Year One: Fellowship, Friends, and Foundations

Sophomore year can be stressful. The glow of your first year has dimmed, and the twin pressures of academic work and the commitments of clubs, friendships, and activities are heating up. It feels like it is time to get serious. But sometimes it is hard to discern how, where, and with whom to do so. The fellowship introduces sophomores to justice theory and Catholic social ethics, builds a shared community of fellow students striving to navigate these challenges, coaches students on how to cultivate their why, and explores what it means to be a good person in a wounded world.

This first year of the McNeill fellowship kicks off with a daylong orientation right before classes begin sophomore year. Then Fellows take one course in the fall (Just Life) and one course in the spring (Pursuit of Justice and the Common Good). Each student has a McNeill student mentor and receives a $2,000 stipend. Fellows participate in a shared reflective retreat over the long weekend of Martin Luther King Jr. Day and host a formal for all three years of fellows.

In the summer between sophomore and junior year, students have the opportunity to either collaborate with a community partner somewhere in the world or conduct mentored research at Notre Dame or elsewhere for eight consecutive weeks. Students receive up to $6,000 to support this work. Program faculty and staff work individually with each student to identify what opportunities that might both provide new experiences and support the student’s chosen vocational trajectory. Previous student summers have included, for example, independent research on book banning, training in data analytics and mentored research at Brown University, and working with immigrants in Texas and with entrepreneurs in Guatemala. 

Note: We are able to work with students for whom a summer long full-time internship is essential to accommodate this summer experience. 

Year Two: Pursuit of Purpose and Wonder

Like most Notre Dame juniors, most fellows study abroad in either the fall or spring semester. It is a time when ideas formulated on campus in the sophomore year meet the real world. This second year of the fellowship focuses on learning to take nothing for granted and embracing the wonder of our everyday existence together. What matters most and why?

Students gather over winter break for a service retreat. In 2025, the first cohort travelled to Cyprus to understand how its history was impacting current politics around migration.

In this year fellows also design a final primary research project that can be completed over their junior summer or continue through the fall of their senior year. Faculty and staff mentor students across the year to develop this project and provide advice and counsel as they complete them.

In addition to starting their senior capstone projects over their junior summer (with up to $5000 in resources), fellows write monthly reflections, serve as mentors, participate in a winter break retreat adventure, and receive a $2000 stipend.

Year Three: Knowledge in the Service of Justice

So often senior year is taken over by planning for life after Notre Dame—whether imagining a year of post graduate service, graduate or professional school, or a first job.

This third year is about balancing the now with the what’s next. It is about learning to live in the present and to be grateful, hopeful, and optimistic. In their senior year, fellows consider how their education and experiences at Notre Dame might most effectively serve the world, whatever path they ultimately pursue. This year is about becoming an ethical leader. Students meet monthly for a discernment workshop to consider life’s next steps. Where will you live? What will you do? Who will you love? What will bring you joy?

Third year fellows also serve as mentors for younger cohorts, design their own spring break adventure retreat,  host an annual symposium for all three cohorts, and receive $2000.