After we left Mecosta, Kenneth and I drove down to Indiana. On Sunday evening, October 1, we held a “Get to Know ISI” soiree at the University of Notre Dame. The Irish Rover, which is on ISI’s Collegiate Network, help set it up. About 35 students attended and they were treated to free pizza and sodas, and plenty of ISI materials, including brochures, journals, books, student’s guides, and even t-shirts. I gave a short talk on all of ISI’s programs and how students could get involved.
No worries, plenty of students at Notre Dame are already well involved with ISI. Before our visit, I think I noticed that we had at least 150 current ISI members at Notre Dame alone. Many were involved with the ISI Group, the Orestes Brownson Council, while others are involved with ISI’s Collegiate Network publication, The Irish Rover. On Monday morning, Kenneth and I had breakfast with three ND graduate students who are going to start another ISI group at Notre Dame, one solely for grad students. The 3 that we met with are all in their first semester at Notre Dame and have all been ISI Honors Fellows as undergraduates. All are coming from separate schools and are now finding they “need” ISI as grad students at Notre Dame. It’s too bad I wasn’t accepted there, maybe I could have joined them.
ISI is now hitting Notre Dame from all angles – an undergrad group, a grad student group, a media publication, not to mention the many faculty and students that are ISI members, and the many lectures ISI helps bring to the Notre Dame campus each year.
I’ll reiterate this experience about Notre Dame again, as I did when I blogged about my experience there this past April: their student life is great. Once again, I celebrated mass with Tommy Forr, the Editor of The Irish Rover (and one of the best students I know) at his 10pm dorm mass. Several other ISI students were at the same mass. You can’t beat the experience of coming back to your dorm and being a part of celebrating the foundational Catholic traditions and culture with your fellow classmates and dormmates.
This university could be doing better… but for now, with the help of ISI and the strength of its student life, it’s doing just fine.