CHRONICLE - STUDENT LIFE

Activities Inside and Outside the Classroom

UNDERGRAD ADVISING EXPANDS

On any given day, the Undergraduate Studies office suite in 101 Mendoza is a hive of activity. It’s a comforting space with lounge seating, puzzles and games, and bowls of candy for the students awaiting their turn to meet with an advisor. They may need assistance with anything from selecting a major to figuring out their class schedule, to where to turn for emotional support. Whatever the issue, “101” serves as a kind of 911 help desk for students seeking advice for problems big and small, academic and non-academic.

In February, the office underwent a major reorganization to expand the advising team to nine academic advisors and two administrative support staff. Previously, the Notre Dame advising model consisted of an Office of First Year Advising for first-year students, which operated separately from the academic advising provided to sophomores, juniors and seniors by the individual colleges and schools.

“Rising demands on college and school advisors, along with curricular developments and changes in advising philosophies, made this long-standing model unsustainable,” said Andrew Wendelborn, assistant dean for Mendoza Undergraduate Studies, who served on the campus-wide Undergraduate Academic Advising Initiative launched this past August that resulted in a shift to a four-year advising model.

The Mendoza Office of Undergraduate Studies team now advises all Mendoza students from matriculation to graduation. Wendelborn named some immediate benefits — nine advisors instead of four will share the 500-plus summer introductory Zoom meetings with incoming Mendoza students, and the student cohorts they are responsible for during the academic year will be almost halved.

But the real benefit? “The new model will allow all nine advisors to cultivate deeper relationships with students across four years,” said Wendelborn.

GROW-ING IRISH

Mendoza’s Grow Irish experiential learning program embeds graduate student teams in organizations across the globe to apply what they’ve learned in the classroom to solve real-life business challenges during a weeklong consulting project. Held in the fall and spring, the 2024-25 program included:

• 228 Graduate Business Students
• 4 Graduate Programs — MBA, MSM, MSBA and MNA
• 57 Sponsoring Organizations
• 63 Business Problems Solved
• 13 U.S. Locations
• 9 International Locations

Interested in becoming a Grow Irish partner? Contact Lara Brian, associate director of Experiential Learning.

FRONTLINE PARTNERSHIPS

MBA students in the Frontlines in America course partnered with Homeboy Threads, a Los Angeles-based textile recycling business operated by Homeboy Industries. This organization provides jobs and training for formerly incarcerated individuals and former gang members. Frontlines teams also worked with Coalfield Development in West Virginia and Tribal Minds, Inc. in Nevada.

BUSINESS ETHICS IN GLOBAL CONTEXT

Last spring, undergraduates in the International Business Fellows program explored Poland’s growing economy through the lens of Catholic Social Teaching. Their immersion experience included meetings with business leaders and politicians and examining ethical considerations in a post-communist free market. Poland’s tech investment and role as a refuge for Ukrainian migrants provided a fascinating backdrop for discussions on labor, capital and workers’ rights inspired by Pope John Paul II’s influence on faith and economics.

BEST & BRIGHTEST

Two Mendoza senior undergraduate students were named to Poets & Quants’ 2025 list of “Best & Brightest Business Majors”:

 Annelise Hanson, a marketing major whose long list of achievements includes being an International Business Scholar, a Pulte Institute for Global Development Fellow and the Notre Dame International Sustainability Fellow.

 Mark Metryoos, a first-generation college student majoring in finance who founded the Equity in Business Initiative, which provides professional development and financial education to students unfamiliar with business.

FIGHTING FOR OTHERS BEFORE SELF

Eric Goins (MBA/MGA ’26) isn’t your typical Mendoza graduate student. Goins walked on to the Fighting Irish football team while studying for his MBA. Nor is he a typical football player. The 30-year-old served in the U.S. Army and was deployed to Poland after the Russian invasion of Ukraine before coming to Notre Dame in 2023. Watch his story and Notre Dame’s commitment to military service in the “What Would You Fight For?” video feature.

PUPPY LOVE

Who better to “teach” a class about balance and integration at work than Órla, Notre Dame’s first therapy and comfort dog? Mendoza teaching professor Jessica McManus Warnell invited Órla and her handler Paul Foley to join her ethical leadership class to discuss the alignment between values and work.

Órla, who joined the Notre Dame Police Department in October 2023, began training when she was eight weeks old. She provides community outreach and support in mental health situations, comforting individuals in need.