Forsgren's book also offers new insights into beloved works within musical theatre history and lesser-known contemporary musicals from the popular Black theatre touring circuit, features interviews with musical theatre artists that have never been published before, and includes the author's first-person narratives on Black girlhood.

La Donna L. Forsgren is an associate professor and holds joint appointments in the Department of Film, Television, and Theatre (FTT) and the Department of Africana Studies at the University of Notre Dame, where she also serves as concurrent faculty in the Gender Studies Program. Her research focuses on the contributions of Black women theatre artists and activists. She teaches courses in Black theatre and performance, feminist theories, and global theatre history.

FTT will host a book launch at 5:30 p.m. on November 17, 2026, in the Sojourner Truth Commons (300 O'Shaughnessy Hall).

Patrick McKelvey won the Outstanding Article Award for his Theatre Journal article "'Honest Work Done by Honest Dogs': Canine Unemployment, Interspecies Rehabilitation, and Disability Performance." This award acknowledges scholarship marked by methodological sophistication, complex and critical engagement with dramatic texts and performances, focused inquiries, and possible directions for future scholarship.

Anne García-Romero garnered the Edited Works Award for María Irene Fornés in Context, co-edited with Brian Eugenio Herrera. The Edited Works Award recognizes multi-authored edited projects in the fields of theatre and performance that demonstrate complex and critical engagement with dramatic texts, performances, histories, theories, practices, and/or pedagogies.

Tarryn Chun presented the Asian Theatre Journal (ATJ) Lecture on her book Revolutionary Stagecraft: New Methods for the Study of Modern Chinese Theatre. The ATJ Lecture is a long-standing tradition that invites a leading scholar to reflect on the development of the field, introduce new research methods, and offer perspectives on future directions in Asian theatre and performance studies. Chun was also the coordinator for a session on "Internationalizing ATHE," highlighting challenges in the field and asking, "How can we more effectively engage scholars from across the globe to advance the study and visibility of non-Western theater?"

Sarah Gitenstein presented 'The Body Onstage: Best Practices in Directing' for the Directing Debut Panel, a session for emerging scholars and directors presenting at ATHE for the first time, highlighting new research, practice, and pedagogy in theatre directing. She also joined a roundtable on Casting Queer Theater, which brought academics and professionals together to discuss how the industry is changing around casting in both academic and professional settings. In conjunction with ATHE, Gitenstein also presented at Association for Theatre Movement Educators pre-conference on "What the Body Carries: Sustainable Practice for Theatre Artists" with her collaborator Avi Wolf, exploring how centering the mind-body relationship in rehearsal can reduce harm.

An advocate for the field of theatre and performance in higher education, ATHE serves as an intellectual and artistic center for producing new knowledge about theatre and performance-related disciplines, cultivating vital alliances with other scholarly and creative disciplines, linking with professional and community-based theatres, and promoting access and equity.

• The film won the award for Best Sound Design in the Student Category at the 140 Arts Collaborative Student Film Festival.
• Charlotte Schaub ’28 and Lianna Joseph ’28 won the Yoshie Nakayama Composition Award for Best Original Composition for the film’s score, “Painted Gold,” at the Foxboro Short Film Festival.
• Jo Connors ’28 won an award from Women in Film and Video New England for Selected New England-based Female Filmmaker, presented at the Foxboro Short Film Festival.

The film was also a semifinalist for the Rhode Island International Film Festival. On October 25, it will be included in the exhibition "Les Femmes et les Corps" at Le Bonheur est dans l’instant gallery in Paris, France.

Relevé is based primarily around the visual metaphor of kintsugi—the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with gold—and the healing power of art in relation to trauma. Jo and Charlotte are incredibly grateful for those who stood by their side creating the film, particularly the aid of Professor William Donaruma, and all who supported them as they "picked up the pieces, filling their lives with gold."

The Department of Film, Television, and Theatre offers a sequence of film production courses that challenge students not only to master skills in screenwriting, directing, cinematography, and editing, but ultimately to craft compelling visual narratives. Learn more about film courses at Notre Dame on the FTT Courses page.

Over the summer, our award-winning faculty traveled across the U.S. and the globe continuing to generate remarkable works in the arenas of film and digital media studies, film and video production, theatre and performance studies, and theatre production.

Our FTT majors spent their summers continuing to study, work, and prepare for their ongoing studies. One FTT student performed Shakespeare. Another FTT student delved into Irish theatre archives. Another FTT student directed high school students in a production of Les Miserables. These are but a few examples of the many ways that our remarkable FTT students continue to grow as artists and scholars.

This year ahead will also provide new and thrilling avenues of inquiry with the inaugural Notre Dame Arts Biennial in Spring 2027, featuring four projects from our department:

• The Book of Will by Lauren Gunderson, following the journey of Shakespeare’s words from the stage to the page, directed by Professor Sarah Gitenstein
• Moving Thomas Sullivan, a new musical by Ben Warren Flynn (ND ’27) exploring a young man moving through grief, directed by Professor Matt Hawkins
• Dissolution Room, a multi-media immersive installation that reimagines the cave as a multifocal site by Professor Cecilia Kim and Professor David Bird of the Department of Music
• Lying Flat 2.0, an immersive, participatory theatre work engaging video and AI, by award-winning Chinese theatre artist Wang Chong, produced by Professor Tarryn Chun

We look forward to an exciting year in our department that captures the spirit of our College’s motto: Study Film, Television, and Theatre; Do Anything!

Professor Anne García-Romero, Chair
Department of Film, Television, and Theatre

The inaugural Notre Dame Arts Biennial, which runs January through June 2027, will feature more than 100 public events, including exhibitions, performances, community workshops, and guest artists slated to visit the South Bend area for a six-month festival of visual, literary, spatial, and performing arts. Most events are free to attend.

The biennial—thematically focused on the concept of symbiosis—is produced by the Notre Dame Arts Initiative and curated by Initiative Director Michael Schreffler and Managing Director Rebecca Struch.

“Notre Dame’s flourishing is deeply connected to the vitality of South Bend and its surrounding communities,” said University President Rev. Robert A. Dowd, C.S.C. “The Arts Biennial exemplifies how the University’s commitment to the arts advances our Catholic mission by using creative expression to foster meaningful cultural exchanges and contribute to a thriving shared home.”

