As previously announced, we will break ground this spring for the North Addition, providing expanded resources for serving our undergraduate students. While that is certainly the “headline news” for the College, we have been fortunate to receive several additional gifts in the past year or so totaling nearly $30 million to advance our strategic objectives.

Here is a roundup of recent gifts:

Human-centered Analytics Lab (HAL) ($10M): HAL, co-directed by Ahmed Abbasi and Ken Kelley, was launched in 2021 and is structured around a multidisciplinary topic with a distinctly Notre Dame-centric mission: to better understand the human condition in the context of the digital life of persons. In HAL’s approach, analytics has a purpose: Problems are framed, critically considered and evaluated with rigorous methods to understand the human condition. The work cuts across the disciplines of computer science, statistics and psychology resulting in a unique research perspective, one deep in methods and broad in application. 

The $10M gift that has been pledged, once in place, will help Ph.D. in Analytics students and faculty affiliated with HAL to develop scholarship in this critical, emerging area and to bring their experience and novel findings into the classroom and beyond. HAL will host interdisciplinary conferences to bring together scholars and provide a forum for research that considers the development of innovative methods and the application of advanced and non-standard methods to study HAL-related phenomena.  

Trading Room ($7M): The Trading Room will showcase our finance programs by providing a state-of-the-art learning space where students and faculty can research financial markets and investment management. To be located just inside the main entrance on the building’s east side (currently Suite 123), the room will feature a modern exterior design with a floor-to-ceiling glass-paneled front for high visibility. The interior space optimizes collaborative, project-based work, seminars and training with multiple stock tickers, large video screens displaying dynamic financial information, Bloomberg terminals and student workstations. The Trading Room will serve as a home for several key courses and clubs, and extend the footprint of the Notre Dame Institute for Global Investing. Construction is scheduled to begin in spring semester 2025.

The artist's rendering depicts the new Mendoza Trading Room, which will shape the future of finance education at the University of Notre Dame.  (Note: This is an example, not an exact rendering.)

Powerful Means Initiative ($7M): If you haven’t watched the “What Would You Fight For?” spot featuring PMI, I encourage you to do so! The inspiring feature produced by Notre Dame showcases the important work of PMI, an immersive experiential learning program that provides Mendoza undergraduates the opportunity to engage with project partners over multiple semesters to help design, support and implement solutions to some of the world's most pressing problems. Founded and directed by Wendy Angst, the initiative is currently working in partnership with the Archdiocese of Gulu and St. Bakhita Vocational Training Center in an impoverished region in northern Uganda to ensure the girls at the school have the resources and support needed to thrive, to enable St. Bakhita's to be self-sustaining and to improve the economic prosperity of the region. The gift supports Wendy’s position as director and the initiative overall. 

Business Honors Program (BHP) Faculty Director ($3.5M) and Program Director ($3M): These two gifts will support the ongoing work of BHP, which is led by faculty director Jim Otteson and associate faculty director Jeff Burks and currently includes 208 undergraduate students. BHP takes a deeper look at the moral purpose of business and how it can contribute to human flourishing. The program offers our students a rigorous, specialized course of study with research-focused courses, as well as programming that includes opportunities for tutoring, mentorship and distinctive coursework such as “Why Business?” “Meaningful Life in Business” and the Honors Colloquium. 

Meyer Business on the Frontlines Program ($1M): The work of Frontlines is perhaps more important than ever since its founding in 2008. MBA student teams continue to work with partner organizations across the nation and the world to co-create business solutions for some of the most difficult societal problems. The gift will support program operations as Frontlines in America prepares to send teams in October to work with Homeboy Industries in Los Angeles, Coalfield Development in West Virginia and Tribal Minds Inc. in Nevada. This spring, the Business on the Frontlines course plans to send teams to Uzbekistan, Uganda and Honduras, while the newest Frontlines course, Regenerating Ecologies and Economies for Livelihoods (REEL) partners with organizations in Peru, Uganda and Guatemala.

I am deeply grateful to our generous benefactors, who include alumni, parents, BAC members and friends of the College who share our vision for Mendoza’s future.  I also want to thank Lou Nanni and University Relations for their support, and especially our academic advancement director Aimee Sharpe, who has worked tirelessly to represent and promote the mission of Mendoza. Finally, I am grateful to the many faculty and staff members who lead and support the initiatives above and were critically important to securing the benefaction.

In Notre Dame,

Martijn