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Volume 51, Issue 108 | tuesday, march 28, 2017 | ndsmcobserver.com
Speaker examines burden of ND tuition Office of Student Enrichment director discusses increasing financial aid for low-income students By AIDAN LEWIS News Writer
The Office of Student Enrichment — founded in late 2015 — was the topic of conversation at the diversity and inclusion lecture series Monday night at Debartolo Hall. Director of the Office of Student Enrichment Marc Burdell spoke about the Office’s founding and its purpose — to help make Notre Dame financially feasible for low-income students. “The task was to figure out how to put together a new office that would really figure out how all of our students, regardless of socioeconomic status, first generation college status, non-traditional background or anything else for that matter, could feel welcome at the university,” Burdell said. Burdell, a Notre Dame alumnus, said he was particularly motivated to work in the office because he himself came from humble beginnings.
“I showed up in 1983 without a winter coat, my dad worked in a grocery store and I was the first in my family to go to college,” Burdell said. “I didn’t have a dime, but it was awesome. I had the greatest experience.” Burdell said leaving for college as a low-income student brings with it many complications. “You don’t just unplug from your family’s situation,” Burdell said. “Many of our students here were helping to raise their families, helping to support their families and helping run their families. When they left, there’s a void there and there are also some feelings of guilt.” To help students deal with such issues, Burdell said the office has set up a peer-advising program. “We try to pair students who have been here and have gone through certain things with students who just got here and are see AID PAGE 3
SARAH OLSON | The Observer
Director of the Office of Student Enrichment Marc Burdell, a Notre Dame alumnus, speaks Monday night about decreasing the cost of a Notre Dame education for low-income students through funding.
Dinner aims for discourse By NATALIE WEBER News Writer
Although junior Natasha Reifenberg has advocated for reproductive rights in Latin America and senior Aly Cox is the president of the Notre Dame Right to Life club, the two found common ground in their views towards a criminal ban on abortion in El Salvador and coauthored an editorial expressing their opinion on
the issue. Inspired by the common ground they found during this encounter, the two are planning a BeyoND the Abortion Debate dialogue dinner — cosponsored by BridgeND, Show Some Skin, We Stand For and the Notre Dame Right to Life club — to bring together pro-life and pro-choice students to discuss abortion and find areas of common ground. “[Cox] and I both feel really really strongly about the importance
of dialogue,” Reifenberg said. “I think she’s someone who really understands that, because the pro-life position is the majority position at Notre Dame.” Cox said she felt it was her club’s duty to create a space for discussion between pro-life and prochoice students who said they felt they did not have a platform from which they could discuss their see DIALOGUE PAGE 3
Habitat for Humanity chapter created at SMC Saint Mary’s students volunteered their time to build walls for “Women Build,” a project by Habitat for Humanity. Junior Kay Thursby started a Saint Mary’s chapter of Habitat for Humanity and she — along with other Saint
Mary’s students — participated in the project as their first event. Thursby said in an email that Habitat for Humanity has always been an instrumental part of her life. “I have been involved with Habitat for Humanity since high school,” she said. “I was really involved in my high school youth
group at Old St. Pat’s in Chicago, and we went on service trips every summer. After I graduated, I served as the intern for the youth group and helped plan and execute these service trips. “I have been doing that the last three summers and have
NEWS PAGE 3
SCENE PAGE 5
Viewpoint PAGE 6
By GINA TWARDOSZ News Writer
see HABITAT PAGE 4
Islam Awareness Week begins By COURTNEY BECKER News Editor
The Muslim Student Association (MSA) kicked off Islam Awareness Week on Monday by handing out hijabs on Fieldhouse Mall and teaching people how to tie them. Sara Abdel Rahim, a senior and the president of MSA, said community members were more engaged in the event this year after experiencing it in years past. “I think people loved the event last year,” she said. “Everyone is coming up and saying, ‘Hey, I still have my scarf from last year, can I grab another one? Can you teach me how to tie it a different way?’ So kind of building a foundation for the past couple of years and then having people remember it and tell people about it — it’s been really great to have people come and say, ‘I remember this from last year, and I want to do it again.’”
Men’s Lacrosse PAGE 12
The week — which is cosponsored by other groups such as the Gender Relations Center, Notre Dame International and Multicultural Student Programs and Services — serves as an opportunity for non-Muslim students to learn more about Islamic culture, Abdel Rahim said. “I think it’s amazing. I wish Islam Awareness Week could be Islam Awareness Year, but we obviously don’t have funds and resources for that,” she said. “But I think, definitely, when people come up and ask me to teach them how to wear it or what does a hijab mean to [me], there’s definitely an amazing desire for the students on campus to learn about Islam and to get a better understanding of it. … Even though it is a majority-Catholic campus, if you do provide a venue and a platform for people to see ISLAM PAGE 4
Baseball PAGE 12