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Volume 52, Issue 15 | friday, september 8, 2017 | ndsmcobserver.com
NDSP handles gameday security Group ensures safety for students, fans during home football games each season By NATALIE WEBER Associate News Editor
Approximately 80,000 people will enter Notre Dame Stadium to watch the Irish take on the Georgia Bulldogs on Saturday. Campus safety staff will be working hard to ensure the safety of each and every guest, chief of Notre Dame Security Police (NDSP) Keri Kei Shibata said. “Our goal is really to have a pervasive culture of safety so that everyone has safety as their top priority and everyone is taking ownership, and reporting issues, and coming up with ideas, addressing problems and things like that,” she said. Shibata said there are four key
components of game day security: campus safety staff, technology, stadium security policies — such as the prohibited items policy — and good communication. “We do ask different groups like the ushers and the concessions team — we ask them at the beginning of their day to take a look through their spaces and make sure everything’s safe and that they don’t see any safety or security concerns,” she said. “They have to check in with us and let us know that’s done before we’ll open the buildings for use, so we’re really making sure that everything is safe.” Shibata said the construction see NDSP PAGE 5
Villa in Rome enhances student experience By ALEXANDRA MUCK News Writer
In 2016, Notre Dame purchased a villa in Rome to serve as a site for the Rome Global Gateway Program, and this fall marks the first semester Notre Dame students are living in the villa while studying abroad in Rome. Villa rector Justin Bartkus, a double Domer from the class of 2010 and the class of 2012, said the villa currently houses 61 students and one assistant rector. Bartkus lives on the property, but not in the villa. He said the villa will be at full capacity with 90 students next semester. Thirty-seven of the students are architecture students, junior MaryGrace Lewis, an architecture student currently in Rome, said. Lewis said studying in Rome is an invaluable opportunity for these students. “So much of architecture got its start and foundation in Rome, so what’s better than to come to the place of its origin?” she said. “Rather than looking at a textbook, we get to look at the
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buildings and go to the Forum and put your hands on it and walk through it and feel it instead of just studying it on a page.” While referred to as “the villa,” the building is actually a villino, Lewis said, which is a smaller, generally single-family residence. While it’s a stand-alone building, a villino is surrounded by a yard, she said. The Notre Dame villa includes four floors and a basement, has a terrace on top and a courtyard surrounding the building, Lewis said. She said an annex is located in the courtyard, which includes the rector’s residence and the student center, and the entire area is secured by a fence. Bartkus said the villa is designed so that students explore Rome. “The building itself is very very nice and architecturally beautiful and actually like a classical Roman villa,” he said. “But functionally, as a dorm the idea is not that it’s so plush that students want to spend a lot of time here. see VILLA PAGE 5
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Former athlete files lawsuit Observer Staff Report
CHRIS COLLINS | The Observer
Notre Dame Security Police ensures the safety of 80,000 Notre Dame football fans who fill the stadium each gameday.
Former Notre Dame football player Douglas Randolph filed a lawsuit against Notre Dame, head football coach Brian Kelly, football trainer Rob Hunt, several doctors and others Sept. 1 alleging the football team’s medical staff withheld information from him, leading to spinal stenosis. see LAWSUIT PAGE 5
Harper Cancer Institute works in pursuit of cure By SOFIA MADDEN News Writer
Since its formation in 2011, the Mike and Josie Harper Cancer Research Institute has been integrative and collaborative in its founding principles. Originally presented as an intentional partnership between the University and the Indiana School of Medicine – South Bend according to the Institutes’s website, the Institute has encouraged the fusion of differences in subject,
education and background in order to create new and effective tools to fight against cancer. “Many Indiana School of Medicine – South Bend medical students have cancer research labs and request that Notre Dame post-doctorates and undergraduates actually perform the research,” Angela Cavalieri, the Institute’s external relations and special events program coordinator, said. Scientists from across disciplines — including biologists,
engineers, mathematicians and psychologists — gather together at Harper in order to solve complex problems surrounding cancer investigation, Stewart Bullock, associate director of the Institute, said. He said the Institute prides itself on utilizing the combined knowledge of interconnected subject areas as it drives forward in innovation. “Here, we have biologists researching alongside engineers,” see HARPER PAGE 5
College choir releases CD By MARTHA REILLY Saint Mary’s Editor
The Saint Mary’s Women’s Choir is used to performing at various campus events, but its sound can now resonate with a broader audience, as the group released its newest CD — titled “O Lux!” — on the Pro Organo label. Senior member of Women’s Choir Franny Wall said the recording process, which took place in the Church of Loretto last spring, was serendipitous.
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“It’s really expensive to do this, so if you’re going to make a CD, you have to be sure that it’s going to be … exactly what you want and everything is in shape,” Wall said. “We had a really good blend, everything sounded good and we were going on tour, so we had a lot of practice. We had a really diverse repertoire, and we sounded really good.” The group’s dynamic strengthened as a result of recording a CD together, Wall said. “Making music together, in
general, bonds people,” she said. “Women’s Choir is pretty close to begin with, and then being together from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m. really was a fun thing to do. You wouldn’t get that experience with any other friends you have, so I think it really brought us together.” Junior Grace Haase said crafting a CD provided her with more insight into the recording process and fortified the College’s values of persistence and dedication. see CHOIR PAGE 5
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