Highlights of the biennial will include a fireside chat with Maya Lin, a visionary artist and architect well-known for designing the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC. Zadie Smith, author of the acclaimed novel White Teeth, and Sougwen Chung, widely regarded as a pioneer of artistic human-machine collaboration and one of Time’s 100 Most Influential People in AI, are two featured speakers at the Franco Family Institute for Liberal Arts and the Public Good’s Dorothy Day and Thomas Merton Culture and the Public Good Symposium. Writer and photographer Cig Harvey will deliver the John J. Reilly Center for Science, Technology, and Values’s annual Ruskin Lecture. Claudia Bernardi, internationally known for her work in the fields of visual art, human rights, and social justice, will join for a weeklong residency bridging Notre Dame and South Bend.

“The Arts Initiative is a powerful catalyst that energizes creative inquiry and practice across the University,” said Schreffler, a professor of art history and associate dean for the arts in the College of Arts & Letters. “A massive undertaking like a biennial festival is made possible only through sustained partnerships with the many faculty and staff who bring research and teaching expertise to our public arts programming.”

The DeBartolo Performing Arts Center and Raclin Murphy Museum of Art also announced some of their signature biennial programming in partnership with the Arts Initiative. The 96-member National Symphony Orchestra will perform, led by esteemed music director and conductor Gianandrea Noseda, and Hubbard Street Dance Chicago will perform at Notre Dame for the first time in nearly 20 years. The Raclin Murphy Museum of Art will unveil an expansive group exhibition of contemporary art, More Than: Artists in Collaboration for a Greater Good, which will remain on view to the public throughout the biennial.

Additional signature programming will be announced throughout the fall before the biennial’s opening in January.

“In our era of cultural fragmentation, the biennial’s inaugural theme of symbiosis is a radical invitation to re-examine our interconnectedness,” Struch said. “Together with more than 85 collaborating campus units and external organizations, we are actively cultivating an arts ecosystem rooted in accessible programming that brings people together.”

Alongside a roster of distinguished visiting artists, the biennial also features public arts programming connected to nearly 40 community and campus-led projects sponsored by the Arts Initiative. For some, this support helps enhance established contributions to the regional arts scene. Fischoff National Chamber Music Association, Notre Dame’s Department of Film, Television, and Theatre and Department of Music, New Industry Dance Company, Performing Media Festival, Sacred Music at Notre Dame, Shakespeare at Notre Dame, South Bend Civic Theatre, and South Bend Symphony Orchestra are all participating to continue bringing live music, dance, theater, and experimental performance to the region.

For others, Arts Initiative support provides critical resources to help launch new partnerships or new programs. The Robinson Community Learning Center and Notre Dame’s Department of Art, Art History, and Design have teamed up to design and install public art at Eddy Street Commons, which will be unveiled during the biennial. The Acting Ensemble; Equity in the Arts, an initiative of South Bend Venues Parks & Arts; Merrimans’ Playhouse; South Bend Community School Corporation; and South Bend Museum of Art are each launching arts education programs focused on cultivating the next generation of artists and audiences. The biennial also features regional collaborations beyond South Bend, including with Elkhart County’s Goshen College Music Center and Michigan City’s Lubeznik Center for the Arts.

Supported projects also reflect the biennial’s commitment to global artistic exchange. A guest artist residency with internationally prolific Chinese theater director Wang Chong will culminate in the English-language premiere of his acclaimed Lying Flat 2.0, an immersive, participatory theater work that integrates live-feed video projection and real-time use of AI. Qhapaq Qolla, one of the most influential dance troupes in the Peruvian Andes, will make its US debut in a weeklong residency at Notre Dame. A collaboration with Ukrainian Catholic University and ICONART Gallery in Lviv, Ukraine, brings an exhibition of contemporary Ukrainian sacred art and iconography to campus, and a collaboration with Notre Dame Global launches a new artist exchange program between Mexico City, Dublin, and South Bend.

For more information about the artists and events featured in the inaugural biennial, visit artsbiennial.nd.edu. Subscribe to the biennial newsletter and follow the Arts Initiative on Instagram and Facebook (@artsnotredame) for additional program announcements.

Contact: Erin Blasko, director of media engagement, 574-631-4127, eblasko@nd.edu

Originally published by Notre Dame News at news.nd.edu on August 18, 2026.

Projects include theatrical premieres, regional dance and music festivals, multimedia installations, visual art and architecture exhibitions, high-impact arts education programs, international artistic exchange, and more. Biennial programming is open to the public, and events will be held on Notre Dame’s campus, in and around South Bend, and at select global locations.

Occurring every two years, the biennial is an international arts festival rooted in the creative spirit, intellectual energy, and iconic traditions of Notre Dame and the region. Predominantly free programming across the visual, spatial, literary, and performing arts will contribute to the region’s long-term flourishing by enhancing quality-of-life and quality-of-place and by providing new platforms for arts research to positively impact the public.

In his inaugural address, University President Rev. Robert A. Dowd, C.S.C., urged the Notre Dame community to be builders of bridges to live out our mission as a leading global Catholic research university. The biennial is one of the most visible ways the Arts Initiative is responding to that call.

“This scale of coordination and collaboration is unprecedented,” said Michael Schreffler, director of the Notre Dame Arts Initiative. “We are grateful to all of our partners for bringing their energy and leadership to fully realize the vision of the biennial’s inaugural theme of symbiosis: a call to contemplate mutually-beneficial relationships through the arts and create them together in practice.”

Community partners leading biennial programming reflect the strength and diversity of arts and culture across the region. Participating regional community partners include:

Abby Marchesseault Dance Collective

Acting Ensemble

Equity in the Arts, an initiative of South Bend Venues Parks & Arts

Goshen College Music Center

Fischoff National Chamber Music Association

The History Museum

Lubeznik Center for the Arts

Merrimans’ Playhouse

New Industry Dance

Performing Media Festival, produced in partnership with IU South Bend

Saint Mary’s College, Department of Art

South Bend Civic Theatre

South Bend Community School Corporation

South Bend-Elkhart Regional Partnership

South Bend Museum of Art

South Bend Symphony Orchestra

Campus units awarded funding for partner programming similarly span artistic media and represent a University-wide commitment to interdisciplinary innovation. In addition to projects housed in arts departments, campus efforts are also being led by the College of Science, Hesburgh Libraries, the School of Architecture, and a range of interdisciplinary centers and institutes.

