Provost John McGreevy to deliver Graduate School Commencement address

John McGreevy, the Charles and Jill Fischer Provost and Francis A. McAnaney Professor of History at the University of Notre Dame, will deliver the keynote address during the Graduate School’s annual Commencement Ceremony. The ceremony will take place at 9 a.m. May 20 (Saturday) at Notre Dame Stadium. Notre Dame President Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C., will confer the master’s and doctoral degrees.

“We are delighted that Provost McGreevy will be speaking to our graduates,” said Thomas Fuja, professor of electrical engineering and interim vice president, associate provost and dean of the Graduate School. “More so than at any other time in its history, there is widespread recognition that advancing graduate studies and research at Notre Dame is critical to our future as a great university. This is a terrific opportunity to hear the provost’s reflections on what our graduates have accomplished and Notre Dame’s trajectory as a preeminent graduate institution.”

“I am thrilled to spend time with our graduate students and their families and friends,” McGreevy said. “We are proud of them. And we are even more hopeful about what they will accomplish in a world in need of their leadership.”

A graduate of Notre Dame, McGreevy is an acclaimed historian, with a focus on both American and global religion and politics. He joined Notre Dame’s faculty in 1997, coming from Harvard. He served as chair of the Department of History from 2002 to 2008 and the I.A. O’Shaughnessy Dean of the College of Arts and Letters from 2008 to 2018. He began his term as provost in July 2022.

He is the author of four books that explore the people and impact of the Catholic Church, including, most recently, “Catholicism: A Global History from the French Revolution to Pope Francis.” His essays have been translated into Italian, French and Spanish. He has received major fellowships from the Mellon Foundation, the American Council of Learned Societies, the Louisville Institute and the Erasmus Institute, and has published articles and reviews in the Journal of American History, New York Review of Books, Chronicle of Higher Education, Commonweal, The New Republic, Chicago Tribune and other venues. He served on the Pulitzer Prize jury for history in 2010.

A Phi Beta Kappa member and magna cum laude graduate from Notre Dame in 1986 with a bachelor’s degree in history, he earned his master’s and doctoral degrees in history from Stanford University. He also taught at Hales Franciscan High School in Chicago. Following his doctoral degree, he completed a Lilly Foundation postdoctoral fellowship in humanities at Valparaiso University.

Separately, the Graduate School has announced the following student, faculty and alumni awards for the 2022-23 academic year:

Distinguished Graduate Alumni Award: Monica C. Regalbuto (Ph.D. ’89), nuclear fuel cycle director, Idaho National Laboratory.

James A. Burns, C.S.C., Award: Patricia A. Champion, professor of biological sciences, and Mark Anthony Caprio, associate professor of physics and astronomy.

Dick and Peggy Notebaert Award: Robert Goulding, associate professor in the program of liberal studies.

Shaheen Award in Engineering: Laura M. Alderfer, doctoral candidate in bioengineering.

Shaheen Award in Science: Megan Vahsen, doctoral candidate in biological sciences.

Shaheen Award in Social Sciences: Luiz Vilaça, doctoral candidate in sociology.

Shaheen Award in Humanities: Susanna De Stradis, doctor of philosophy, history.

Social Justice Award: Ester E. Aguirre Alfaro, master’s candidate in Romance languages.