Junior Cade Czarnecki named 2025 Phi Beta Kappa Key into Public Service Scholar
University of Notre Dame junior Cade Czarnecki is among 20 recipients of a 2025 Key Into Public Service Scholarship from Phi Beta Kappa. He is Notre Dame’s fifth Key Into Public Service Scholar since the program was established in 2020.
The Key Into Public Service Scholarship highlights the wide range of opportunities for arts, humanities, natural and social science and mathematics majors to pursue careers in the public sector.
A political science and economics major from Ohio, Czarnecki worked closely with the Flatley Center for Undergraduate Scholarly Engagement (CUSE) at Notre Dame in applying for the award.
"It was a pleasure working with Cade on his application for this award as he had so many great accomplishments to share with reviewers,” Elise Rudt-Moorthy, associate director of national fellowships at CUSE, said. “He truly seeks to unite liberal arts students across the act of public policy through his on campus clubs like BridgeND and off campus internships."
Czarnecki is an Undergraduate Democracy Fellow, a teaching assistant and president of BridgeND, a “multi-partisan” political club. From September to December of last year, he studied and explored abroad in Greece.
Away from campus, he was an intern with the Department of Commerce and for the campaign of Judge Marilyn Zayas in Ohio. He also clerked for a law firm in Ohio. In his free time, he leads a small group of students who volunteer at Logan Center in South Bend.
Czarnecki will spend the upcoming summer working as a Poverty Research Fellow at the Wilson Sheehan Lab for Economic Opportunity, where he will focus on evidence-based solutions to poverty. Long term, he intends to pursue a law degree in order to translate his research experience into actionable policy change.
“I am very grateful to be selected for the Phi Beta Kappa Society Key into Public Service Scholarship. I see this award as a reflection of my dedication to building a better future for my country and its people, something I take great pride in,” Czarnecki said. “I would particularly like to thank Elise Rudt-Moorthy and Grace Song of Notre Dame’s Flatley Center for Undergraduate Scholarly Engagement for their advice and support in the application process. Their guidance helped me reflect on how my college experience has prepared me to, in Notre Dame’s words, be a force for good in the world.”
He continued, “I look forward to attending the associated conference in Washington, D.C. this summer. I trust that this unique opportunity will further bring into focus the many routes toward careers that affect real, meaningful change in the public sphere.”
For more on this and other scholarship opportunities, visit cuse.nd.edu.
Latest ND NewsWire
- Notre Dame celebrates new pope; Father Dowd offers prayersRev. Robert A. Dowd, C.S.C., president of the University of Notre Dame, offered his prayers for Pope Leo XIV, elected by the College of Cardinals today in Vatican City as the 267th pontiff of the Catholic Church.
- Collaboration with National Education Equity Lab to Create Pathways to Notre DameA group of campus units led by Notre Dame Learning’s Office of Digital Learning are building a pathway to the University for students who might not otherwise envision themselves as candidates to attend. It is an initiative made possible through a collaboration with the National Education Equity Lab, which partners with top universities to deliver actual college credit-bearing courses and supports to scholars in low-income high school classrooms across the nation.
- Clare Cullinan named valedictorian, Bennett Schmitt selected as salutatorian for the Class of 2025Clare Cullinan of South Bend, Indiana, has been named valedictorian and Bennett Schmitt from Jasper, Indiana, has been selected as salutatorian of the 2025 University of Notre Dame graduating class. The 180th University Commencement Ceremony will be held May 18 (Sunday) in Notre Dame Stadium for graduates and guests. During the ceremony, Cullinan will present the valedictory address, and as salutatorian, Schmitt will offer the invocation.
- Notre Dame’s Fightin’ Irish Battalion receives Department of Defense award as nation’s top Army ROTC programThe United States Department of Defense honored the University of Notre Dame’s Army ROTC Fightin’ Irish Battalion as the nation’s top Army collegiate program for the 2023-24 academic year. This will be the first time the unit has received the department’s Educational Institution Partnership Excellence Award, which recognizes the program’s achievements in recruiting, educating, training and commissioning leaders of character to be the next generation of military officers.
- In memoriam: Karl Ameriks, the McMahon-Hank Professor of Philosophy EmeritusKarl Ameriks, the McMahon-Hank Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at the University of Notre Dame, died on April 28 from pancreatic cancer. He was 77. Born in post-World War II Germany, Ameriks’ family emigrated to the United States when he was a child, and he grew up in Detroit, Michigan. He received his bachelor’s and doctoral degrees from Yale University. He came to the Department of Philosophy at Notre Dame in 1973 during a formative time for the department, which had transitioned from a predominantly Thomist focus to the more analytical American philosophy in the 1960s.
- Senior James Reintjes named 2025 Yenching ScholarUniversity of Notre Dame senior James Reintjes has been named a 2025 Yenching Scholar. He is one of 114 Yenching Scholars overall, representing 40 countries and regions around the globe. He is Notre Dame’s 12th Yenching Scholar and its 9th since 2018.
