After Notre Dame’s stressful victory over the Trojans in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in November, Fr. Robert Dowd rushed across the field towards the team. As the players gathered for the alma mater, Dowd joined, singing “Notre Dame, Our Mother” in an audible voice.
Later, as the University president silently stood along the tarp walls of the small post-game press conference, Irish head coach Marcus Freeman said, “There's an unbelievable feeling to be able to sing alma mater a cappella with our fans, our parents and everybody that loves this university.”
It has been a notable semester for the Fighting Irish football, but also for Dowd who marked the beginning of the semester with festivities for his inauguration, and has since been a stalwart presence on campus, from attending women’s basketball games to moderating public events.
“It's been an eventful semester, you know, with the inauguration and football season and everything that means,” Dowd said in an interview.
On most mornings, the priest has made the short walk from 239 Cavanaugh Hall to his office on the fourth floor of the Main Building. The fleeting commute is familiar to Dowd, who has previously served in various positions in the administration, including as the assistant provost for internationalization.
Ann Firth, vice president and the chief of staff, worked under Fr. John Jenkins for over a decade, and has retained the role under Dowd.
“I've known Fr. Dowd for many years,” she said. “Notre Dame’s so very fortunate to have a great continuity of leadership and such great leaders who are so rooted in the in the mission of the place. I see each as different leaders with different ideas and different priorities, but a deep sense of shared values and different leadership styles, of course. They’re different people.”
Dowd said he’s had a smooth transition into the position, thanks to many including his predecessor and colleagues. He named former presidents Jenkins, Fr. Edward “Monk” Malloy, Fr. Ted Hesburgh and Fr. Edward Sorin as personal “heroes.”
“For me, the key is to surround myself with people who are competent and committed, and who are honest, who are able to speak hard truths when it's necessary. We just want to make sure that we build on the great work that has gone before and make Notre Dame better and better. And the only way we'll make Notre Dame better and better is if we recognize our shortcomings,” he said.
In his inaugural address at the beginning of the semester, Dowd announced the Pathways to Notre Dame initiative, promising that Notre Dame will go loan-free for all undergraduates and need-blind for both domestic and international students.
Dowd said the University still has shortcomings that he hopes to tackle.
“It's clear we need to continue to make Notre Dame more accessible and more affordable,” he said. “We're doing our best to try.”
Dowd noted that he wishes to increase the socioeconomic diversity of international students at Notre Dame, “ensuring that those international students who are at Notre Dame are perhaps more representative of the countries from which they come.”
Dowd also said he wanted to strengthen the sense of community at Notre Dame.
“We have a great community here, but we can always add,” he said. “We need to make sure that we never let anything divide us. Differences are natural in the community. In fact, they're good and any university really needs difference in order for it to be a community that cultivates growth.”
“There need to be differences. There needs to be a certain degree of diversity. But those differences don't need to be deep divisions,” he added.
Dowd added that there is a problem with being too comfortable.
“We need to be willing to move beyond our comfort zones. And sometimes we live our lives in our comfort zones, connecting with or relating with people who are like us in many ways. We all need a certain degree of comfort,” he said. “There's nothing wrong with that, per se, but if that's all, [if] we're only relating with people who are like us, first of all, we're inhibiting our own growth as human beings. And secondly, we're not building the kind of community that I think we need to have here at Notre Dame.”
While Dowd has made steps on the cost of attending the University, he said he recognizes concerns about the pricetag.
“We've tried to be very conscious of the cost and thoughtful about the tuition and the room and board and cost of a Notre Dame education, and that's something we'll continue to be very thoughtful and vigilant about,” he said.
Dowd said that expenses have risen for the University, but also that questions about student cost of attendance are legitimate.
“I do think that it's legitimate to ask why the cost of a college education has increased so dramatically. The cost of offering what we offer here at Notre Dame has gone up, and we have to be conscious of that,” he added. “I think at the same time, we want to make sure that the tuition we are charging makes sense, and we're not quite confident that we're doing this, that we're being very thoughtful about what it is that we are charging.”
“The bottom line is that we are committed to meeting the full financial need of everyone who's admitted to Notre Dame and we're doing that more than ever,” he added.
Dowd said that Notre Dame’s distinctive nature is rooted in its Catholicism.
“Notre Dame is unimaginable without a Catholic mission,” he said.
“Here at Notre Dame, we have something truly special, a legacy of [holistic education] and for me as president, I see it as my special responsibility to ensure that we are deepening our Catholic mission and that we are helping students to grow, not only intellectually, but to grow socially and spiritually,” he said.
Dowd said that tackling affordability is an element of deepening the University’s Catholic mission.
“We can't simply rest on our laurels when it comes to anything, including our Catholic mission,” he said. “That Pathways initiative is going to make our undergraduate student body more reflective of the rich diversity of the Catholic community in and beyond the United States and so that's another great way to serve the Church.”
Dowd has chosen to remain in Cavanaugh Hall, the North Quad women’s dorm, where he lived before his presidency. He said being in the residence hall is one way he feels connected to the student body.
“I do think it's helpful to rub shoulders with students, to interact with students where they live. I think it's helpful for me to get a sense of the pulse of the student body,” he said.
But the ladies of Cavanaugh Hall are not the end of Dowd’s student engagement.
“Of course, Cavanaugh is just one segment of the student body, so there have to be other ways to do that, and I intend to keep teaching. I'm not teaching this academic year, but in the spring semester of next year, my hope is to teach, and I look forward to doing that,” Dowd said. “There's one thing I miss already, in the short time that I've been president, it has been teaching, interacting with students in the classroom.”
Dowd's career as a priest, professor and administrator has been shaped by his research and scholarship on politics and religion in Africa. He said that his time in the continent has shaped his view of Notre Dame and its mission.
“My time in Africa, beginning when I was a seminarian, and continuing for many years when I returned and conducted research in Africa and spent time with the Holy Cross Community in East Africa. I think all of that kind of opened my eyes to the world, first of all, to the international mission of Holy Cross, and to the global reach of the Church, but also to the challenges and the opportunities that the people face in other parts of the world,” he said.
“No doubt my experience in Africa informs my conviction that Notre Dame needs to continue to make strides in becoming a more global institution and in a way that that really helps us to be the Notre Dame the world needs,” he added.
At the same time, Dowd has emphasized the University’s obligations to South Bend and the local community.
“When I talk about becoming a more global institution, I never want that to be seen as at the expense of local engagement. I grew up in Indiana, not far from this area,” he said. “It's important for Notre Dame that this city of South Bend and the people of this region, they really thrive. This is a vibrant community. Notre Dame and people of this community share a future.”
