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Volume 53, Issue 68 | Thursday, january 17, 2018 | ndsmcobserver.com
Professor emeritus of law dies at 86 Donald P. Kommers’ prolific career at Notre Dame and in public sphere spanned decades Observer Staff Report
Donald P. Kommers, the Joseph and Elizabeth Robbie Chair in Government and International Studies and a concurrent professor emeritus of law, died at 86 on Dec. 21, the University announced in a news release Wednesday. An expert in German and American constitutional law, Kommers served as editor of Notre Dame’s political theory journal, The Review of Politics, from 1981 to 1992. From 1976 to 1981, Kommers was the director of the Law School’s Center for Civil and International Human Rights, the release said. “Don Kommers was a major force in shaping our department and the broader field as well,” political science professor
and former political science department chair Michael Zuckert said. “Notre Dame now has one of the leading programs in constitutional studies in the United States. When Don started out, this was a declining field within political science, but he, together with longtime colleague Sot Barber, led a revival of the field here so that it is now stronger and more firmly established than ever.” As an undergraduate at the Catholic University of America, Kommers studied philosophy and English literature. After serving two years in the U.S. Marine Corps, he earned his master’s degree and Ph.D. in political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Kommers is the author of over 100 articles and books. According
to the release, the third edition of his book on German constitutional law, “The Constitutional Jurisprudence of the Federal Republic of Germany,” was published in 2012 by Duke University Press and received praise German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. “Don was a real pioneer in forming a new subfield within constitutional studies — the field of comparative constitutionalism,” Zuckert said. “When Don entered the profession, it was heavily focused on the American constitutional experience. Although Don was a leading student of American constitutionalism, he made his real mark in his much-awarded work on German constitutionalism. This work, in turn, was one of the major formative influences
SMC improves campus printing system By JORDAN COCKRUM News Writer
When student body president Madeleine Corcoran and student body vice president Kathy Ogden, seniors, began their term last spring, one of their first requests to chief information officer Todd Norris was to update the printing technology at Saint Mary’s. While Saint Mary’s has several printers on campus, the process had always been time-consuming.
Students must first sign into a computer that is connected to the printer. After signing in, students would have to pull up the document, whether it be sent to themselves in an email or on Blackboard, and then sign into the PrintLimit software to send their jobs to a printer. Corcoran said she and Ogden came up with the idea to allow students to send print jobs from their own devices as a part of their platform due to the time it would
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ND students confront poverty
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Construction began Dec. 10 on a new 68,000-squarefoot women’s residence hall located east of Dunne Hall, the Universit y announced in a Dec. 5 press release.
The hall, which has yet to be named, w ill be completed in August 2020 and w ill house about 225 undergraduate women, the release said. The dorm w ill feature a communit y chapel, a reading room, lounges, study spaces and kitchens on ever y f loor. It w ill offer a range of different rooms, including
singles, doubles and quads, as well as apartments for hall staff. Residents w ill have access to vending, fitness, laundr y and storage facilities w ithin the building. Parking affected by the construction zone w ill be reassigned to the Fischer Facult y Staff Lot, according to the release.
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Editor’s Note: A version of this story ran online on Dec. 19.
He also received the American Bar Association’s Silver Gavel Award and the Berlin Prize from the American Academy in Berlin. In 2010, Germany awarded Kommers with the Distinguished Service Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. German consul general Onno Huckmann said Kommers’ work “remarkably enriched both the American and German legal systems and [built] a bridge between our two countries as few others have,” in the release. “[Kommers’] career at Notre Dame spanned my own time here as a student, as a member of the faculty and as dean,” said law professor and former Law School dean Patricia O’Hara.
save students. “Just the convenience of being able to print from your own device as well as the efficiency as a student when our schedules are so full already, to be able to have that opportunity we thought was really important,” Corcoran said. In addition, the University of Notre Dame and Holy Cross College had this technology already in place, so Corcoran said
Notre Dame begins work on new dorm Observer Staff Report
on that new field of comparative constitutionalism.” From 1995 to 1996, Kommers served as president of the National Conference Group on German Politics and in the 1970s was an advisor to President Jimmy Carter’s Commission on the Holocaust, the release said. He also held fellowships at several institutions and organizations, including the National Endowment for the Humanities, Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, American Philosophical Society, Max Planck Society and Rockefeller Foundation. According to the release, Kommers earned the Berlin Prize from the American Academy in Berlin and the American Bar Association’s Silver Gavel Award.
OLIVIA VENVERTLOH | The Observer
Urban Plunge students display thier artwork featuring slogans and lessons that they learned from their experance . By MARY CLARE DONNELLY News Writer
Over winter break, 199 Notre Dame students traveled to 27 cities across the country as part of a Social Concerns Seminar called Urban Plunge. Urban Plunge is a one-credit seminar with a two to four-day immersion built to give students an opportunity to engage with communities experiencing
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poverty in U.S. cities. Kyle Lantz, director of Social Concerns Seminars at Notre Dame, said the program now known as Urban Plunge began on campus in 1968. Then just a Chicagofocused program, the trips were led by Monsignor Jack Egan, who worked in the North Lawndale neighborhood on the West side of see PLUNGE PAGE 4
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