notre Dame Office Direct with Prefix 284 and the Number,” Notre Dame, Fall 1963, page 11
“University cuts dorm telephones,” by Amanda Michaels, Observer, 08/23/2006
“Residence Hall Opt-In Phone Service FAQ,” OIT website
http://myphone.nd.edu/
GFCL 48/62
GDOM 7/45
GSCO 1/58

 

Carroll Hall Haunted House

At Notre Dame, students usually reside in the same dorm for at least their first three years.  This fosters a great sense of community among the dorm residents.  Out of that camaraderie has grown signature dorm events – at least one annual event in which most residents help to organize for the entire campus to enjoy, while also usually raising money for charity.

Ghoul John Morgan playing a piano at Carroll Hall’s Haunted House, 1988

For one night a year in late October from the 1980s until 1997, Carroll Hall’s signature event was the Haunted House.  Residents converted their secluded home on St. Mary’s Lake into the laboratories of mad scientists, operating rooms of sadistic surgeons, and torture rooms of dungeon guards.  Students would trek across campus to the remote dorm and wait in long lines in the cold to wander the transformed halls for a good scare.

Advertisement for Carroll Hall’s Haunted House in the Observer, 1992/1029

According to accounts online, several female visitors to Carroll’s Haunted House accused some of the residents of groping them in the dark halls in 1997.  This led Student Affairs to decide to terminate the tradition.  Since then Carroll Hall had developed another signature event:   A Carroll Christmas, which includes karaoke carols, cookie-baking contests, and a toy drive.

 

Sources:
Dome yearbooks 1985-1998
“Carroll Hall History,” www.verminnet.com
“Hall Portrait:  Carroll,” by Mike Connolly and Brigid Sweeney, Notre Dame Magazine, Autumn 2002
“Carroll Hall to Host Annual Christmas Event,” by Sarah Felenstein, Observer, 12/04/2009
GDOM
Observer, 10/29/1992

The Peace Corps and Notre Dame

“The Peace Corps offers you a dimension that is lacking in our modern life — a spirit of idealism and adventure,” Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh at a dinner reception for the first group of Peace Corps volunteers trained at Notre Dame, 07/21/1961.

Shortly after his inauguration as United States President in 1961, John F. Kennedy established the Peace Corps.  The Peace Corps comprises of thousands of young adults, mostly recent college graduates, who volunteer serving underdeveloped countries in various areas including education,  health care, recreation, and agriculture.  University President Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh quickly became involved in the formation of the Peace Corps and in establishing a training program at Notre Dame, the first such program sponsored by a university.

Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, Peace Corps Volunteer Edward Tisch, and Walter Langford in Chile, April 1962

Notre Dame identified a number of opportunities in rural Chile for the first group.  Before embarking on this adventure in a foreign land, the students went through eight weeks of intensive summer classes at Notre Dame, including language, history, economics, and the culture of Chile.  “The mission of the training program in general will be to prepare this group of recent college graduates to play an informed, intelligent, and prudent role in providing the underprivileged members of the society of Chile with the means of their own intellectual improvement, with the means to realize and enjoy their human dignity” [“Exhibit B:  Proposal for Training Program,” PNDP 30-Pe-01].

Peace Corps Training Program Syllabus for Chile and Uruguay,
Notre Dame, June 24-September 11, 1964

Walter Langford, Notre Dame Professor of Modern Languages, was the field director of the first Peace Corps group to Chile from 1961-1963.  Over one hundred people applied to be one of the forty-two volunteers in the first group in 1961.  Notre Dame graduates made up the highest concentration with nine participants and Saint Mary’s College came in second with three.

Peace Corps Training, c1960s.
Sitting: Lawrence West, Jacqueline E. Wallace, and Notre Dame Professor Walter M. Langford
Standing: Joan L. Workman, Linda Showalter, Edward L. Tisch, Judith A. Grant, and Frank O’Hearn

Success in those first years wasn’t guaranteed.  Before the first group left, Langford acknowledged that there was the possibility of failure that could be a major set-back for all the parties involved.  However, he wrote, “this means only that we have a great responsibility as well as a challenge worthy of our very best and an opportunity for good that is positively awesome” [Notre Dame, Fall 1961].  This weekend Notre Dame will celebrate its long relationship with the Peace Corps.  Notre Dame will honor Fr. Hesburgh for his vision and leadership with the program and her alumni who have made a difference in communities around the world.

Sources:
PNDP 30-Pe-1
PNDP 83-Nd-3s:  “Peace Corps Volunteers Train at Notre Dame” by Walter M. Langford, Notre Dame, Fall 1961
UDIS 21/30
UDIS 22/01
UDIS 204/04-11
GDIS 48/31
GDIS 48/33