CUSE & The Colleges

February 2015. Issue 1.

Eagan Summer Fellowship

The Eagan Fellowship is open to students in their first or

second year and may be used to support a range of

academically-grounded activities of at least eight weeks in

duration, including independent research, internships,

research apprenticeships, service-learning, study abroad

experiences or language study. The award provides up to

$5,000 in funding to cover direct expenses related to the

project as well as a small stipend. Students with financial

need must often forego scholarly pursuits over the summer

in order to earn income to support their education. The

Eagan Fellowship helps these students overcome financial

barriers so that they can participate in activities which will

serve as a springboard for future intellectual engagement

and post-baccalaureate success. Mr. Eagan's gift is a

terrific example of how our generous benefactors can

support students through CUSE.

Mr. Phil Eagan is the Chief Operating Officer at Viking Global Investors responsible for

recruiting, counterparty relations, and investor relations. He is a graduate of the

University of Notre Dame (1970) and holds an MBA from

the Stern School of Business at New York University (1977).

Mr. Eagan has a passionate commitment to students from

disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds. He created the

Eagan Summer Fellowship so that students who would

normally have to work a summer job would instead be able

to have a dynamic and enriching intellectual experience. An

inaugural cohort of two students participated last year and,

for summer 2015, two additional students were selected for

the experience as well.

BIOGRAPHY OF A BENEFACTOR: MR. PHIL EAGAN

Cole Feldman & Angela Adduci

When Angela Adduci was born in May

1994, she already had seven older siblings:

six brothers and one sister. She was ten

years younger than the seventh child in her

family. By the time she walked onto Notre

Dame’s campus in August 2012, she had

seven younger sisters as well. While being

the middle child of 15 seems exciting

enough to most, Angela’s family was just a

little different. All of her younger sisters

were adopted: five sisters from Vietnam

and two sisters from China, both with

disabilities.

“I loved growing up in a big family. It was

really interesting because I got to be the

youngest, and then I got to be the oldest,

and then technically I’m right in the

middle. It was like being in two families,

but we were all always one big family.”

Angela’s father had a twin brother who

lost his life in the Vietnam War. Her

family has always felt connected to the

country. When her parents went to

Vietnam to pick up her sisters, they

brought back stories of unhappy children

in unhappy orphanages. They wished they

could do more. Angela was too young to

pay much attention at the time, but ten

years later, her parent’s stories would start

to have an impact on her life.

Angela went to the same public high

school her seven older siblings attended.

All of her teachers knew her family by the

time she got there. She was in band, and

she sat on the Youth Leadership Council of

her church. She went to classes and spent

time with her friends. When she started

applying to colleges her junior year, she

applied to Notre Dame mostly because her

dad was always a huge fan. She didn’t

even visit the campus until after she got

her acceptance letter. She came on a

football weekend, and knew that this was

where she wanted to spend the next four

years of her life.

“Notre Dame was one of the few schools

that offered me a really good aid package,

based on my family situation. I also got a

lot of assistance from the Notre Dame

Club of Chicago; they were very generous.

It ended up a combination of how much I

loved the school and how available they

made it to me.”

She came to campus early as a new

freshman for band camp. It was her first

time away from her big family. She was

also the first of her siblings to go to a

university outside of her home state of

Illinois. It was a little stressful those first

few weeks, but Angela was excited.

Her interests were in the global health

aspect of being a physician. Specifically,

she wanted to be a doctor for disabled

children and orphans in developing

countries. She wanted to provide more

children with the care her sisters didn’t

get before they came into her life.

“I wasn’t really aware of all the different

ways you could help with something like

that, structurally and with different

organizations. I thought I’d be a doctor

and do medical missions.”

Then, she discovered Political Science.

One of the classes she took was

International Relations with Dr. Alexandra

Guisinger. She thought she could be a

Political Science major.

“It was just a really good class, and I felt

like I enjoyed it. I did all of the readings

and liked reading them, instead of just

forcing myself through. Then I took a

seminar on NGOs in International

Relations, which led me to the area that I

wanted to be in; that I’m pursuing now.”

