As a young alumnus working in Catholic education, I regularly recommend Notre Dame to prospective families. The rich and vibrant Catholic life available to students at Notre Dame made all the difference in my life. Like many, I went to Notre Dame for its prestigious ranking, and I graduated having found real joy in my Catholic faith.
This is why I take Notre Dame’s Catholic identity so seriously. It’s something with real consequences for students’ lives. And it is why I am so disheartened by the appointment of Susan Ostermann to a leadership position within the University.
Professor Ostermann’s public and academic record includes regular advocacy for expanded abortion access and the maligning of pregnancy-resource centers. Appointing her to a position of institutional leadership makes this record representative of Notre Dame, even though it contradicts the University’s Catholic mission. This is not a matter of academic freedom, but of whether the University’s leadership appointments should reflect its Catholic mission.
I suspect this decision was made as a routine administrative matter, without deliberation from the University’s senior leadership. Several of Notre Dame’s peer institutions have abdicated their founding missions through this kind of incremental drift. Prospective families ask me about this all the time: Is Notre Dame abandoning its Catholic mission, too?
I want to answer with a confident, “no.” But decisions such as this make it more difficult to say that honestly. Alumni and donors who understand the school’s core value proposition — being the world’s premier Catholic research university — want to keep investing in that vision.
Those entrusted with special care of the university should reverse this appointment, not as a punitive measure, but as a reaffirmation of the unique mission that makes Notre Dame most valuable to the Church and the world.
Nick Marr
Class of 2020
Feb. 11