Beyond robust support for partner projects, the biennial also closes gaps in cultural access by attracting prominent artists to the region and making the highest-caliber arts experiences available to the public. In addition to world-class artists hosted by the Arts Initiative, signature performances, convenings, and exhibitions aligned with the biennial’s inaugural theme will be hosted by the DeBartolo Performing Arts Center, the Franco Family Institute for Liberal Arts and the Public Good, and the Raclin Murphy Museum of Art.

A dual emphasis on local and visiting artists is a hallmark of Notre Dame’s biennial. “We’re not aware of any other U.S. university currently curating a biennial of this nature and scale,” said Rebecca Struch, Arts Initiative managing director. “Establishing a groundbreaking biennial in northern Indiana, a place with an evolving but often overlooked arts scene, will advance the region as a global gathering place for arts and inquiry.”

The Arts Biennial launches at a pivotal moment for the arts across the region and on campus. Informed by its Catholic character, the University’s most recent strategic framework identifies the arts as a key priority and calls for deeper engagement with South Bend and the region. The South Bend-Elkhart region also recently adopted a new Arts & Culture Plan. The biennial builds on these developments by nurturing the arts as a shared community asset that strengthens social bonds and shapes place-based identities.

“The Notre Dame Arts Biennial reflects what’s possible when our community and local institutions work together,” said South Bend Mayor James Mueller. “This effort will activate our public spaces, support local artists, and strengthen the connections that make South Bend a vibrant place to work and live.”

A detailed schedule of public programming will be available online at artsbiennial.nd.edu in August 2026. Additional opportunities to get involved remain open through April 30, 2027. To be the first to receive biennial announcements, sign up for the biennial newsletter.

Contact: Rebecca Struch, Arts Initiative managing director, 574-631-9845, rstruch@nd.edu

Originally published by Arts Initiative at arts.nd.edu on July 06, 2026.

College

Jeff Speaks, the George N. Shuster Professor of Philosophy, has been appointed to a five-year term as the College’s associate dean for the humanities and faculty development. He previously served as chair of the Department of Philosophy from 2016-22.

Speaks succeeds Ernest Morrell, the Coyle Professor of Literacy Education, who passed away in February.

Alison Rice, the Dr. William M. Scholl College Professor of French and Francophone Studies, will serve a five-year term as the College’s associate dean for undergraduate studies. She has served as chair of the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures since 2019.

Rice succeeds economics teaching professor Mary Flannery, who retired at the end of the 2025-26 academic year after 14 years at the University.

Departments

William C. Mattison, the Wilsey College Professor of Theology, has been appointed to a three-year term as chair of the Department of Theology. A scholar of moral theology and Christian ethics, Mattison serves as the faculty director of the Moreau First Year Experience.

He succeeds Fr. Khaled Anatolios, the John A. O’Brien Professor of Theology, who led the department as it ranked best in the world for two consecutive years.

Professor Ying ‘Alison’ Cheng has been appointed to a three-year term as the chair of the Department of Psychology. A quantitative psychologist, Cheng directs the Learning Analytics and Measurement in Behavioral Lab and is a fellow with the Institute for Educational Initiatives.

She succeeds James Brockmole, who served as department chair since 2023 and previously was the associate dean for research and strategic initiatives and director of the Institute for Scholarship in the Liberal Arts from 2020-23. Brockmole will become the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Baylor University on July 1.

Darren Dochuk, the Andrew V. Tackes College Professor of History, has been appointed to a three-year term as chair of the Department of History. A scholar of 20th-century American history focusing on religion and politics, Dochuk previously served as the William W. and Anna Jean Cushwa Co-director of the Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism with associate professor David Lantigua. Lantigua will now solely direct Cushwa.

Dochuk succeeds Elisabeth Köll, the William Payden Collegiate Professor of History, who has led the department since 2020.

John Liberatore, associate professor of music composition and theory, has been appointed to a three-year term as chair of the Department of Music. A composer and pianist, Liberatore is also a faculty fellow with Sacred Music at Notre Dame and the Nanovic Institute for European Studies. He also served as the director of undergraduate studies for the music department in 2025-26.

Liberatore succeeds Berthold Hoeckner, the Keough-Hesburgh Professor of Music History, who has led the department since 2021.

Professor Emilia Justyna Powell has been appointed to a three-year term as the chair of the Department of Political Science. An international relations scholar, Powell is also a concurrent professor of law.

She succeeds Geoffrey Layman, the Joseph and Elizabeth Robbie Professor of Political Science, who served as department chair since 2021.

Marisel Moreno, professor of Spanish, has been appointed to a three-year term as the chair of the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures. Her research focuses on Latino/a/x literature, Hispanic Caribbean literature, and gender, race, and ethnicity.

Moreno succeeds Alison Rice.

Anne García-Romero, professor of theatre, has been appointed to a three-year term as chair of the Department of Film, Television, and Theatre. A playwright, screenwriter, translator, and theatre studies scholar, García-Romero’s plays include Paloma, Dolorosa, Staging the Daffy Dame, Lorca in New York, Juanita's Statue, Mary Domingo, Mary Peabody in Cuba, Juanita’s Statue, Earthquake Chica, and Santa Concepción.

García-Romero succeeds Pamela Robertson Wojcik, the Andrew V. Tackes Professor of Film, Television, and Theatre, who served as department chair since 2020.

William Donahue, the Rev. John J. Cavanaugh, C.S.C., Professor of the Humanities, will serve as interim chair of the Department of German, Slavic, and Eurasian Studies while Tobias Boes, professor of German and Russian languages and literature, is on leave.

Dianne Pinderhughes, the Rev. Edmund P. Joyce, C.S.C. Professor of Africana Studies and Political Science, will serve as interim chair for the Department of Africana Studies while professor Mark Sanders is on leave.

