As a young seminarian, Robert A. Dowd sat on the rooftop of a house in Nairobi, Kenya, watching planes taking off nearby and wondering why he wasn’t on one, headed back to his home in the Midwest. But, by the end of more than a year there, he was already thinking about how he’d get back to a place he called “transformative.”
Decades later, Dowd is poised to push the University of Notre Dame, where he just took over as president, to expand its global reach, including by drawing more students from places like Kenya to study in South Bend, Ind.
At his presidential-inauguration ceremony Friday, Dowd announced Notre Dame will become the first faith-based, highly selective American college to be need-blind in admissions for both domestic and international students. Notre Dame says it is now one of only nine highly selective colleges and universities to have a need-blind admissions policy for all students.
The change is part of what Dowd sees as one of his key initiatives as president — a global expansion that will pay dividends back home. “It’s not just Notre Dame going out into the world, it’s making our campus more globally diverse,” he told The Chronicle in an interview a few days before his inauguration. Dowd’s background is in international affairs. He earned his master’s degree in African studies and earlier in his career, he was the assistant provost for internationalization with Notre Dame International, where he oversaw Notre Dame centers in Ireland, Brazil, and one he established in Kenya. His research has focused on African politics, and he wrote a book entitled Christianity, Islam, and Liberal Democracy: Lessons from Sub-Saharan Africa.
In the past four years, international students have made up between 7 and 9 percent of each entering class at Notre Dame. Dowd, who succeeded the long-serving John I. Jenkins on June 1, said the university has recruited successfully from countries in Europe and Latin America. He is now looking to expand to Africa and Asia.
“One of our great strengths that we’ve only begun to tap, and that we want to make the most of, is our connection to the Catholic world,” he said. That means, for example, sending researchers and students to work with agencies like Catholic Relief Services.
Also Friday, Dowd announced Notre Dame will no longer include student loans in their financial-aid packages to students, using gifts instead to meet full demonstrated need.
“It really saddens me when young people don’t apply to Notre Dame because they don’t think they can afford it,” he told The Chronicle. “It really makes me sad when they are accepted to come here and then decide not to come because they think they can’t afford it.”
Dowd, who graduated from Notre Dame in 1987, remembers his single mom taking out a second mortgage on her house to help pay for Dowd’s schooling. He said his experience growing up in that middle-class household in Michigan City and his long history of interacting with students at Notre Dame — he has lived in a dorm as the priest in residence for his entire university career — helped guide his decision to put this plan into place.
Dowd, the university’s third president in 70 years, will continue residing in Cavanaugh Hall, and will keep his door open.
“I like to think I’ve helped them to work through their fear and anxiety, albeit imperfectly,” he said. While he’ll still be available to students in the hall dropping by, he’s already noticed he isn’t in the dorm as often as he was as a professor and administrator.
Dowd takes over at Notre Dame during a tumultuous moment in elite higher education. In recent days, several selective colleges have said they will swear off institutional statements about the political issues of the day. But Dowd said Notre Dame’s Catholic identity will keep it from doing the same.
“There may be times where we want to take a position on something,” he said. “We want to have the freedom to make a statement. We will do it very thoughtfully. I don’t expect to be making many statements.”
