Around Campus

Nonprofit Professional Development staff members made a special delivery as part of REAL Services' Elves for Elders, a holiday gift-giving program for those who would like to get involved with the elderly.

NPD staffers included Angela Logan, Marc Hardy, Joan McClendon, Christopher Ditmar, Cindy Proffitt and Kim Brumbaugh.

Dean Martijn Cremers and usher Chad Harms (who also happens to be an M&O teaching professor) celebrate a victory over Boston College with the Irish Guard.

M&O's Wendy Angst was an invited guest of former Notre Dame women's basketball star Natalie Achonwa (MGMT '14) at Natalie's induction into Notre Dame Athletic Department's Ring of Honor. It was established to recognize former and present men’s and women’s basketball coaches and players who have made distinguished and noteworthy contributions during their careers at the University.

The Hesburgh Library added a digitized version of "O'Hara's Heirs: Business Education at Notre Dame 1921-1991" by Kerry Temple to the CurateND web portal. It is publicly available for download at CurateND.

Congratulations to Steve Hayes, who will retire from his position as the Entrepreneurial Spirit Endowed Business Librarian as of Oct. 31 after more than 45 years at Notre Dame — 25 of those with Mendoza.

As the head of our Mahaffey Business Library, Steve has provided Mendoza with the utmost professional expertise and service, supporting the research of our faculty, staff and students. He served as a member of the College’s Computing Committee in 1994-95 just as our current building opened, advising on computing, computers and databases and establishing the Hesburgh Libraries as an equal partner in meeting Mendoza’s electronic business information needs. He was the College’s sole librarian from 1995-2006 and has overseen a number of renovations of the Mahaffey library space. 

Steve also has played a significant role in teaching. In the junior Foresight course alone, he has taught 6,379 students across 236 sections and assisted with 1,355 projects. Each year, he compiles a citation count for every faculty member in the College and presents the data to the department chairs to assist with promotion and tenure decisions — the only librarian in the University to provide this service.

During Interterm week, Joe Sweeney traveled with T.J. Rosetti '20 MBA and Briton Moffit '18 MBA to Honduras to meet with new partners for this year's Business on the Frontlines. The team visited Ilama in the Santa Barbara region with partners Food for the Poor and CEPUDO to begin exploring additional livelihood opportunities for beneficiaries of the joint housing program. The second part of the visit focused on assessing capabilities of the Olancho Aid Foundation and economic opportunity development in the Olancho region. Each partner will work with a full team of students throughout the spring semester, with an in-country visit in March 2020.

GBP's fall Interterm session, coordinated by Alice Obermiller, received positive reviews from the partner sites:

"I liked how the team was willing and eager to pivot their projects to work on new projects. As a startup needs change week by week and the team was eager to help on any and all fronts. I was very impressed with their desire to learn and want more. They helped evaluate new cities to launch, created a new chef business intelligence product, and helped provide excellent guidance on our Series B deck. I was very impressed and would hire any of them." - Shy Pahlevani, President and Co-Founder, HUNGRY Marketplace Inc.

"We had seven people from our company attend the final presentation and we were all blown away! Dan, Scott, Shraddha and Shannon are an excellent representation for what a Notre Dame MBA should be. They brought high energy to critical issues surrounding our business and offered great insights into what the industry is doing. We felt like they were one of the team here. They made great use of the time. Please keep us in mind for any future projects!" - Mike Buonavolanto, Director of Real Estate Development, Buona Restaurants

Last week, THOR Industries, a Fortune 500 company and the world's largest RV manufacturer, completed its fourth cohort of the THOR Executive Leadership Development Program, developed by Stayer Center's non-degree unit in 2016. Over 150 leaders and executives from THOR's corporate team and 10 subsidiary companies have completed the program, and this year's cohort was the largest yet, with 55 participants. While the first two sessions were held at Stayer Center, last week's finale was held at the Lerner Theatre in Elkhart, home to THOR and the RV industry.

Many thanks to Robin Kistler, Sue Callaghan, Cleo Thanos, Ryan Retartha, Kalynda Hamilton, Wendy Durham, Sabrina Brown and Pasha Luber for helping to cultivate and expand Mendoza's relationship with this essential Michiana-based corporation.