Institutes, centers, and programs

Aron Barbey, the Andrew J. McKenna Family Professor of Psychology, has been appointed director of the Human Neuroimaging Center. A clinical neuroscientist, Barbey will lead the center that is co-located with the Veldman Family Psychology Clinic on Hill Street in South Bend.

Richard Clark, an associate professor of political science, has been appointed director of the Sheedy Family Program in Economy, Enterprise, and Society. A Notre Dame alumnus who majored in political science and IT management, Clark is the author of Cooperative Complexity: The Next Level of Global Economic Governance.

Clark succeeds Paul Blaschko, assistant teaching professor of philosophy, who directed the program for the past four years.

Eun-Young ‘Julia’ Kim, an associate teaching professor, has been appointed to a three-year term as the director of the Center for the Study of Languages and Cultures. Kim previously coordinated the English for Academic Purposes program within the CSLC.

Kim succeeds Alessia Blad-Miller, teaching professor of Italian, who retired at the end of the academic year. Blad led the CSLC for six years as its director and has taught at Notre Dame since 1999.

CJ Jones, a professor of German studies, will become the Robert M. Conway Director of the Medieval Institute. Appointed last year, Jones was on leave in 2025-26, during which time Jeff Wickes, an associate professor of theology, served as the institute’s acting director.

Michael Desch, the Packey J. Dee Professor of Political Science, will return as the Brian and Jeannelle Brady Family Director of the O’Brien Notre Dame International Security Center after being on leave. Ian Johnson, the P.J. Moran Family Associate Professor of Military History, served as acting director.

Kola Olawabi, professor of organ, will serve as acting director of Sacred Music at Notre Dame while Rebecca Maloy, the J.W. Van Gorkom Professor of Music and director of the program, is on leave.

Rebecca Tinio McKenna, associate professor of history, and James Lang, professor of the practice with Notre Dame Learning’s Kanab Center for Teaching Excellence, will each serve a three-year term as co-directors of the First-Year University Seminar.

Maria McKenna, professor of the practice in Africana studies and the Education, Schooling, and Society program, will serve a one-year term as director of the College Seminar.

Originally published by Mary Kinney at al.nd.edu on June 18, 2026.

A Symposium at the University of Notre Dame
April 2–3, 2027

Summary

Teen entertainment was first developed in the United States via popular literature during the early twentieth century before gaining further momentum in radio, theatre, film, and comic books during World War II. By the early 1950s, teen-centered entertainment had found its way to American television, further contributing to the commodification of teen culture. The early postwar era saw a rise in teen entertainment in many countries, especially those in Europe, partially due to the United States’ cultural power abroad, along with the financial success of teen-centered entertainment properties and young people’s desire to see themselves represented.

As a result of an increase in transnational media flows during the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, teen entertainment is now produced and consumed in virtually every country around the world, helping to shape social constructions of adolescence, young people’s identities and cultural expressions, as well as adults’ engagements with teenagers. Regularly ignored, if not derided, by older audiences interested in more “sophisticated” forms of culture, the teen audience nonetheless continues to be one of the most lucrative markets for entertainment industries worldwide.

Until recently, the history of teen entertainment has been dominated by studies of U.S. films and television shows that feature white, heterosexual, able-bodied, middle-class youth. Minimal attention has been given to other countries, other entertainment media, and other ways of identifying and being a “teen.” Bringing together faculty and student scholars from around the world, this symposium aims not only to expand the field of teen entertainment history but also to honor and promote the research of scholars working to enrich this unique field of study.

Deadline for submissions

Friday, October 16, 2026, at 11:59 p.m. (US Eastern Daylight Time)

Acceptance notifications: mid-January 2027

Guidelines

The Program Committee is interested in promoting research on the history of teen entertainment, which we define broadly as popular literature, plays, films, radio programs, television series, comic books, and video games, as well as music, musicians, and other entertainers. Proposals that expand the study of teen entertainment history via attention to non-normative identities, intersectional perspectives, non-Western national frameworks, and/or globalization are especially welcome. Proposals focused on current teen entertainment are welcome but should take a historical perspective.

Proposals for open-call individual papers, preconstituted panels, and preconstituted roundtables are welcome.

• Individual open-call paper proposals should include an abstract of 250 words, as well as contact information and a short bio (75–100 words) for all authors. Co-authored papers are welcome. (The Program Committee will assemble panels from accepted paper proposals. Volunteers to act as chairs are welcome.)
• Preconstituted panel proposals should include a 250-word panel proposal as well as an abstract (250 words), bio (75–100 words), and contact information for each participant. Each panel should be made up of three to four papers (inclusive of the chair and, if applicable, one respondent). Panel co-chairs are welcome, as are paper co-authors and respondents. The chair can serve as the respondent.
• Preconstituted roundtable proposals should include a 250-word proposal along with a bio (75–100 words) and contact info for each participant. Each roundtable should have four to six participants, inclusive of the chair and, if applicable, the co-chair.

Submit your proposal

Submit your open-call individual paper proposal

Submit your preconstituted panel proposal

Submit your preconstituted roundtable proposal

Organizing Committee

The Program Committee includes Barbara Jane Brickman, Mary Celeste Kearney, Diana Leon-Boys, Sharon Ross, Timothy Shary, and Frances Smith.

Questions?

Please direct any questions to Mary Celeste Kearney (mckearney@nd.edu).

Katherine Walden, assistant teaching professor of American studies and co-director of the sport, media, and culture minor (SMAC), describes SMAC as a program born at the intersection of three areas: American studies; film, television, and theatre (FTT); and journalism. Born in the fall of 2021, this 14–15 credit minor offers a unique blend of broadcasting and storytelling.

SMAC courses emphasize intersectionality. A special aspect of the minor is that faculty members represent dozens of different academic disciplines at Notre Dame. Walden highlights the excitement of figuring out connections between disciplines and asking profound questions about these subjects’ application to SMAC.

