Dunne Hall is the newest of the 31 Residence Halls on the campus of the University of Notre Dame and one of the 16 male dorms. It is located on East Quad, between Knott Hall and McCourtney Hall. Built in 2016 together with its twin dorm Flaherty Hall, it was the first dorm built since Ryan Hall in 2009.
History
It was built in 2015-2016, it opened for the Fall 2016 semester. It was constructed with 20 million dollars donated by Jimmy Dunne, a 1978 Notre Dame graduate, senior managing principal of Sandler O’Neill + Partners, an investment banking firm. He is also a member of the university's board of trustees. Susan Dunne earned her bachelor's degree in business administration from Lynchburg College and for twelve years worked as an executive recruiter in New York City. The Dunne family has provided generous support to several Notre Dame fundraising initiatives and scholarship programs over the years.
Features
The building was built in the neo-gothic style used for other recent constructions at Notre Dame. The chapel is visible from the outside, unlike many other dorms whose chapel is inside the building. The chapel is named after Blessed Basil Moreau, C.S.C., founder of the Congregation of Holy Cross Dunne Hall is approximately 71,000 square feet. Student rooms host 221 students, and rooms feature singles, doubles, quads and six-man rooms. Half of each first floor is devoted to community spaces, featuring a two-story lounge, reading room and study areas. Additional space includes pass-through floor lounges on the second, third and fourth floors, designed to promote gathering in community. The building has one full kitchen and three kitchenettes adjoined to the floor lounges, plus food sales in the basement. It opened in the fall of 2016, and it hosted incoming freshmen as well as returning seniors, juniors and sophomores who were able to apply to transfer to Dunne through the interhall application process. The colors and mascot, were chosen by popular vote by the residents. Dunne also is the home to Drs. John and Karen Deak as the second lay faculty in residence, after a pilot program in Lyons Hall. In residence faculty reside in Dunne’s first-floor apartment and refine this new role as it complements hall staff and the priests-in-residence, . Fr. Grove is an Assistant Professor of Theology at Notre Dame and lives on the fourth floor. Every week he hosts pizza in his apartment after Mass. These roles recall the Notre Dame tradition of ‘bachelor dons,’ faculty members who resided in halls at periods in the university's history. The program is designed to help students thoughtfully integrate their academic lives with the formation that occurs in residence halls.
Traditions
While relatively new, Dunne won Men's Hall of the Year for the 2017-2018 academic year. Dunne's signature events include the Dunnedance Film Festival in the spring, which showcases short films made by Dunne residents in addition to students from other residence halls, and the Dunne Funne Runne in the fall, a 3 kilometer relay race accompanied by a carnival. In addition, Dunne has an annual spirit week, entitled Feast Week, that takes place at the beginning of the spring semester. The week begins with the annual Feast of Blessed Basil Moreau and concludes with a ski trip to Southern Michigan called Aspen in the 80's. On Friday during Feast Week, the students host a party in all sections of the dorm. It is the most advertised party on campus as most of the dorm's freshmen hand out over a thousand business cards throughout the week in the dining halls and classrooms.
