Go Beyond: The Campaign for NDMU

Beyond Expectations | Beyond Campus | Beyond Today

About 200 NDMU students, faculty, and staff volunteered at campus COVID vaccination clinics in spring 2021, fully vaccinating 3,850 people around the region, and pharmacy students, guided by faculty, donated 75 hours to vaccinate local residents with the Baltimore City Health Department. Undergraduate presenters at the annual Nancy Kreiter Student Research Day regularly go on to publish their work, including a 2020 graduate who co-authored a scientific journal article with Johns Hopkins University scientists. NDMU remains a leader in women’s education with the launch of the innovative IMPRINT program, which provides a platform for undergraduate students to grow their leadership skills.

These are just a few examples of how the NDMU community is going beyond expectations to educate leaders to transform the world. Go BeyoND: The Campaign for NDMU positions the University for the future and charts a bold direction to meet the needs of our community, both on and off campus. NDMU is leading the way in higher education access, academic excellence, and faculty and student research – going beyond expectations, beyond campus, and beyond today – to empower students and graduates to change the world. 

Beyond Expectations

Ashley Anderson ’22 has big dreams of becoming a biomedical researcher, using science to improve human health. Ashley is a 2021-22 scholar in the Sr. Alma Science Year program, an endowed NDMU scholarship that places top biology students in research internships at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Her academic and leadership experiences at Notre Dame catapulted her to an internship where she is working with the world’s top scientists.

“I really love the mentorship that I’ve experienced through this internship,” she said. “I do love medicine. With this internship, I really do appreciate doing the research that will eventually be used in medicine.”

The Sr. Alma Science Year program prepares students for graduate study and careers in biomedical research with critical hands-on experience. Because the program is only open to undergraduate students, the opportunity to conduct research in an elite internship becomes more accessible to any biology major who demonstrates excellence in the classroom and advanced research.

Named in honor of Sr. Mary Alma McNicholas, SSND, the program’s evolution reflects the nature of its namesake, whose gift was to help her students realize their full potential. Sr. Alma served in many capacities at Notre Dame from 1937 until her retirement in 1997, including biology professor and chair of the Biology Department. Even after her retirement, she continued to teach in the Renaissance Institute.

Each year, two or three Sr. Alma Scholars begin their research experience in the summer, working 40 hours per week for up to 10 weeks. By the fall semester, they transition to part-time work for the remainder of the academic year. They are paired with Johns Hopkins researchers, working alongside graduate students in the lab. The students also receive a stipend for their living expenses.

This innovative program began in 1983 when a group of dedicated Notre Dame alumnae decided to support biology majors through a fundraising campaign aimed to establish an endowed scholarship. Since then, the program has expanded to include the partnership with JHU School of Medicine, creating a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for NDMU students to work in those labs as undergraduates.

“Oftentimes, the Johns Hopkins researchers forget that our students are undergraduates because they work so hard and exhibit exceptional knowledge,” said Dr. Rebecca Zordan, coordinator of the Sr. Alma Science Year and chair of the Biology Department. “Many of our graduates from the Sr. Alma Science Year are attending prestigious graduate programs or working in the biomedical field.”

The legacy of those pioneering alumnae donors is still being felt today, as Ashley and other students deepen their understanding of science and its implications on human health. For Ashley, the opportunity to grow as a scientist and discover her passion, especially in male-dominated settings, has its rewards.

“Notre Dame has definitely helped me to become an advocate for myself,” Ashley said. “Being here has made me a stronger leader as I pursue internship opportunities.”

Beyond Campus

Rochelle Thompson ’22 is an outstanding student, volunteer, and leader. Her extensive campus activities and community involvement reflect her commitment to service. The opportunity to be a mentor to local youth through NDMU’s York Road Education and Service (YES) Program has been especially meaningful.

I believe in the importance of mentoring at the community level. Through mentorship, you can equip a generation with the tools and support they need to succeed. – Rochelle Thompson '22

The YES Program is a tutoring and mentoring collaboration with the Campus Compact Mid- Atlantic AmeriCorps VISTA program that links NDMU with Govans Elementary School and Tunbridge Public Charter School to increase college awareness and preparedness among Baltimore youth.

The pilot program was such a success that NDMU continued to grow it over time, facilitating hybrid and online activities with the youth mentees, even during shutdowns due the COVID pandemic. Notre Dame plans to expand its community partnerships even more by incorporating health promotion through education, and engaging faculty and student volunteers from the University’s healthcare degree programs. Each of the YES projects seeks to establish sustainable and relevant relationships between NDMU, its partner schools, and the local community.