Especially considering the University’s strong football presence, Notre Dame is a good place to examine the phenomenon of “sport” in sport, media, and culture. In particular, the global and international dimensions of sport, in every instance from the Winter Olympics to the World Baseball Classic, challenge students to look at the bigger picture of how physical movement and image are intertwined around the world.

While students can explore organized and elite sport through the SMAC minor, they also navigate athleticism through physical fitness and recreational activities. Courses such as Recess Matters, taught by Professor Andrea Christensen, draw on theories of play and educational psychology, showcasing sport as a wider realm than we typically imagine it to be.

In terms of analyzing sports through media and digital tools, Walden says that SMAC courses emphasize changes in history to see how stories are crafted and audiences understand narratives. “We’re understanding what sport would look like without media. A lot of this happens with commentary, watching, and sharing. 40 years ago, being a sports fan was about watching games live. Now it’s fantasy leagues and highlight reels, which are made possible through media, platforms, and screens,” she says.

Ashley Barton '26 says the SMAC minor has allowed her to explore her passion for sports while simultaneously expanding her holistic education and making her a more well-rounded student. “Taking classes like The Business of Sports Media and Football in America deepened my appreciation for the meaningful influence that sports have in our lives," says Barton. “I have met so many great students who share similar but also very different interests, which has been super cool!”

Walden explains that solely focusing on the United States wouldn't encompass the interests of the global Notre Dame student body, so the courses aim to bring the international dimensions of sport to the forefront of the discussion. She says that in the future, the department wants to increase the reach of global sport even further in SMAC classes, while continuing to show international students on campus that SMAC is a place for them.

SMAC isn’t just about what’s going on inside the classroom, either. The minor organizes volunteer opportunities, offers guidance for internship opportunities, and hosts campus-wide events. Recent events have included a SMAC Talk with Dr. Brian Hainline, chief medical officer for the U.S. Tennis Association and the NCAA, as well as an open panel discussion on gender and queer representation in sports and media.

Another senior with a SMAC minor, Yuliana Beda '26 emphasizes that the minor has helped point her to the wide range of careers within the sports media industry, which transform her interests into genuine opportunities within that space. “The professors are amazing, passionate, knowledgeable, and [are] always pushing us to think critically about the evolving world of sports media," she says. "I’ve also really enjoyed hearing from guest speakers across different areas of the industry, as they’ve given me valuable insight into the many paths you can take within sports media."

Walden explains that there’s always a way to learn more and find answers to big questions posed in Notre Dame classes. Even if you aren’t able to commit to the minor, there are still ways to think through how various disciplines provide an outlet for discussions about culture, identity, and power. From taking an introductory level cultural studies class to conducting a creative project on sport, expanding that creative thinking serves as a fulfilling, meaningful practice.

Ultimately, SMAC fits into a Notre Dame education with its focus on the common good—through teaching others how to communicate with those who are different from them, providing a discussion space for talks about human flourishing, and exploring humans' fundamental rights to play and movement. As SMAC faculty and students constantly say when speaking about their studies, “It’s more than just a game.”

Interested in learning more?

• Follow along on Instagram @smacatnd.
• Watch this video on The Minor in Sport, Media, and Culture.
• SMAC faculty and staff are also available for discussion, so prospective students are welcome to reach out before applying!

Originally published by Sarah Neus at admissions.nd.edu on May 18, 2026.

Carolyn Dell’s career path was ignited by a fireworks show.

As a sophomore in high school, Dell’s father — who worked in theme parks entertainment — gave her the opportunity to program part of a fireworks show at Six Flags.

Dell watched as her art lit up the sky and became the backdrop for a couple’s surprise engagement. That’s when she knew that, no matter what, she needed to continue making art.

“That memory is going to be part of their lives forever,” Dell said. “And I’m always going to be part of their lives through this work.”

What she didn’t know was that live entertainment would turn into the heart of her Notre Dame journey.

Over the last four years, the film, television, and theatre major has brought her skills and passion to stage management and directing roles across campus, including through the Pasquerilla East Musical Company (PEMCo), Shakespeare at Notre Dame, the Not-So-Royal Shakespeare Company (NSR), and the Department of Film, Television, and Theatre itself.

Though it meant long days heading from class to rehearsals, Dell was motivated by that same feeling that gripped her during the fireworks show — becoming part of people’s lives through a unique moment of connection.

“Whether it’s your hometown parade or a professional Broadway show, you’re connecting over a shared experience,” Dell said. “And that’s the important thing — having that shared human experience with other people’s lives in a moment that can’t be recreated.”

Learning to ‘just do the thing’

Born in South Bend but raised in San Antonio, Dell described her return to northern Indiana and Notre Dame’s campus as a homecoming.

“This place is just different, and you can feel it in person,” she said.

Early on as an undergraduate, Dell met with faculty members like television associate teaching professor Michael Kackman, who serves as the department director of undergraduate studies, who encouraged her to follow her passions.

Initially considering a history major, Dell found the FTT major and her liberal arts education satisfied her interests through its interdisciplinary approach.

“You learn the practical, hard skills that you need to be successful in the industry, but you also cultivate your breadth of history with gender studies classes, history classes, math classes,” she said. “So that you’re able to more successfully interact with the art you’re making.”

From her very first semester, Dell was encouraged by her professors to “do the thing,” a phrase that Matt Hawkins, director of theatre and musical theatre and associate professor of the practice, is known for saying.

In her first year, Dell served as assistant stage manager for the department’s Steel Magnolias production. Though Dell was among the youngest members of the crew, she said, everyone was eager to share advice and help her discover her place.

“I never expected to have that level of responsibility in the department already,” she said. “But the professors were just so accommodating to my interests and my drive to want to be involved, to want to learn more.”

Dell was immediately drawn to the stage manager position because it allowed her to combine her self-described “type A” personality with her passion for art.

Stage managers handle everything from calling cast members to rehearsals and fittings, making sure props are in the right place, and even solving emergencies the day of the show — all in service of a smooth production.

“In stage management, I always say your creative process is making everyone else’s art cohesive into one vision for a live audience at the same time. While directing is standing back and telling everyone, ‘this is our goal and our direction, let’s see what you make.’” — Carolyn Dell, ’26 

“You’re helping people create what they love,” she said.

