Graduation Year: 2020
Rover Roles: Writer, Executive Editor
Favorite Article: The Air We Breathe (2019)
Current Job: Executive Director at The Summit Academy
Editor’s Note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Irish Rover: What first drew you to join the Rover?
Nick Marr: My involvement with the Rover dovetailed with my reversion to the Church. The good friends who helped me understand the value of my Catholic faith were writing for the Rover and invited me to do the same. Once I started taking my faith seriously and found real joy in that, I started taking Notre Dame’s Catholic mission seriously and wanted to do my small part to serve that mission.
Now that you’ve graduated, has your view of Notre Dame and her mission changed?
I am more hopeful about Notre Dame than ever before. Not only do very bright and faithful students continue to matriculate there, but also the Catholic faith and its universal, evangelical nature seems more alive than ever. I’ve recently seen reports about a record number of Easter conversions, as well as pictures of the wonderfully ambitious ice chapel.
Of course, the university also recently announced the appointment of a vehemently pro-abortion academic to a prominent leadership position. This is where the rubber hits the road in terms of evangelism. This appointment is a choice to make this person’s record, characterized by public advocacy against core teachings of the Catholic Church, representative of the university. This decision should be reversed.
Our faith makes claims on us and how we should live. It isn’t always easy, but sometimes it’s simple. The 76 students who will come into the Church at Easter know this, and the thousands of students who braved the cold to attend Mass at the ice chapel know this. Those tasked with special care of the university’s mission surely know this, too.
I’ve always described Notre Dame as a snapshot of the American church—there are many faculty, students, and alumni who really care about Notre Dame’s Catholic mission, there are some trying to remake the school in their own image, and there are others in the middle. My general sense is that the first group is growing while the other two are shrinking. I hope that, in the long run, those who prize Notre Dame’s Catholic mission will become the dominant voice, and that priority will be fully reflected in the governance and administration of the university.
How do you think the Rover serves that Catholic mission?
Notre Dame needs the Irish Rover. It’s the only student-led organization I’m aware of whose mission is to preserve the school’s Catholic identity. The Rover provides undergraduates with a clear pathway to significant responsibility. When you’re at the Rover, you’re dealing with sensitive matters that have real consequences, so you have to live up to that standard and ensure you’re putting the interests of the organization ahead of your own. These are invaluable experiences for any undergraduate.
As an undergraduate, how did your time at Notre Dame—both within and outside of the Rover—shape your choice to work in education?
When I stepped on campus for the first time, I was intent on becoming a lawyer in the thick of D.C. politics. It was through that interest that I was led into a remedial liberal arts education, where I discovered what real truth-seeking is like. I desired one day to build a school that would do the same thing, only sooner in students’ lives.
The opportunity presented itself sooner than expected, and I jumped right in. I’m now the Executive Director of a classical Catholic high school. In that role, I’m being challenged to marshal all the practical skills, work ethic, and ambition that Notre Dame refined to help build a permanent campus for the school. I have learned more about zoning, permitting, and construction than I ever anticipated.
The Rover helped refine qualities which are essential to success in my field––professionalism, networking, developing relationships, cold outreach, persistent (but appropriate) follow-up, discretion, due diligence, and ownership over projects and mistakes alike. I continue to be a stickler for grammar, a fact which my students lament.
What advice would you give to our current (and future) Rover writers?
Do your job with the Rover as well and as faithfully as you can, and that approach will benefit you for many years to come. Form friendships with your peers, the professors involved with the paper, its supporters, and its alumni. Take some extra time, as you rise in the publication’s ranks, to mentor younger writers and editors. Finally, remember that everything is a habit. Develop good habits oriented towards real happiness.
Haley Garecht is a senior studying political science, originally hailing from Philadelphia. She respectfully requests all comments be delayed until she is done mourning the exclusion of the Eagles from this year’s Super Bowl. Please send all condolences to hgarecht@nd.edu.