McNeill Common Good Fellows

Called to the Common Good? Become a McNeill Common Good Fellow

McNeill Fellows Gaaya Binoj, Solbee Kang, and Kaza-Zack Kazirukanyo present their project supporting Afghani women at the recent Catholic Social Impact Competition.

The McNeill Common Good Fellows are a community of students from across all Notre Dame colleges committed to exploring life’s biggest questions through shared coursework, community engagement, faculty-mentored research, and adventure. Through practices of contemplation and action and the art of dialogue and debate, each student cultivates their character, hones their sense of moral purpose in the world, and learns the tools of justice making.

McNeill Common Good Fellows tackle the great questions of life: What does it mean to live an ethical life of purpose and meaning? What is more important: happiness, success, or wealth? What should we hope for? What does a good life look like? What role ought faith play in our lives? What does Catholic social tradition teach us?

First year students can apply for this paid, three-year fellowship in an interdisciplinary community of scholars eager to explore how to live an ethical life of meaning, purpose, and impact.

Program Highlights

2023-24 McNeill Fellows on a summer retreat in Malta.

Students are selected in the spring of their first year through a competitive application and interview. A highly diverse (academically, ideologically, experientially, culturally) cohort of between 12 to 15 students are selected annually.

Highlights of the program include:

  • Two courses
  • $2,000 per year stipend
  • Two summers of funding for research and engagement
  • Regular dinners with faculty and staff
  • Annual retreats and select immersive experiences.
  • Students have special access to Institute speakers and events as well as use of the Lies Library and Purcell Lounge—both in Geddes Hall.

“I have become a more reflective person from this program and more intentional about setting goals for self-improvement. This will ultimately help me frame my future and answer my question of how I can incorporate the common good into the life I will live after Notre Dame.”

– Gia Villegas, 2023-24 McNeill Fellow

Year One: Fellowship, Friends, and Foundations

McNeill Common Good Fellow Sakura Yamanaka welcomes new fellows at an orientation breakfast.

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. 

“The McNeill fellowship has given me the opportunity to conduct justice research both in and out of the lab, and to situate my work within the context of the greater good. I am honored to conduct justice research through chemistry every day!”

– Charlie Desnoyers, 2023-24 McNeill Fellow

Year Two: Pursuit of Purpose and Wonder

McNeill Common Good Fellow Makeda Grimaud is spending the summer in Dakar, Senegal where she is exploring models of affordable and accessible dental care.

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.

“Without the fellowship, I would not even remotely be able to engage in the work I’ve been doing this summer. The idea was sparked for me in the discussions and meetings we had throughout the school year, and the funding made my ambitious ideas to do nearly all my reporting in person possible.”

– Annie Brown, 2023-24 McNeill Fellow

Year Three: Knowledge in the Service of Justice

McNeill Common Good Fellow Eamon Nussbaum is working and doing research this summer with an organization in El Salvador that provides early childhood development care and prenatal counseling.

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.

Applications are currently closed

Applications for 2026-27 will open January 2026.