Notre Dame Stories

Iris Seabolt was convicted of felony murder in 2004 and sentenced to 45 years in prison. Prosecutors did not accuse her of killing restaurant owner A.J. Williams, but claim she was the female lure in an intended robbery that ended in murder. The police presented no physical evidence at all in her trial. Instead, a series of witnesses claimed they heard Seabolt admit her guilt. Seabolt lost hope, s...

In the fourth installment of the Proving Innocence series, Notre Dame law students take on the case of Leon Tyson. He was convicted of a 2015 murder in Elkhart and sentenced to 63 years in prison. The Notre Dame Exoneration Justice Clinic believes he is innocent. The case took a turn when the students and professor placed a call to the mother of a man who was also there during the crime. Her revel...

In the final episode of the season, we sit down with Madeline Owen, the valedictorian of the class of 2021. Madeline discusses her Notre Dame journey, and what it meant to finish that journey here, on campus.

In this episode, we look at the history of St. Joseph's Farm, a place where religious brothers cultivated land to provide fuel for the University. Today, the farm is being used to produce another kind of fuel: solar power.

In this episode, Ted Fox, former host of the With a Side of Knowledge podcast, interviews C. Fred Higgs, vice provost for academic affairs at Rice University.

The American Rescue Plan—the latest pandemic stimulus—was signed into law earlier this month and it was billed as a means to slash poverty. We discuss that proposition with Jim Sullivan, economist and co-founder of the Wilson-Sheehan Lab for Economic Opportunities.

For the better part of a year, the mail has been increasingly slow…and COVID is only partly to blame. To find out what’s behind this, we spoke with James O’Rourke, professor of management at the Mendoza College of Business and an expert on corporate communications and reputation. O'Rourke has studied the cost structure and business of the United States Postal Service for more than a decade.

As most of the country awaits their turn in line to receive a coronavirus vaccine, some have questions about its safety. How it was developed, and what it means for life after vaccination. In this episode, we talk with Dr. Mark Mulligan '80, an infectious disease expert and head of NYU’s Langone Vaccine Center. Dr. Mulligan has worked on vaccine trials for decades, including the vaccine for COVID-...

These days, “office hours” take place almost anywhere but the office. The dining room, bedroom, basement… they’ve all become the places we work, not just where we live. The pandemic has profoundly altered the work-life balance of Americans, and new research is uncovering how we’re dealing with this shift. In this episode, Abi Ocobock, who studies family sociology, shares findings from her research...

Andy Royer confessed in 2003 to strangling a 94-year-old woman who lived in his apartment building in Elkhart, Indiana. But Royer, who has mental challenges that make him seem childlike despite his huge size, then asked if he could just go home. Confessions are convincing to juries. Most people are surprised to learn that they are sometimes given by the innocent. Royer was convicted and given a se...

In episode two of this six-part series, we hear the story of Keith Cooper’s 20-year odyssey to clear his name of a crime he didn’t commit in a town he hardly knew. Cooper tells the story in his words, starting with his arrest in 1997 based on a description of a crime by someone tall, thin and black. Mistaken witness identifications led to a speedy bench-trial conviction and a 40-year sentence. New...

Episode one of this six-part series traces the origins of the Notre Dame Exoneration Justice Clinic’s rapid growth over the last four years. It began as a student volunteer club in 2016 with some awareness and advocacy events. The students launched into action after a visit from Keith Cooper, the only person in Indiana history to receive a governor’s pardon based on actual innocence, and his attor...

Thousands of people across the country are penned in prisons for crimes they didn’t commit. Want proof? More than 2,700 prisoners have been legally exonerated over the last 30 years, largely through the work of crusading lawyers and legal students. Notre Dame law students, inspired by meeting a nearby example of this tragedy, pushed to get involved in overturning wrongful convictions. With guidanc...

In one of our most popular episodes, Notre Dame astrophysicist Grant Mathews unpacks his research into what the Christmas Star may have been.

As the real estate market rebounds, more people are thinking about what makes a perfect home. School of Architecture professor Marianne Cusato, industry leader in the home building industry and one of the top women in real estate according to Fortune Magazine, has earned international acclaim for the Katrina cottage, an attractive, well-built home that could be deployed in case of emergency. In he...

As the national conversation about race and policing took shape over the summer, questions began surfacing about how police departments would respond. At Notre Dame, they were already working on an answer. Guests: Keri Kei Shibata, Chief, Notre Dame Police Department; Mike Seamon, Vice President for Campus Safety and University Operations; Matty Aubourg '21, Black Student Association of Notre Dame

As the University prepares to confer degrees on the Class of 2020, we speak with the class valedictorian, Brady Stiller, about this unique moment in Notre Dame history.

In this episode, we examine two connections shown in dramatic ways during the COVID-19 pandemic. First, the connection between humankind and the planet: We speak with a climate scientist on how the economic shutdown is impacting the planet, and how coronavirus could be a template for the fight against climate change. Then, we explore the connection between doctor and patient, and how the science o...

As campus shuts down amid the COVID-19 pandemic, we speak with Paolo Mazzara ’23, an undergrad who is spending quarantine aiding Italian healthcare workers.

We’re visiting scholars in their workspaces to discuss their research...and whatever else we happen to find there. In this episode, we drop in on political science professor Christina Wolbrecht. She’s co-authored a book titled, “A Century of Votes for Women,” which looks at how women have used their right to vote in the hundred years since the 19th Amendment was passed.

In the final episode of this four-part series, we explore Tantur using two interpretations of a commonly used metaphor for the place: an oasis. Many people describe the Tantur grounds in terms of its tranquility, beauty and peace. That is certainly true. But the literal definition of an oasis is “a fertile spot.” We’ll explain how Notre Dame at Tantur has become a place where seeds are planted and...

St. Jerome, who famously translated the Bible into Latin working from the same cave system in which Jesus was born, said: “Five gospels record the life of Jesus. Four you will find in books and the one you will find in the land they call Holy. Read the fifth gospel and the world of the four will open to you.” In the third episode of this four-part series, we visit St. Jerome’s study in Bethlehem w...

In the second episode of this four-part series, we explore what may be under the surface of the University of Notre Dame at Tantur. Abraham (Avi) Winitzer, Notre Dame professor of theology, leads a group of students in the first-ever official archaeological survey on the grounds. Then, Winitzer’s class joins students from all over the world at Tel Azekah, in the Judean hill country. Azekah is most...

The Gospel account of St. Matthew includes a peculiar episode: Magi or wise men who followed a star to the place of Jesus’ birth. Grant Mathews, a Notre Dame astrophysicist, details the astronomical phenomenon he believes led them to Bethlehem. (Re-edited version of the episode that aired Nov. 30, 2018.)

In the first episode of this four-part series, we trace the origins of Notre Dame’s presence in Jerusalem back to the events of the late 1950s in the Catholic Church. The Second Vatican Council inspired a warming of relations between various Christian traditions, a movement memorialized by Pope Paul VI, who famously embraced Orthodox Patriarch Athenagoras on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem in 196...