I'm grateful for the many examples of teaching excellence in my own higher education journey. From Holy Cross to Marquette and here at Notre Dame, professors have combined cutting-edge pedagogy with a dedication to educating the mind and the heart, and for care for the whole person. Thank you.

I am as honored to have been nominated by Darren Dochuk, whose course, "1970s America and the Rise of the Culture Wars," I served as a teaching assistant for last fall. Together with our students, we attended to major topics in the historiography of the '70s.

I am honored to have been awarded the Notre Dame Kaneb Center's Outstanding Graduate Student Teaching Award. Alongside graduate student instructors from across departments, we were recognized for the effort, time, and passion we invest in our "commitment to teaching--and teaching well."

Why I Stay at Notre Dame - First Things I have been associated with the University of Notre Dame since 1984, first as a graduate student in mathematics and then in philosophy. In 2003, I became a tenured...

"while the Catholic Church is everywhere on Earth, everywhere on Earth is at Notre Dame."
firstthings.com/why-i-stay-a...

My running club shared croissants and mimosas after our jog yesterday morning!

this is among the most beautiful book covers I've seen. I look forward to reading it!

I've wanted to get back to this piece all summer. Enjoy every word!

This made my day! Thank you for sharing!

Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA — 2025

I can't help but worry that we're in veeeeeery big trouble

My review of Ruth Nelson's 'Our Lady of the World's Fair' has been published in the summer 2025 issue of the @achahistory.bsky.social's American Catholic Studies!
Read here: muse.jhu.edu/pub/156/arti...

Dr. Freeman, six months later I'm proud to report that I passed my exams, in part thanks to your great advice. Thank you, and onward!

Scattered clouds over a very blue body of water with no land in sight

(above) Milwaukee, Wisconsin — 2025

I'm thrilled that my first book review--of John Nelson's Muddy Ground--has been published in the Middle West Review!
muse.jhu.edu/issue/54929

I passed my comprehensive exams as a part of Notre Dame's PhD in History program this morning! I explored the fields central to my teaching and research interests: Catholicism in the U.S., the U.S. and the World, and Modern America. Thank you to my committee and my peers--now, on to my dissertation!

Pope’s Childhood in a Changing Chicago Tells a Story of Catholic America

Pope Leo grew up in a Catholic enclave on the South Side of Chicago that essentially disappeared, part of a larger pattern that one historian calls "one of the great dramas of 20th century U.S. history." With Julie Bosman and the rest of the incredible Chicago bureau: www.nytimes.com/2025/05/10/u...

I needed to read this, too. Thank you!

came here to say this

We are cheering for you! You've got this!

Pope Francis canonized 942 saints during his papacy. What do they tell us about him? A person’s heroes often point to their values. In Pope Francis’ case, the people he singled out for their heroic virtues reveal a great deal about his papal priorities.

My brilliant doctoral advisor, Kathy Cummings, on Francis and the saints he canonized:
www.americamagazine.org/faith/2025/0...

Color photograph looking at the darkened front of a house on an overcast night, orange lights from decorative pretend candles shine in four narrow windows across a large second-floor gable, and the rest of the house is in deep shadow or silhouetted against the bright slate gray sky

Oak Park, Michigan, December 2024

Pilgrims, Presence, and American Power The 1950 Jubilee Year was a landmark moment for American Catholics, who were coming into their own power—and wealth—during an era of Cold War upheaval.

Commonweal with my brilliant doctoral advisor's latest, on pilgrimage, tourism, and the 1950 Jubilee Year:
www.commonwealmagazine.org/pilgrims-pre...

that's Twitter behavior. maybe they're lost

Original 1925 jacket cover of The Great Gatsby The Great Gatsby Here is a novel, glamorous, ironical, compassionate a marvellous fusion into unity of the curious incongruities of the life of the period which reveals a hero like no other one who could live at no other time and in no other place. But he will live as a character, we surmise, as long as the memory of any reader lasts. "There was something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life. .. It was an extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic readiness such as I have never found in any other person and which it is not likely I shall ever find again?" It is the story of this Jay Gatsby who came so mysteriously to West Egg, of his sumptuous er-tertainments, and of his love for Daisy Buchanan a story that ranges from pure lyrical beauty to sheer brutal realism, and is infused with a sense of the strangeness of human circumstance in a heedless universe. It is a magical, living book, blended of irony, romance, and mysticism. CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS The GREAT GATSBY FITZGERALD

They were careless people, Tom and Daisy- they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.

-FS Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, published 4/10/1925.

this was the chuckle I needed as I wait before my comps prep meeting. Thank you.

Diane, 11:30am, February 24th. Entering the town of Twin Peaks. We are currently clean on opsec

You should have it now!