IN SHORT: PLEASE SIGN TO ENSURE PROFESSOR PAUL BLASCHKO STAYS AS DIRECTOR OF THE SHEEDY FAMILY PROGRAM. PLEASE INCLUDE ANY ANECDOTES YOU HAVE REGARDING YOUR EXPERIENCE WITH HIM AND/OR THE PROGRAM.

We are writing regarding the treatment of Professor Paul Blaschko as Director of the Sheedy Family Program in Economy, Enterprise, and Society. It has come to our attention that administrators in the College of Arts and Letters have recently offered the directorship to a different tenure-track professor in the philosophy department. 

We strongly urge the Notre Dame administration to allow Professor Paul Blaschko to remain Director of the Sheedy Family Program for the duration of his time at the University. Decisions of this magnitude should not be made without the input of the faculty, donors, and students who have built and sustained this program.

Professor Blaschko is the founder of the Sheedy Family Program and the co-creator of Notre Dame’s signature course “God and the Good Life.” He has dedicated his career to developing these programs that directly and impactfully shape students intellectually and professionally. Under his leadership, thousands of students have taken and loved “God and the Good Life,” and the Sheedy Program has become a hallmark experience for hundreds of Notre Dame students and alumni.

Monthly dinners with distinguished speakers from a variety of industries, business treks across the nation, and engaging career summits are just some of the ways the Sheedy Family Program works to enrich its scholars’ academic and postgraduate experiences. Practically, students learn how business professionals can promote the common good. They earnestly put the Sheedy philosophy into practice by learning to network with real, influential professionals, to promote finding meaningful purpose in the workforce. Through rigorous coursework, meaningful philosophical dialogue, and purpose-driven career discernment, the Sheedy Family Program explores the value of approaching a business education with a liberal arts mindset. It is the epitome of Mendoza’s mission to “grow the good in business.” Professor Blaschko’s role in teaching, mentoring, fundraising, recruiting, and community-building is not peripheral; it is crucial to the program’s ongoing success. This is his life’s work, and no one can run this program better than Professor Blaschko. Without him, our community– and the hundreds of transformational experiences for involved Notre Dame students–would not exist.

The success of Professor Blaschko and the Sheedy Family Program is not limited to South Bend. Institutions around the country invite Professor Blaschko to their campuses to give talks and assist them in modeling their own versions of the Sheedy Family Program at their own universities. Recently, Professor Blaschko secured a $4 million grant from the Department of Education supporting further research into the integration of critical thinking into postsecondary pedagogy and curricula in an intercollegiate program he spearheads. From South Bend, Indiana, to Columbia, Missouri, and Austin, Texas, to Cambridge, Massachusetts, Professor Blaschko and the Sheedy Family Program have revolutionized the way critical thinking is taught across the country, and each and every person he has interacted with can attest to his brilliance.

To further illustrate Professor Blaschko’s impact, we would like to invite all to include anecdotes in their signature that attest to the profound impact Professor Blaschko and the Sheedy Family Program have had on their Notre Dame experience. His impact on our academic, professional, and personal development cannot be overstated.

On January 5, 1843, Father Edward Sorin wrote after founding Our Lady’s University that he believed “this college will be one of the most powerful means for good in this country.” No professor at this university better embodies this ideal than Prof. Paul Blaschko. For these reasons and more, we once again respectfully call on the administration to allow the Sheedy Family Program to retain its founder and director, Paul Blaschko. 

Thank you all for your attention to this matter, and we hope that you sign!