After her seminar on working with non-

governmental organizations, Angela

realized there was another way that she

could help children like her younger

sisters. She could be their advocate. She

could work in policy making and grant

writing to provide for them in a different

way.

Angela had planned on going back home

to Illinois to work for the summer so she

could save some money to start her

sophomore year at Notre Dame. Then she

received an e-mail offering another

option: the 2014 Eagan Summer

Fellowship.

It offered two students who lacked

financial resources the opportunity to

pursue intellectually-enriching summer

experiences, administered by the Center

for Undergraduate Scholarly Engagement

(CUSE) at Notre Dame, and sponsored by

Phil Eagan.

Angela Adduci, Class of 2016, Political Science

Advocacy, Adoption, and Angela: The Story of An Eagan FellowAdvocacy, Adoption, and Angela: The Story of An Eagan FellowAdvocacy, Adoption, and Angela: The Story of An Eagan Fellow

Angela and her adopted sisters

Angela knew that she wanted to go to

Vietnam to work with an NGO. This was

her opportunity to do just that. She applied

for the grant, working with staff in the

CUSE office to perfect her proposal

before its final submission.

She moved on to the next stage of the

process and returned to CUSE for an

interview. Then she waited.

She got her award letter the day before

Spring Break. Angela was going to be part

of the first class of Notre Dame Eagan

Fellows. She was going to Hanoi, Vietnam

to work for two months of her summer.

“I called home, but no one picked up! I

was trying to call my parents, and my

mom was at a doctor’s appointment with

my sister, so I couldn’t get ahold of her,

and my dad was at lunch. So I had no one

to tell. I was just sitting in my dorm room

waiting to tell my family.”

When she finally spoke to her family, they

were just as excited as she was.

Angela got on a plane that summer and

took the 20-hour trip to Hanoi. She was

assigned to work with SJ Vietnam, writing

proposals for grant money that would

support projects in orphanages and centers

for disabled children. She spent a month

writing grant proposals and helping local

staff learn formal English. She lived with

many other volunteers, some of whom

worked with the local orphanage.

“I wrote one proposal for a disabled center

that was destroyed by a typhoon. The

NGO was trying to get funds to help

rebuild it. When we were trying to write

this, it was for a social innovation grant,

and the funders wanted to see that we

could take the money and generate more

out of it. So we were trying to find a way

to train the residents of the center to have

skills. They had no skills and no education,

so it seemed no wonder that there’s a

stigma against them. If they’re not being

trained or educated in anything, then they

do become a drain on society, because

nothing is being put into them. I got to see

the same thing later at the orphanage.”

Angela wanted to visit an orphanage in

Vietnam, and visiting the ones her friends

worked at seemed to make sense. She

remembered her parents’ stories about sad

buildings with no toys that her sisters had

lived in. But these volunteers had stories

that were much worse. There were stories

of abuse and corruption. Donations were

not being used to help the children.

Everyone was malnourished. Twelve

disabled children were kept in cribs with

no stimulation, resulting in malformed

pelvis bones and potentially permanently

damaged bodies. It sounded much worse

than a building with no toys.

Angela worked up the courage to visit the

orphanage with a friend who spoke

Vietnamese. It was as bad as she had been

told. Her friend even pointed out that the

nannies were cursing at the children in the

local language. Nothing there seemed to

have any goodness.

“For example, when someone came in

that was going to give a big donation, they

would turn off all the lights, and make it

look really damp and dangerous. They’d

bring the donor in so that it looked like

they really needed the funds. They would

give a big donation, and then the officials

would either pocket it or use it on the

temple that was attached to the orphanage.

It was actually to their advantage to keep

the children in a bad state, because that

would bring in more donations for what

they wanted.”

After leaving that day, Angela got

permission for SJ Vietnam to spend the

next month working on securing justice for

the children in that orphanage. With the

head of the orphanage politically

connected and corrupt, she didn’t know

where to turn or how to approach the

problem in a way that would be culturally

sensitive. She was acutely aware that

coming at this as an outsider from America

trying to “fix” a developing country would

not work.

