Undergraduate Program

Awards for Graduating Seniors: 2005 Recipients

The Gertrude Austin Marti Award

Kelli Barton

In 2005, the Marti Award went to Kelli Barton. (In an interesting coincidence, Kelli's parents actually knew Gertrude Marti and her family.) Kelli wrote her honors thesis under the direction of Gabriel Reynolds on Louis Massignon, the twentieth century Islamicist and mystic whose voice can be clearly heard in the Vatican II statements on Islam. Kelli addresses a difficult aspect of his theology: mystical substitution, in Arabic, badaliyya, the idea that believers of one faith can, in their suffering, intercede for believers of another faith. She demonstrates the manner in which Massignon develops this idea from the Catholic doctrine of communion of saints and the Islamic movements of Shi'ism and Sufism.

As she was writing this extraordinary thesis, Kelli was also leading the Notre Dame women's swimming and diving team to a Big East Conference championship (their eighth in a row). She was at once co-captain of the team and a role-model for the student- athletes. She was named an Academic All-American, is a Notre Dame Presidential Scholar and is in Phi Beta Kappa. With her remaining time, Kelli served as a Pillars Peer Educator, assisting with drug prevention programs, and a Eucharistic minister at the Basilica of the Sacred Heart. She has been accepted to the University of Chicago's masters program in Middle Eastern Studies next year.

The Reverend Joseph H. Cavanaugh, C.S.C. Award

Bridget O'Brien

In 2005, the Cavanaugh Award was given to Bridget O'Brien. She graduated with a double major in Theology and Philosophy, and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and is both a Notre Dame and Presidential scholar. As a first year student she won the Snite Museum essay competition for a paper on Rembrandt which she wrote for her Theo 180 class.

Bridget spent her junior year in Dublin where she studied at Trinity College and volunteered as a tutor and advisor for underage asylum seekers. Here at Notre Dame she was a volunteer at the Hope Rescue mission and a catechist at Sacred Heart parish. For two summers she worked as an intern for "Blarney PAC" which assisted new immigrants and raised monies for the Hibernian hunger project. In her spare time here on campus, she served as a stage manager for various student productions and did office assistancy at the Law School.

On the dean's list for seven consecutive semesters, Bridget was accepted in our new honors program and wrote her thesis for Randall Zachman on faith and reason issues. After a year's break back home in Philadelphia, Bridget intends to go on for graduate work in Theology.