Students too often conceive of education simply as an information transfer or a means to burnish credentials, but Thomas Stapleford sees a richer model — a life-changing encounter that prompts questioning, reflection, and personal growth. That’s what Stapleford, associate professor and chair of the Program of Liberal Studies, witnesses each week when he leads a Great Books seminar for Inspired Leadership Initiative fellows — an experience that allows participants to explore classic texts and grapple with perennial questions. 
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On Oct. 24, the National Institute for Newman Studies (Pittsburgh) will honor Program of Liberal Studies Professor Emerita, M. Katherine Tillman with the 2019 Gailliot Award "for lifetime achievement in Newman Studies."

Professor Tillman has taught and lectured in academic venues nationally and internationally primarily on the thought of Blessed (“Saint” as of Oct. 13, 2019) John Henry Cardinal Newman with particular interest in his educational theory and his views on the faith/reason relation. Her work on Newman’s life and writings appears in academic journals, scholarly books and electronic publications.  She has published introductory monographs for reprints of three of Newman's works, Rise and Progress of Universities Read More

Established in 1994 by the Kaneb Center for Teaching and Learning, the award is named for Notre Dame professor Frank O’Malley, who taught classes on the philosophy of literature for more than 40 years. Recipients are nominated by undergraduates and approved by the Student Government. Jennifer Newsome Martin, an assistant professor in the Program of Liberal Studies with a concurrent appointment in the Department of Theology, received the award at the annual Student Leadership Banquet this month and will also be recognized at the University’s commencement ceremony in May. Read More

For Christopher Chowrimootoo, there’s nothing unusual about a musicologist teaching in the Great Books program. That’s because, like his research, the Program of Liberal Studies is fundamentally interdisciplinary. He primarily tries to bring music into wider conversations about the “middlebrow” in literature, film studies, and cultural history. This originally pejorative term implied cultural aspiration, using “highbrow” art to achieve a higher social and aesthetic status.  Read More

Robichaud was one of 29 Rome Prize winners this year, chosen from among nearly 1,000 artists and scholars across the United States. The prize allows him to serve as a resident fellow at the American Academy in Rome for the 2018–19 academic year, where he will continue work on his book, the Marsilio Ficino Editions Project. Read More

Notre Dame senior Sarah Tomas Morgan has always had an interest in global issues. And the College of Arts and Letters has enabled her to explore that passion through her coursework and a variety of international and internship experiences. Coming into her first year, Tomas Morgan intended on majoring in political science. But after completing a University Seminar in the Program of Liberal Studies (PLS), her plans changed. Read More

Henry Weinfield

To support the translation from the French of selected sonnets and other poems by Pierre de Ronsard. Ronsard (1524-85), one of the greatest poets of the Renaissance, was the leader of the famous Pléiade group of poets in 16th-century France. Steeped in the classics, his aim was to renovate and enrich French poetry and the French language. An extraordinarily prolific poet, Ronsard wrote sonnets, odes, hymns, elegies, discourses, satires, and epigrams, as well as an unfinished epic. His poetry was celebrated in his own time and had a major influence on subsequent French poetry. His sonnets, written in the Petrarchan form, are to French poetry what Shakespeare’s are to English. This collection will include approximately 150 sonnets by Ronsard, among them his most famous, as well as several of his elegies and discourses.
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Gretchen Reydams-Schils, a professor in the Program of Liberal Studies, has begun a 10-month fellowship at the Israel Institute for Advanced Studies of Hebrew University in Jerusalem, as part of a multidisciplinary research project that studies expressions of the self among philosophers, lawmakers, representatives of religious traditions, and biographers in ancient Greece and Rome. The project brings together scholars of philosophy, law, literature, early Christianity, Jewish Hellenism, and Judaism to understand classical thinkers’ concept of the self and how that conception manifested itself in Jewish, Christian, and Roman culture. Read More

Four undergraduate students in Notre Dame's College of Arts and Letters received Undergraduate Library Research Awards during the 10th annual Undergraduate Scholars Conference on Friday, May 5. The award honors individuals who conduct original research and demonstrate exemplary skills through their broad use of library resources, collections, and services for their scholarly and creative works. Read More

An examination of one of the 20th century’s most important Catholic theologians has garnered a significant honor for Jennifer Newsome Martin, an assistant professor in the Program of Liberal Studies. She is one of 10 people worldwide to receive the 2017 Manfred Lautenschlaeger Award for Theological Promise, presented by the University of Heidelberg’s Forschungszentrum für Internationale und Interdisziplinäre Theologie for outstanding doctoral or first post-doctoral works in the area of God and spirituality. Read More