The NGO that Angela worked with was

the same organization that was placing

international volunteers with the

orphanage. If the officials at the orphanage

found out that somebody with the NGO

was pursuing these issues, they could

retaliate against the NGO. They would

threaten to kick the volunteers out of the

orphanage, which would be a huge

disadvantage to the children. Even if the

NGO couldn’t help directly, Angela felt

that she could help on her own without

fear of retaliation, since her time in

Vietnam had a set exit date.

She decided to try to contact the Child

Protection Program of Hanoi. She reached

out to the director through e-mail, asking

for advice on how they would address this

situation, leaving out any names of the

orphanage or people associated with it.

The director quickly got back to Angela.

“They said that they wanted us to come in

and talk to them about it, because they

thought it was really serious. The director

called me on the phone, and he seemed

really genuine, but I was hesitant. It was

kind of a risk to go talk to him if he could

potentially be connected to the corruption.

But the other option was having nothing

happen, so I decided it was a good risk to

take.”

Because of the cultural norms in the area,

they were hesitant to approach the issue

politically, from the point-of-view of the

United Nations or other organizations.

Angela and her friends took a different

approach. They went on Facebook and

researched the name of the orphanage.

Angela at SJ Vietnam

Many comments and complaints in

Vietnamese appeared, outlining the terrible

conditions in the orphanage and the

mistreatment of the children. Angela’s

friend translated them into English so the

rest of the group could understand. They

also found a few exposés that locals had

tried to write. They compiled everything

they found, along with a few pictures they

had of children in the orphanage. They

presented the case to the director from the

point of view of the local residents.

While they didn’t have the physical

evidence often required by Vietnamese

law, the director promised that they would

do their best to help the children in the

orphanage. A week later, an official

investigation occurred. A flurry of news

articles came out about the closing of the

orphanage, due in large part to child

trafficking they discovered. They moved

all of the children to other, safer

orphanages. They would all be provided

with proper care.

“Now they’re in new places, and they’re

doing a lot better. My friend who helped is

still in Vietnam working with the kids.

She’s a pediatric nurse, so she’s helping

them on a daily basis. Three of them are in

education programs. They’re making

progress.”

Angela returned to Notre Dame for her

junior year. She is continuing to work for

the children she met in Vietnam. While she

can’t make it back to Hanoi this summer,

she can provide support from home by

helping to form partnerships with outside

NGOs, locating funding for things like

diapers and food, and finding other

organizations that are willing to come in

and help the children.

“We are trying to get a medical mission

group to go in and diagnose all the

children, to help determine what surgeries

they need. We’re trying to get donations

for supplements, because currently they’re

too malnourished to get the treatment they

need. Potentially in the future, we’ll be

looking to get them put on the

international adoption list.”

Angela is planning on pursuing an

internship with Disability Rights

International in Washington, D.C., this

summer. She would be conducting

research and compiling a database on

violence against the disabled, the

institutionalization of children, and other

issues worldwide. The Eagan Fellowship

will again allow her to spend this summer

working toward policy changes that can

truly help not only the children she met in

Vietnam, but many others across the globe.

“I cannot say enough good things about

CUSE and the Eagan Fellowship. I

forwarded this year’s Fellowship

information to every freshman and

sophomore I know, because it’s such a

great opportunity. I couldn’t have done any

of this without CUSE. They also definitely

valued the social aspect to what I was

doing as well; they valued that I wanted to

make an impact. My friends at other

schools don’t have these opportunities.”

As Angela finishes up spring semester and

prepares to take the next steps in her

journey, she shared a few of her long-term

goals. She hopes to work in international

advocacy in developing nations post-

graduation. She wants to work on long-

term, sustainable solutions, that take

cultural components into consideration.

She wants to return at some point to work

in the States in non-profits; maybe she’ll

even start her own. She will take the

lessons that she learned in Vietnam and

move full-steam ahead toward changing

the world.

For more information on the Center for

Undergraduate Scholarly Engagement

(CUSE) at the University of Notre Dame

or to find out how you can help Angela,

visit cuse.nd.edu.

For more information on SJ Vietnam, visit

www.sjvietnam.org.

Photos from Angela’s time in Hanoi.