Soon after Rev. Robert A. Dowd, C.S.C., graduated from Notre Dame in 1987, the Congregation of Holy Cross sent the young seminarian to Dandora, an extremely poor residential area surrounding the major dump site for Nairobi, Kenya.
“When I first arrived in Dandora, I thought I made a mistake,” Father Dowd said a few weeks before his September 2024 Inauguration as the University’s 18th president. “I thought, ‘I can’t believe I was so naive to think I could live here in this place for a year and a half.’ I’d never witnessed such material poverty before. Just the sights and smells of the place. It was really tough.”
But he said the people were so welcoming and caring that once he learned their Swahili language, his experience in Dandora became “transformative,” opening his eyes to the world and the challenges that Notre Dame can and must address.
“As much of a challenge as material poverty was in Dandora, the people didn’t let that material poverty rob their humanity,” he said. “So I just found it incredibly inspiring to live there, to work there.”
Dandora centers in several of the significant accomplishments of a career that led the Board of Trustees to pick Father Dowd to lead Notre Dame. Political unrest during his formation stint there changed the country from a one-party state to a democracy and prompted the psychology and economics double major to focus on political science for his doctoral degree.
“By the time I left, Kenya had changed its constitution to allow for multi-party elections, and I just found that all very fascinating,” he said. “I was interested in the questions that political scientists are typically interested in: what explains why some countries are more democratic than others, what explains how democratic transitions take place, and what explains why democratic institutions survive or break down.”
In 2008, Father Dowd became the founding director of the Ford Program in Human Development Studies and Solidarity. He said its focus was the human person and its research would address the causes and consequences of extreme poverty in places like Dandora. “The Ford Program represents another way that Notre Dame attempts to bring head and heart together,” he said.
Father Dowd’s long-term efforts in research, advocacy, and fundraising paid off in 2017 when Brother André Hospital opened in Dandora, especially with its Visitation Maternity Ward focused on reducing the high rates of death during childbirth. “It’s been an honor to be a part of some of those efforts in an area with people that mean so much to me,” he said.
Catholic foundation
Father Dowd and his only sibling, younger sister Mary, were born in Louisville, Kentucky. When he was 2 years old, the family moved to Michigan City, Indiana, about 45 minutes from campus. His father was a 1956 graduate of Notre Dame, instilling a love for the Irish early through family visits to campus and football games.
His mother, Norma Dowd Krentz, passed away in August, just before Father Dowd’s Inauguration but after he had taken the reins of leadership on June 1 from Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C., who served for 19 years. When she took primary responsibility for two teenagers after his father had health issues, he said in the funeral homily that “it seemed to my sister and I that there was nothing she couldn’t do—she seemed to be good at everything she did.”
“I’d like to think that I value greatly what both of them brought into my life and what I’ve gleaned from both of them,” he said. “My dad’s gregariousness and his lightheartedness—I value greatly his ability to make friends so quickly. And my mom, I like to think I’ve also benefited from her kindness and gentleness and thoughtful and measured approach to life.”
By the time he was 5 or 6, Father Dowd’s family and friends were treated to a foreshadowing of his future. He would re-enact Mass in the family living room or in the backyard for his neighborhood friends. And he always played the same role: priest.
“I was fascinated by our parish priests,” Father Dowd said. “I suppose, not unlike a lot of Catholic kids at the time, I pretended to say Mass and I would give fire and brimstone homilies. I’ve softened up over the years, so not as much fire and brimstone.”
He attended Marquette Catholic High School in Michigan City, playing on the baseball and soccer teams. He also wrote for the school newspaper and performed in a school musical (West Side Story) and boys’ vocal group.
“I was a better fielder than I was a batter in baseball, and it would be easy after striking out a few times to become a little despondent or to get down on oneself,” he said. “I think that we learn in sports how important it is to be resilient and to bounce back after a disappointing experience.”
After high school, he started at Saint Meinrad College, a small Catholic school in southern Indiana and one of the last all-male colleges before it became only a seminary in 1998. The call of the priesthood was his main reason for going, he said, but “I wasn’t ready for that level of discernment.”
“I wasn’t ready for the seminary at that point in time in my life,” he said. “And it took me going there and being a part of it to recognize that.”
Campus home
Father Dowd transferred to Notre Dame and has made the campus his primary home ever since. He thought about becoming a journalist, but ultimately he chose to major in psychology and economics.
“I was really interested in learning about how the mind works, and how one could help heal somebody who’s experienced trauma,” he said. “And economics, I was interested in social justice in a big way, and very interested in the plight of the poor. I wanted to know how economies work and what explains why some people fall through the cracks.”
His interest in the priesthood never went away. He visited Moreau Seminary as a junior and remembered liking the people, the liturgy, and the community. By the time he was a senior, he decided to apply to the Holy Cross, entering the seminary three months after graduation.
Father Dowd began his training in 1989 at the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley. That’s when he decided he wanted to see more of the world and challenge himself with 18 months in the Holy Cross community in East Africa.
“I was the only American in our formation house,” he said. “I had never experienced what it was like to be a minority before.”
He worked in the parish run by the Holy Cross, teaching catechism and directing a program that paid school fees for children from the area’s poorest families. The work allowed him to visit hundreds of families in their homes. It also opened his eyes to the importance of the Global South for the future of the Catholic Church and Notre Dame.
