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Volume 52, Issue 29 | friday, october 6, 2017 | ndsmcobserver.com
Local clubs host alumni game watches Regional Notre Dame club members across the nation come together, foster ND community By CIARA HOPKINSON News Writer
Every Saturday, Notre Dame alumni across the country gather at local bars to watch Notre Dame football and continue to foster the community formed during their years on campus. Many Notre Dame Clubs host game watches to take alumni back to the days of doing an Irish jig on the bleachers of the student section and proudly singing the fight song. For the Notre Dame Club of New York (NDNY), club president and 2010 graduate Kelly McKenna said, these game watches are a must. “Looking back in club records, these game watches have been around since before our records
begin,” she said. “It’s definitely been a long-standing thing. … I can’t officially say they’ve been around for 100, years but they’ve definitely been a standing tradition.” NDNY hosts all of their game watches at Public House in Manhattan, a central location for a club that spans every borough of the city aside from Staten Island. While attendance depends on how well the season is going, McKenna said the game watches typically bring in well over 100 people. “It’s a very festive experience — people actually reserve tables at Public House a week or two weeks in advance, and then everyone see CLUBS PAGE 4
Photo courtesy of Katelynn Kelly
The Notre Dame Club of Pittsburgh gathers on the morning before a Notre Dame football game to perform community service. The club meets regularly for game watches at local bars during football season.
Activist discusses ‘antiabortion’ movement By TOM NAATZ News Writer
The president and founder of Live Action, a non-profit committed to ending abortion, delivered the keynote lecture of Notre Dame Right to Life’s Respect Life Week on Thursday evening in the Carey Auditorium. During the lecture, titled “Transforming the Abortion Debate,” Lila Rose spoke about her work to advance the anti-abortion
movement. Rose opened her talk with an anecdote about a recent experience she had while jogging near her home in Berkeley, California. “I was going on a jog … and I jogged by a really cute looking shop,” Rose said. “I stopped in … and all the sudden I see this tote bag.” The tote bag was a Planned Parenthood tote bag. Rose described it as listing all of the
services Planned Parenthood claims to offer, and said she brought the bag-listed services that Planned Parenthood does not actually offer to the attention of the store’s clerk. “All of the sudden, her face, her countenance changed pretty dramatically and she said, ‘I don’t want to talk about it,’” Rose said. “I said, ‘OK, well, I just want to
Alumnae return for comedy showcase By GINA TWARDOSZ Associate Saint Mary’s Editor
Saint Mary’s hosted its annual McMahon Aquinas Lecture in Philosophy, featuring Notre Dame professor of philosophy David O’Connor, on Thursday night. The lecture was titled “Love More Than You Know: The Tao of Thomas Aquinas.” “The reason I called this ‘The Tao of Thomas Aquinas’ is I want
to get away from the doctrines or the arguments of Thomas Aquinas, and get to a way of appreciating Thomas as a kind of spiritual director, as a mentor who leads us systematically on a path of spiritual discipline and spiritual ascent,” O’Connor said. While developing his lecture, O’Connor said he used it as an opportunity to reflect. “For me, returning to the text of Thomas Aquinas to think about
this lecture has been a rather chastening experience of reflecting on the contemporary times that we live in and also reflecting on me,” O’Connor said. O’Connor discussed the trend of considering oneself as above his or her contemporaries, especially through the usage of satire and irony. “Thomas Aquinas gives us see AQUINAS PAGE 3
Five comedians from Chicago will perform a stand-up comedy showcase at Saint Mary’s in Little Theatre at 7:30 p.m. on Friday. The showcase, “Belle-YLaughs,” will feature two Saint Mary’s alumnae: Colleen Brennan of the class of 1991 and Elyse Nylin of the class of 2010. Brennan is a pediatric speech language pathologist who graduated from the Conservatory Program at The Second City in 2001 then later received training in stand-up comedy at The Second City and Feminine Comique. Nylin is the host and producer of “You Joke Like a Girl,” a monthly all-women’s openmic and showcase at Volumes Bookcafe in Chicago, and her sets usually contain material that is often women-focused and LGBT-friendly. Brennan said she and Nylin contacted the College to pitch the show. “After realizing that both Elyse and I were Saint Mary’s alums,
NEWS PAGE 2
SCENE PAGE 5
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WOMEN’S SOCCER PAGE 12
see ACTIVIST PAGE 3
College hosts lecture on Tao of Thomas Aquinas By JORDAN COCKRUM News Writer
we thought it would be great to produce a stand-up comedy show at our alma mater,” she said in an email. “Once we determined what we wanted to do, we contacted Saint Mary’s and pitched our show. The College thought our idea would work well with the fall calendar of events, so we were off and running.” Nylin said she was passionate about returning to Saint Mary’s to perform. “We both loved our experiences at Saint Mary’s and thought it would be an awesome way to combine our passion for comedy with the school that gave us confidence to do it,” she said in an email. Richard Baxter, director of campus and community events, said the timing for the event could not be better, as many students are stressed at this point in the semester. “This falls around midterms, so it’s the perfect tension reliever,” he said. “[Students] can get a break from studying and also see SHOWCASE PAGE 4
FOOTBALL PAGE 12