Soon, Dell wasn’t just helping others create — she was taking on a lead creative role. Dell was selected as the student director for the department’s fall show in her junior year. She pitched and directed The Game’s Afoot; or Holmes for the Holiday, a comedic murder-mystery.

“In stage management, I always say your creative process is making everyone else’s art cohesive into one vision for a live audience at the same time,” she said. “While directing is standing back and telling everyone, ‘this is our goal and our direction, let’s see what you make.’”

Dell enjoyed the process so much that she also directed Little Shop of Horrors for PEMCo the following fall. She even added a minor in musical theatre to better understand how to give meaningful directions and feedback for singers.

Though Dell’s time in theatre has been predominantly behind the scenes, her capstone project for the minor, advised by Hawkins, brought her own perspective to the stage. In a one-act performance, Dell recalled sequences from the campus productions she participated in, with footage from those productions playing behind her.

Dell said Hawkins gave her the encouragement and support to tell her own story and connect directly with the audience in a new way.

“That’s something that’s really special about this department — all the faculty, all of the staff as well, and all of the students are so excited to create and make new things,” she said. “And they are willing to help each other out to do those things.”

Gaining real-world experience

Though summer breaks could have been an intermission from Dell’s busy campus life, she stayed engaged with internships and gained real-world experience across themed entertainment and equity theatre productions.

Inspired by her family’s work, Dell spent a summer as a stage manager for musical shows and live entertainment attractions at Six Flags Fiesta Texas, and the next summer, she served as assistant stage manager of a union theatre production through the Notre Dame Shakespeare Festival.

“It gives students the opportunity to participate in this professional environment with professional standards as a summer internship,” Dell said.

In 2025, Dell interned at cruise line Royal Caribbean — a role she continued remotely, part-time, through her senior year. She applied her project management skills to a corporate live entertainment by consolidating wardrobe inventory, coordinating booking needs for auditions, and more.

“Notre Dame really set me up to get all those internships, and to also be able to have the ability to access a lot of opportunities postgrad,” Dell said.

After graduation, Dell will begin a project management internship at Electronic Theater Controls, a company that designs and manufactures lighting equipment for live entertainment venues across the country.

Long-term, she sees herself staying in project or stage management, perhaps even going on tour with productions. And one day, she hopes to create her own productions — an idea that excited her in assistant professor Sarah Gitenstein’s class, Acting and Directing New Work for the Stage.

“Theater is always changing and evolving, and collaborating with playwrights is how you move the industry forward,” she said. “I’m excited to be able to collaborate on something that no one else has ever done.”

As the curtain closes on Dell’s time at Notre Dame, she can’t help but reminisce on all her favorite memories: dancing backstage with PEMCo before every performance, listening for a crewmate’s “Let’s go, girls” as their cue to move a 15-foot puppet across a stage, and even coming back to her residence hall after long rehearsals to chat her first-year roommate, who became one of her closest friends.

Though she’ll always feel a fondness for the people and productions that filled her time here, Dell said, she also feels prepared to start the next act of her life.

“Notre Dame really sets up arts majors to have a point of view on a subject,” she said. “And I think that’s going to serve me very, very well going into the workforce.”

Originally published by Hailey Oppenlander at al.nd.edu on May 11, 2026.

Playwright and University of Notre Dame alumna Dolores Díaz returned to campus on Thursday, March 26, for a staged reading of her play George Washington’s Mexican Birthday at the DeBartolo Performing Arts Center. Directed by Gabrielle Randle-Bent, the reading was followed by a post-show conversation moderated by Anne García-Romero, professor in the Department of Film, Television, and Theatre and ILS Faculty Fellow. Earlier that afternoon, Díaz also met with students for an informal conversation in the Julian Samora Lounge in Bond Hall. Díaz, a 2005 Notre Dame graduate, spoke with students about growing up in Laredo, Texas, her path from science to the arts, and the questions of identity and belonging that shape her work.

Set in Laredo, George Washington’s Mexican Birthday follows a group of high school students preparing for the city’s George Washington Birthday Celebration, a setting Díaz uses to explore identity, ambition, radicalization, and the pressures placed on Latiné students as they imagine their futures. The play was originally developed at the 2024 Goodman Theatre New Stages Festival. During her conversation with students in Bond Hall, Díaz reflected on how leaving home can make identity suddenly feel newly visible. “You don’t really think about our identity,” she said, “because it just feels like home.”

That tension between home, perception, and self-definition was central to the day’s conversations. Díaz told students that some of the play’s questions grew out of her own experience coming to Notre Dame and encountering new expectations around how identity is understood and categorized. She also spoke candidly about the challenge of finding belonging on campus, recalling that “it took me a while to find my people.” In another moment, she described her artistic interests as grounded in places where “identity is unstable enough that it is both serious and at times absurd,” a line that helps illuminate the play’s tone and its layered treatment of race, performance, and belonging.

The reading was co-sponsored by the Department of Film, Television, and Theatre, Letras Latinas, which is the Institute for Latino Studies’ literary initiative, the Franco Family Institute for Liberal Arts and the Public Good, and the Teaching Beyond the Classroom program provided by Mr. Earl Linehan and Mrs. Darielle Linehan. The event also grew out of a larger collaboration between ILS and FTT. In a February article previewing the program, Dr. Karen Richman, Director of Undergraduate Studies at ILS and Latino Studies Professor of the Practice, explained that the idea of inviting Díaz emerged after she and students in the Institute's Cross Cultural Leadership Program attended a Chicago production of Díaz’s Black Sunday in July 2024 and later shared dinner and conversation with the playwright. Richman called the prospect of bringing Díaz back to campus “an unforgettably inspired experience for all.”

For Francisco Aragón, director of Letras Latinas and Latino Studies Professor of the Practice, the event also opened up exciting possibilities for future programming. “When Letras Latinas had an office, and was headquartered in Washington, D.C., my love for the theater skyrocketed,” Aragón said. “So when ILS faculty member Karen Richman pitched the idea of bringing Dolores Díaz to campus to stage a reading of her play, I was all in. Plays are a literary art, after all. My hope is that staging a reading of George Washington’s Mexican Birthday was the beginning of a new trend.”