“The YES Program provides NDMU with the opportunity to build on what we do best – educating leaders who care about making a difference – and expand it into our local community,” said Greg Fitzgerald, chief of staff/associate vice president for planning & external affairs. “Our success with this program goes far beyond the impact to the individual mentees and their families – this program has the potential to create lasting change in the York Road community. This program is a great example of how NDMU’s mission reaches beyond the campus.”

The YES mentors help girls at Tunbridge navigate the transition from middle school to high school. They meet with the girls weekly and attend excursions, with the goal of modeling college life and supporting their emotional and behavioral growth. The mentors also coordinate with the parents of their mentees to discuss ways to achieve the specific goals and needs of each girl.

The program has had a profound impact on Rochelle, who recently was named a Newman Civic Fellow by the Campus Compact for her dedication to community engagement.

“It is a great honor to be a part of so many communities and use my voice to promote change on a local and national level, while advocating for those whose voices are silenced or ignored,” she said.

Beyond Today

Notre Dame is exploring new frontiers in STEM education at a time when science and healthcare professionals are in high demand. Go BeyoND: The Campaign for NDMU will provide much needed support for faculty researchers, such as Chemistry Department Chair Jocelyn McKeon and Associate Professor of Biology Jennifer Kerr.

Dr. McKeon is engaging students in real-world research that is breaking ground in scientific discovery, including developing chemistry methodology that has never been done before.

"It's just so satisfying to see students get an interested in something in chemistry and just run with it," said Dr. McKeon. "I really have a passion for teaching and I really enjoy it."

Her teaching has won her honors, including NDMU’s 2019 Mullan Distinguished Teacher Award and the 2018 George L. Braude Award for outstanding undergraduate research by the American Chemical Society’s Maryland section.

She involves students in her work to develop new methodology to analyze how certain proteins affect how flavonoids work in the body. Flavonoids are compounds rich in antioxidants that are naturally found in many fruits and vegetables, as well as chocolate and wine. They can help your body ward off everyday toxins.

It’s just so satisfying to see students get an interest in something in chemistry and just run with it.
– Dr. Jocelyn McKeon

 

 

Over time, she and her student researchers have developed the methodology and presented findings to the scientific community in presentations and publications. She uses a capillary electrophoresis instrument, high-powered analytical equipment that she built with parts purchased through grant funding several years ago. She and the students use the equipment to inject one compound at a time to test their interactions with flavonoids, which works well as they develop the new methodology.

But as today’s scientists move toward using even more powerful equipment to conduct rapid analysis of much larger sample sizes, the lab-built equipment will no longer be as useful to answer relevant questions as the scope of the research expands.

“Eventually it would be great for the department to have a commercially available capillary electrophoresis system because then we could use a high-throughput screening with many, many samples, using the methods we develop. That would be the next step,” she said.

Faculty in the Biology Department are also looking to expand their capacity to teach high-throughput methods, which will make students competitive for internships, graduate study, and research careers. Microbiologist Dr. Jennifer Kerr is cultivating next-generation scientists equipped to use big data analytics in their research as part of a two-year fellowship, funded by the National Science Foundation. As a fellow in the High-throughput Discovery Science & Inquiry-based Case Studies for Today’s Students (HITS) program, Dr. Kerr is bringing real-world case studies to college students.

She is leading the way to develop new biology-based curriculum that provides students with hands-on experience in the high-throughput methods that they need to succeed once they graduate.

“This is where science is at right now, and it will just keep going in that direction,” said Dr. Kerr. “Notre Dame recognizes that high-throughput discovery is the next thing, and our students are going to be a part of it.”

The fellowship enables Dr. Kerr to develop curriculum for students to perform experiments with high-throughput methods using cloud-based software. The Biology Department could perform these experiments in an on-campus labs, if it had additional funding for the needed equipment.

“One thing about science is we never run out of questions,” she said. “We are going to see an exponential growth in being able to analyze some of these big questions that have always perplexed us, and some that we don’t even know exist.”

Preparing the next generation of healthcare professionals to provide compassionate care requires state-of-the-art equipment and facilities. Bringing NDMU’s mission into our communities takes drive and resources to fuel innovative programs. Providing a world-class education to all students engages the collective efforts of those who are committed to a brighter tomorrow. Go BeyoND: The Campaign for NDMU empowers the NDMU community to rally together to meet these challenges and create a better world.