Historian to Lead Notre Dame's First New School in Almost a Century

A conversation with a group of biologists who study climate change led R. Scott Appleby, a historian, to refine some of his thinking about the new school he would lead at the University of Notre Dame.

The biologists said Notre Dame was not yet on the map on that important topic. We want to be known, they said, as valuable contributors to efforts to help countries prepare for the effects of climate change, "It was just an eye-opener," Mr. Appleby recalls.

With the founding of the Donald R. Keough School of Global Affairs, Notre Dame’s first new school since 1921, Mr. Appleby plans to put Notre Dame on the map in discussions of pressing global issues like climate change, poverty, and human rights.

Mr. Appleby, who has been named the school’s founding dean, says he hopes to combine the university’s existing strengths in studying cultural and religious traditions with a focus on developing policy solutions for such issues.

The Rev. John I. Jenkins, Notre Dame’s president, says he hopes the school—plans for which were announced on Wednesday—will add "an original and perhaps distinctive voice" to the discussion...