Student participation was central to the performance as well. The cast and production team included Notre Dame students Ryan Madrid, Eny Ramirez, Jenisse Jarquin, Diego Ramos, and Annika Fernandez, along with Notre Dame alumnus Timothy Merkle and local professional actor Jared Fernley. The visit also extended into the classroom, with Díaz and Randle-Bent visiting García-Romero’s “Playwriting” and “Adaptation” courses, as well as Sarah Gitenstein’s “Acting and Directing New Work for the Stage.” Gitenstein, an assistant professor in FTT, also served as a co-producer of the performance.

Annika Fernandez, an undergraduate who participated in the staged reading and played Magdalena Santos, said the experience pushed her into unfamiliar but rewarding territory. “Although I had no prior acting experience and felt hesitant at first, learning more about the storyline sparked my curiosity about the character and encouraged me to take on the role,” Fernandez said. She added that working with Díaz, Randle-Bent, and the rest of the cast was “truly a rewarding experience,” and that the rehearsal process revealed “the level of commitment and passion shared among the entire team.”

Stephania Sanchez, an ILS Latino Studies Merit Scholar, served as an undergraduate research assistant on the project, said the play’s themes resonated deeply. “Serving as an undergraduate research assistant on this project was especially meaningful, as its themes of Hispanic labeling, navigating multiple identities, and cultural celebration deeply resonated with me,” Sanchez said. “Bringing Dolores Díaz back to Notre Dame as an alumna felt powerful, and her work skillfully builds tension for characters you might initially dismiss and ultimately challenge your assumptions.” Sanchez added that students walked away with “a deeper understanding of identity and a renewed appreciation for storytelling as a way to humanize complex experiences.”

Díaz’s return to Notre Dame brought students into conversation not only with a working playwright, but with an alumna reflecting openly on the path that took her from South Texas to Notre Dame and eventually to the stage. In the Julian Samora Lounge, she offered one more piece of advice that seemed to resonate beyond playwriting itself: “Focus on the work, focus on what you can control.” For students navigating their own questions of identity, vocation, and voice, that message felt especially fitting.

Originally published by Parker Gaines at latinostudies.nd.edu on April 23, 2026.

Canvas Legends is a program at Notre Dame where students recognize instructors for the extra work they’ve put into their Canvas course sites. While some faculty seem like “old pros” at using technology to teach, many stress that their process has simply been iterative over time; they tried something new one year, then added to it the following semester, to create what eventually became a very useful teaching tool.

When Tarryn Chun, associate professor in the Department of Film, Television, and Theatre, arrived at Notre Dame, she brought with her some insider knowledge: She had spent some of her grad school years migrating courses into Canvas. That experience taught her a fundamental truth that many educators miss—just because Canvas can do everything doesn't mean it should.

For Tarryn, a successful course site isn't about flashy features; it’s about reducing the “cognitive load” on students so they can focus on the learning exercises that will make them successful in the course.

The Architecture of “Less is More”

Tarryn’s philosophy begins with an intentional paring down of the digital workspace in her courses. She believes that the more tools visible to students on the Canvas course menu, the harder it is for them to find what they actually need. By hiding most content links (assignments, files, quizzes) and funneling everything through a single, streamlined path in Modules, she ensures that one location will keep students on track.

Within each module, she uses Canvas Pages to give context to the work students will be doing. “I have a page for each week that I update with the dates in a given semester,” she explains. “It has the assignments linked either to a PDF or to reserves.”

Engineering Accountability Through To-Dos

In the humanities and arts, the biggest hurdle is often getting students to treat prep work with the same urgency as a final paper. In a ten-person, discussion-based class, “faking it” isn’t an option; you either watch the performance and read the text, or the conversation stalls. This is especially true for her first- and second-year students.

“I find getting them to stay on top of the material they’re supposed to cover before class that day is the biggest challenge,” Tarryn says. To solve this, she no longer lists readings as just a list of files in her course. “I post readings as an assignment within Modules that have what they need to watch and read and do in class linked in it.“

By adding due dates to the prep assignments, they appear in a student’s dashboard to-do list and calendar, keeping them top-of-mind in an otherwise busy week. By making prep work an assignment, it creates a digital “nudge” that moves preparation from an optional selection to a required task with an approaching deadline, ensuring that when students show up to class, they are ready to actually engage.

Creating a Collaborative Space in Canvas

Because Tarryn’s classes are highly collaborative, she looks for ways to allow students to display and react to each others’ work. One way she accomplishes this is by integrating a class Google Drive directly into the menu bar—managed easily through a course listserv—which gives students a workspace that feels integrated and simple to use.

“I am never confused about what is due when, and everything is incredibly clear and well thought out. If she says she will adjust something on the syllabus, it’s adjusted in Canvas, too. If she announces something in class that’s important, it ends up in announcements on Canvas, too. Consistent, accurate, reliable, clear. A true Canvas Legend.” —One of Tarryn’s Students

She also uses Canvas Discussion forums as a public gallery where students can upload videos, embed YouTube clips, or share written responses. The Discussions forum allows students to respond to each others’ submissions in a meaningful way, no matter what medium they choose. It isn’t just about turning in work for a class; it’s about seeing, appreciating, and being inspired by each others’ creative output. For Tarryn, the technology is at its best when it gets out of the way and lets the students’ collective creativity take center stage.

Resources to Get Started

• Managing Course Navigation (hiding menu items from students)
• Creating Pages
• Embedding Panopto Videos in Canvas
• Using Discussions

Originally published by Laura Cira at learning.nd.edu on January 27, 2026.

He was researching the history of disability and the arts at Yale University’s Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library when he discovered Ron Whyte. Whyte was a disabled playwright and activist who McKelvey describes as “incredibly weird, prolific, and imaginative.” He ghostwrote Marvel comics, was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, and founded an activist organization.

But McKelvey, who studies the social, cultural, and theatrical history of disability in the U.S., had never heard of him. And after reading Whyte’s story and realizing his place in the history of disability and the arts, McKelvey made the playwright a focal point of his first book, Disability Works: Performance After Rehabilitation.

