Register here  We hope you will join us each month for the Virtues & Vocations lunchtime webinar series, Conversations on Character & the Common Good. There is always time for audience questions. Sanford “Sandy” Shugart served from 2000 to 2021 as the fourth president of Valencia College in greater Orlando, Florida. He is a senior fellow with the Aspen Institute and the author of Leadership in the Crucible of Work: Discovering the Interior Life of an Authentic Leader. Our conversation will consider the broad landscape of higher education — and particularly pre-professional and professional education for flourishing within community colleges — along with issues of leadership and character. Virtues & Vocations is a national forum for scholars and practitioners across disciplines to consider how best to cultivate character in pre-professional and professional education. Virtues & Vocations hosts faculty workshops, an annual conference, and monthly webinars, and engages issues of character, professional identity, and moral purpose through our publications.

Experience the timeless beauty of Copland's iconic masterpiece, Appalachian Spring, as it vividly portrays the American landscape. Kojiro Uzmezaki joins the South Bend Symphony as he uses the shakuhachi to transform the landscape imagined in Angel Lam's "Empty Mountain, Spirit Rain," and Takuma Itoh's "Faded Aura."   GET TICKETS  

Join UZIMA! Drum and Dance Company for an inspiring evening as we journey down the road less traveled, following in the footsteps of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela, Mary Church Terrell, and other visionaries who have paved the way for peace and progress. Experience the power of expression through the art of music and dance that transformed the course of humanity. Together, we'll explore the desire for change that compels us forward, forever, as suffragist and activist Terrell wrote, "lifting as we climb." GET TICKETS  

Soprano Angel Blue makes her long-awaited Met role debut as the Ethiopian princess torn between love and country, one of opera's defining roles. Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin takes the podium for Michael Mayer's spectacular new staging, which brings audiences inside the towering pyramids and gilded tombs of ancient Egypt with intricate projections and dazzling animations. Mezzo-soprano Judit Kutasi, following her 2024 debut in Verdi's La Forza del Destino, is Aida's Egyptian rival Amneris, and tenor Piotr Beczala is the soldier Radamès — completing opera's greatest love triangle. The all-star cast also features baritone Quinn Kelsey as Amonasro and bass Dmitry Belosselskiy as Ramfis. GET TICKETS  

Gospel giants continue bringing epic concerts to fill the Leighton Concert Hall with praise. Grammy Award and Dove Award winner Fred Hammond — uplifted by a hand-selected choir of community singers — makes his Presenting Series debut. His concert concludes the center's contributions to Notre Dame's Walk the Walk Week. Hammond's smooth voice, distinctive flair for funk, and inspirational messages are why his career has flourished for nearly four decades. GET TICKETS  

Each year, one selected artist for the DeBartolo Center's organ recital series is a Program in Sacred Music alumnus or alumna. This season, we welcome Emma Whitten. She is an accomplished organist specializing in early Baroque and contemporary repertoire. An alumna of the University's Program in Sacred Music, she performs the program, A Spotless Rose: Marian Works for Organ, music celebrating the Blessed Virgin Mary from the early Baroque to the present. Highlights include Dietrich Buxtehude's Magnificat for organ and a stunning fantasia on the Salve Regina by Dutch composer Margaretha Christina de Jong. GET TICKETS  

Register here Anna Moreland is the chair and director of the Villanova University Honors Program and Thomas W. Smith is dean of the School of Arts and Sciences at The Catholic University of America. Moreland and Smith will discuss their recent book, The Young Adult Playbook: Living Like It Matters and their work in education for flourishing among undergraduates. We hope you will join the Institute for Social Concerns each month for the Virtues & Vocations lunchtime webinar series, Conversations on Character & the Common Good. There is always time for audience questions. Virtues & Vocations is a national forum for scholars and practitioners across disciplines to consider how best to cultivate character in pre-professional and professional education. Virtues & Vocations hosts faculty workshops, an annual conference, and monthly webinars, and engages issues of character, professional identity, and moral purpose through our publications.

A national treasure, the remarkably versatile Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis is a generational institution in music and the related arts. And the DeBartolo Performing Arts Center's 20th anniversary season would only be complete with a return engagement by the baddest big band in the land and the very first Presenting Series artist! Kicking off the programming on September 19, 2004, returning in 2008, and again for the 10th anniversary season in 2014, you know we're all in this for a swingin' time. GET TICKETS  

Two-time Grammy nominee for Best Classical Vocal Solo Album, soprano Laura Strickling and Notre Dame's own critically acclaimed pianist Daniel Schlosberg embark on a journey through American art song, featuring works by masters of 20th- and 21st-century vocal repertoire. Through their landmark 40@40 song commissioning project, they endeavor to add to the modern song canon, bringing world premiere performances. GET TICKETS  

Register here Nathan Hatch served as the president of Wake Forest University for 16 years and previously served as provost at the University of Notre Dame. He recently published The Gift of Transformative Leaders(link is external). We will discuss this book and his lifelong commitment to making character central in higher education. We hope you will join the Institute for Social Concerns each month for the Virtues & Vocations lunchtime webinar series, Conversations on Character & the Common Good. There is always time for audience questions. Virtues & Vocations is a national forum for scholars and practitioners across disciplines to consider how best to cultivate character in pre-professional and professional education. Virtues & Vocations hosts faculty workshops, an annual conference, and monthly webinars, and engages issues of character, professional identity, and moral purpose through our publications.