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Volume 48, Issue 58 | Friday, November 21, 2014 | ndsmcobserver.com
SMC hosts symposium on domestic violence Students and faculty reflect on experiences in abusive relationships, advocate for support systems By HALEIGH EHMSEN
By REBECCA O’NEIL
Associate Saint Mary’s Editor
News Writer
The symposium on domestic violence and intersectionality concluded Thursday with a panel discussion featuring Saint Mary’s students, faculty and staff examining ways to speak up against domestic violence. Professor of communications Marne Austin, who spoke about advocacy and relationships, said in her experience, the most difficult thing is naming the abuse. “It’s so important to be able to name it for what it is,” she said. “I’m a Gender and Women’s Studies professor, and I couldn’t name it. We live in these
Saint Mary’s Justice Education Department hosted a symposium on intersectionality and domestic violence in Rice Commons on Thursday night. Domestic violence cannot be reduced to studying just violence or relationships, Justice Education interim coordinator Adrienne Lyles-Chockley said. The symposium explored “the interrelated factors at play in regard to the question, ‘Why don’t women in abusive relationships just leave?’” Lyles-Chockley said this query cannot be addressed in its entirety without taking race, culture,
see PANEL PAGE 5
CAITLYN JORDAN | The Observer
Speaker Johanna Ganz participated in the symposium on domestic violence and intersectionality on Thursday in Rice Commons. The symposium was sponsored by Saint Mary’s Justice Education program.
see SYMPOSIUM PAGE 5
Grotto vigil honors Founder speaks about success missing students By JACK ROONEY Associate News Editor
Dave Finocchio, founder and general manager of the sports website Bleacher Report and Notre Dame graduate of the class of 2005, returned to campus Thursday to deliver a lecture in which he traced the brief history of the company and explained how his Arts and Letters education contributed to his success as an entrepreneur. Finocchio majored in history
and economics — the same departments that sponsored the event — and spoke in the McKenna Hall auditorium in a lecture titled “From Alumni Hall to the World’s Biggest Sports Website.” While he was still a student at Notre Dame, Finocchio said he did not know what he wanted to do for a living, but his education inspired him to chase his passions. “As I went through my college, like I’m sure a lot of you are
going through right now, I actually had no idea what the hell I wanted to do with the rest of my life, including my profession,” he said. “A lot of my friends, especially here, seemed to have a much more grounded sense of what they wanted to do. “In the context of studying history, I think [my education] just gave me a broader context on what my place on earth was, how fleeting it was
see FINOCCHIO PAGE 5
Football friday feature
MICHAEL YU | The Observer
Members of the Notre Dame community gathered at the Grotto to show support for the 43 missing students from Ayotzinapa, Mexico. By JESSICA MERDES News Writer
More than 100 Notre Dame students, faculty and South Bend community members gathered at the Grotto on Thursday night for a remembrance prayer vigil to show support for the 43 missing students from Ayotzinapa, Mexico. In September, students from the Rural Teachers College of Ayotzinapa were abducted during
NEWS PAGE 3
a peaceful protest. Since then, the protest movement in Mexico has spread around the world and continues to gain momentum as people turn the spotlight on the country to demand justice for the more than 20,000 people who have disappeared since 2006. Ph.D. student César Leon Soto, president of the Latino Graduate Association at Notre Dame see VIGIL PAGE 3
VIEWPOINT PAGE 6
ROTC helps clear stadium By MADISON JAROS News Writer
Before Notre Dame fans packed the football stadium last Saturday to cheer for the Irish, the Notre Dame ROTC units – Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps – spent 12 hours shoveling snow out of the stadium to prepare for game day. Master Sergeant Marshall Yuen said the shoveling, which lasted from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Friday, was part of an agreement
SCENE PAGE 9
made between Notre Dame ROTC and stadium staff in 2008. “Back in 2008, before a Stanford game, the campus got hit by a really big snowstorm,” he said. “It was on a Thursday and Friday, and [Facilities Manager] Dan Brazo had a hard time getting all the snow cleared for the game. So after that, he called over here to coordinate a community response with us for the next time something like that happened.” Yuen said last Friday was the
first time since 2008 that the ROTC was called to help clear the stadium, and in all, about 75 percent of students involved in the Notre Dame ROTC program helped shovel snow. “Quite a few of our cadets were [shoveling] in between class periods,” he said. “[Some of them] went to class at eight o’clock in the morning. They had an hour break, so they walked over to the stadium and did some shoveling see ROTC PAGE 5
IRISH INSIDER