“The book invites us to think about a deeper history of disability arts and culture movements,” McKelvey said.

Disability Works details the history of disability and performance in the United States between World War II and the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990. Published last year, it covers an understudied yet foundational aspect of the Disability Rights Movement, and it has earned McKelvey considerable recognition for his research.

Disability Works has won five 2025 book awards, including the Lilla A. Heston Award for Outstanding Scholarship in Interpretation & Performance Studies from the National Communication Association and the C.L.R. James Award from the Working-Class Studies Association. It also received a special mention for the Theatre and Performance Research Association David Bradby Monograph Prize and was a finalist for four additional awards.

“The fact that my book could land with scholars in such a diverse array of disciplines was really meaningful,” said McKelvey, an associate professor of theatre in Notre Dame’s Department of Film, Television, and Theatre. “I’m really grateful for the recognition.”

‘A deeper history’

Disability performance as a research field has grown immensely in the 21st century, McKelvey said, but most of the work is focused on contemporary artists and initiatives. In his research, McKelvey has observed an assumption that a disability arts and culture movement emerged alongside civil rights activism in the 1970s, creating an environment in which disabled artists could make self-consciously political work.

“All that’s true, but there’s less recognition of the idea that there is a politically invested, socially conscious disability arts and culture movement that precedes disability rights movements,” McKelvey said.

Disability Works fills this gap, looking at the decades before the civil rights movements of the ’70s.

In that period, the U.S. government focused disability policy on vocational rehabilitation. This paradigm suggests that what makes a person disabled is less their physical, mental, or intellectual difference in itself, but rather how their difference impedes their ability to labor, McKelvey said.

To help people with disabilities enter the workforce, the U.S. Office of Vocational Rehabilitation created programs to provide them with job training, career counseling, and educational support. And that included investments in the arts — a place where they could find employment.

It’s difficult for most artists to earn a steady income, and disabled artists have the additional struggle of needing robust health insurance. The Comprehensive Employment and Training Act ultimately became a lifeline for disabled artists, McKelvey said, providing them with full-time, salaried employment for creating and teaching art in their local communities.

Whyte was employed by CETA for two years and was placed at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City as its playwright-in-residence.

“As that job title would suggest, he was supposed to write plays,” McKelvey said. “But he didn’t really write anything while he was employed.”

Instead, Whyte took advantage of the economic security — the first time in his life he had it — to fight for the rights of disabled artists through his own activist organization, the National Task Force for Disability and the Arts.

Discovering Whyte’s archival records forced McKelvey to reconceptualize his project. It became the story of government initiatives that preceded Whyte and how Whyte turned basic support into institutional contributions that still affect disability arts today.

“Disability Works is interested in the way disabled artists experienced government initiatives and resources in ways that are more invested in collective justice for disabled people,” McKelvey said. “Not just whether any individual disabled person gets a paycheck.”

Activism and performance intertwined

The arts and disability studies might initially seem a peculiar combination, but their histories are intertwined, McKelvey said.

During the disability rights movement, arts venues became spaces to test issues of equal access, such as how people with physical disabilities can enter buildings or how blind people can enjoy visual performances.

“Theatres become stand-ins for the ways in which disabled people are excluded from public life,” McKelvey said. “And a lot of disability activism in the 20th century took the form of performance, too.”

“This historical work is a gift I can provide that conversation."

McKelvey continues to work on this intersection in his next book, "Supporting Actors: AIDS, Infrastructure, Performance,” which he is drafting with support from the National Humanities Center as one of its 32 fellows for the 2025-26 academic year.

The book will share the story of the American theatre industry’s response to the AIDS epidemic, specifically how the Actors’ Fund — now called the Entertainment Community Fund — began to function as an AIDS service organization.

While these stories are personally interesting to McKelvey, a large part of why he researches disability arts history is because not many can. Though the field is growing, many disability arts scholars are artists themselves and focus on creating and theorizing their own work. Many are also disabled and therefore face barriers to completing archival research.

As someone with the physical ability and the institutional support to write history, McKelvey sees his work as an opportunity to ask new questions and tell hidden stories.

“This historical work is a gift I can provide that conversation,” he said.

Originally published by Adah McMillan at al.nd.edu on December 15, 2025.

Tarryn Chun is an Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of FTT, holds a concurrent appointment in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, and is a Faculty Fellow at the Liu Institute for Asia and Asian Studies. Her recent book Revolutionary Stagecraft (University of Michigan Press, 2024) traces modern Chinese theatre history through stage technologies such as set design, lighting plots, and prop schematics to reveal the "complex and at times surprising ways in which Chinese theater artists and technicians of the 20th century envisioned and enacted their own revolutions through the materiality of the theater apparatus." Chun’s book previously won the George Freedley Memorial Award from the Theatre Library Association as well as the Outstanding Book Award from the Association for Theatre in Higher Education, which was announced in August.

Patrick McKelvey is Associate Professor of Theatre in the Department of FTT. Disability Works (NYU Press, 2024) examines the relationship between US disability policy and the disability arts and culture movement from 1960 - 1990, demonstrating how disabled artists and activists both embraced and reimagined rehabilitative resources of the time for their own practice and fostered more just institutions. McKelvey has already been awarded the Lilla A. Heston Award for Outstanding Scholarship in Interpretation and Performance Studies by the National Communication Association, the C.L.R. James Award from the Working-Class Studies Association, and the Book of the Year Award from the National Communication Association GLBTQ Communication Studies Division for Disability Works. He also received a 2025-26 National Humanities Center Fellowship to write his second book of disability performance history, Supporting Actors: Disability, Infrastructure, Performance.

Named for a theatre historian, professor, and the first editor of what is now Theatre Journal, the Barnard Hewitt Award for Outstanding Research in Theatre History is awarded each year to the best book in theatre history or associated disciplines published during the previous calendar year. The American Society for Theatre Research is a US-based organization that fosters contemporary and historical scholarship on worldwide theatre and performance through networking, awards, grants, fellowships, and prizes that support outstanding scholarship in the field.

Read the full announcement at the American Society for Theatre Research

Originally published by Laura Winkle at arts.nd.edu on November 03, 2025.