“I would say that the experience in Africa really has informed my view of the world,” he said. “I’ve learned just how important it is to have a broader perspective. It certainly has helped me to be more cognizant of just how important it is to be engaged in the world and in a respectful, thoughtful, and mutually enriching way.”
After completing his Master of Divinity degree at Berkeley in 1993, Father Dowd was ordained the next year and served as assistant rector of Flanner Hall and associate rector of the Basilica of the Sacred Heart. He earned his master’s degree in African studies and his doctoral degree in political science at UCLA before joining the Notre Dame faculty in 2004. His book, Christianity, Islam, and Liberal Democracy: Lessons from Sub-Saharan Africa, was published in 2015 by Oxford University Press.
Service leadership
When he founded the Ford Program in 2008, Father Dowd wanted to do “a different kind of research,” an attempt to apply Catholic social teaching to the way the University conducts research.
Some researchers have developed a reputation for swooping in to collect data from poor regions in the developing world and then leaving without any community engagement. Instead, Father Dowd wanted to focus on building relationships.
“We wanted to make sure that the Ford Program was engaging in research that’s truly respectful of the communities where the research is taking place,” he said. “That means making sure that the research is aligned with community aspirations, that the research also benefits from the wisdom in the community itself, and finally, making sure that we share the results of the research with the community.”
“It’s an absolute must that we maintain our integrity even while we continue to compete at the highest level.” –Rev. Robert A. Dowd, C.S.C.
He acknowledged that it’s easier to say than do, but he gave concrete examples. When some economics professors wanted to study the best way to support new businesses, they did preliminary visits and formed partnerships that significantly changed their research questions. When mentorship emerged as the key factor, the economists collaborated on setting up mentoring programs with the local university.
Likewise, Vania Smith-Oka, an anthropology professor, said Father Dowd convened an academic group to study how compassionate treatment could improve health outcomes for mothers from Dandora who experienced discrimination at other hospitals.
“The project uncovered some of these concerns,” Smith-Oka said. “From my perspective, the giving back was very tangible in making sure this clinic (Brother André) was serving the needs of the mothers who felt they’d been mistreated in other hospitals.”
Father Dowd took little credit for the resulting academic paper, but Smith-Oka said she witnessed his style of leadership. “Even though it was his brainchild, he never was controlling,” she said. “He was like: Here’s this idea. I’m going to put you people together, and then you can run with it. And he continued to help facilitate conversations and was really supportive with funds.”
Patrizio Piraino, who succeeded Father Dowd in directing the Ford Program, said Father Dowd emphasized that development efforts must be collaborative and grounded in the experiences of the communities where people live.
“The Ford Program is about listening, learning, and walking alongside our partners,” Piraino said. “Father Bob taught us that true development begins with respect for the dignity of every person and a commitment to building relationships that foster trust and shared purpose.”
Notre Dame's future
Prior to being elected president, Father Dowd served as vice president and associate provost for interdisciplinary initiatives, was a member of the President’s Leadership Council, and oversaw a wide range of institutes, centers, and other academic units. He also served as religious superior for the Holy Cross community at Notre Dame.
He is a fellow of the Kellogg Institute for International Studies, the Ansari Institute for Global Engagement with Religion, the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, and the Nanovic Institute for European Studies in the University’s Keough School of Global Affairs.
As he assumes responsibility for the whole University, Father Dowd said he hopes that being a faculty member for the last two decades provides a “certain kind of perspective that helps me to be a better president” because he understands what’s important to faculty.
“I also think my experience of living in the residence halls for 25 years as a priest-in-residence also provides me with certain insights into what’s important to students,” he said.
He now lives in a second-floor apartment in Cavanaugh Hall, a women’s residence on North Quad—and he plans to continue to live in residence. He also plans to return to teaching at least one course a year after taking this year off “to get used to a new job.”
He said Notre Dame must continue to become a more global institution without losing its momentum in partnering with the local community. The University must also become more accessible and affordable, especially to people from middle-income families. He hopes to improve collaboration, teamwork, and multidisciplinary research. And as a former athlete and lifelong baseball fan, he recognizes the perils of a changing landscape in sports.
“It’s an absolute must that we maintain our integrity even while we continue to compete at the highest level,” he said. “I’m committed to doing both.”
One of the more immediate challenges, he said, will be cultivating diversity even after the Supreme Court recently ended efforts to promote diversity in college admissions. He said that meant working hard to visit schools and increase the pool of applicants with diverse backgrounds, including socio-economic disadvantages.
“We want to make Notre Dame, especially our undergraduate population, reflective of the rich diversity of the Catholic community in and beyond the United States,” he said. “There are ways of doing that within the bounds of the law.”
While he said he would leave his legacy for others to decide, he was clear about his goals for his term as president. With a touch of embarrassment that revealed his humility, Father Dowd took pains to note that the Inauguration should not be a celebration of his new role, but of Notre Dame as an institution.
“I woke up one morning to find my name on these banners that are everywhere, but it’s not about me, it’s about us,” he said. “It’s about our mission, and the Inauguration will be an opportunity to celebrate our mission. So I’ll just be grateful if, after I finish up my presidency, everyone would say that Notre Dame got even better during the last so many years. And it’s even more effective at its mission of being the healing, unifying, enlightening force that the world needs.”