Annual Breakfast
During Reunion
Our Annual Breakfast during Reunion has become an extremely popular event with an overflowing attendance each year and a live broadcast of the program for those who are unable to be there in person. Knowledgeable speakers on faculty such as Prof. Patrick Deneen, Fr. Bill Miscamble, Prof. Gerry Bradley, Prof. Walter Nicgorski, Prof. Charles Rice, and Prof. Ralph McInerny have joined students, alumni and others to address a range of issues relating to Notre Dame‘s Catholic identity.
2007
origins
Our first panel discussion was held in the spring of 2007 with presentations focused on Father Jenkins’s approval of The Vagina Monologues. The event that year drew an audience that filled a large lecture hall. So did our 2008 and 2009 events — especially the latter, which dealt with Father Jenkins’s decision to honor President Obama, a decision that was harshly criticized by 83 cardinals, archbishops, and bishops.
In both years we were on the official Reunion Weekend program. But in 2010 the Alumni Association changed the long-standing policy under which that was possible. Expecting a much-reduced attendance, we moved that year to a Morris Inn meeting room and added a breakfast to the format.
As it turned out, we underestimated the program‘s draw. Although alumni attending Reunion Weekend were not told of it through the official calendar of events, word got out and the room was filled beyond capacity. So we moved the following year to the Conference Center and, with the exception of 2013, when we met in the Hilton Inn because the Morris Inn was closed for renovations, the event continued in that location until 2020 when Reunion Weekend was cancelled due to COVID-19 precautions — as it was again in 2021.
Since 2013, we have been streaming the program live with several hundred people participating virtually.
2024
patrick deneen
Professor of Political Science, University of Notre Dame
Patrick J. Deneen is Professor of Political Science and holds the David A. Potenziani Memorial College Chair of Constitutional Studies at the University of Notre Dame. He is the author of “Why Liberalism Failed” (Yale, 2018), which has been translated into over a dozen languages and, most recently, “Regime Change” (Sentinel, 2023)
Saturday
June 1, 2024
William and Mary Ann Smith Ballroom (at Morris Inn)
University of Notre Dame
Notre Dame, IN 46556
Complimentary breakfast opens at 7:15 a.m.
Program 8:00 am – 9:30 a.m.
Friends of
Bill Dempsey
Bill Dempsey has played an indispensable role in service of Notre Dame’s Catholic identity through Sycamore Trust. In fact, rarely does a day go by that he isn’t occupied in some way with Sycamore business – frequently filling up a regular work schedule with projects related to our mission. It’s not the sort of thing that many people aspire to in their retirement nor the sort of thing that many could manage into their 90s. But he did. And he has! And that has meant more to many than they can adequately express.
View
previous programs
