The Center for Citizenship & Constitutional Government is excited to share that it has moved its office across the University of Notre Dame’s campus, from Jenkins-Nanovic Hall to the fifth floor of Flanner Hall.
This move, expanding the Center's physical footprint from 300 to over 3000 square feet, is a major milestone. The new space provides an opportunity for it to expand not just its center of operations, but also its core mission to encourage civil dialogue, intellectual inquiry, and community.
The transition comes five years after the Center’s founding in 2021, after facing the happy problem of requiring more space to realize its mission at a more efficient capacity. Flanner, a former resident hall transformed into an administrative building, now supplies the Center with a space large enough to accommodate its growth and trajectory.
In February, the Center’s staff and student interns marked the beginning of the construction phase in Flanner with a ceremonial wallbreaking, the first group to do so at Notre Dame.
The renovation, in which the Center gains over ten times the square footage of its previous space, was completed at the end of June. It includes an event space that will double as an area for shared conversation and study; eight closed-door offices; lounge spaces; a kitchen; and a conference room. These new amenities will allow the Center to expand its offerings of seminars and reading groups, host events in-house, and build a space for graduate and undergraduate students to study and form bonds.
Don Stelluto, CCCG Co-Director, is especially excited for the opportunity to foster a closer community. While the new space will offer many administrative perks, its more significant opportunity is “to advance its academic mission while also providing wonderfully comfortable and impressive space for students, faculty, and staff” to engage in “the kinds of impromptu conversations that enrich the University and its learning environment.” The new space will allow the Center to provide “both an intellectual home and a physical home where students, faculty, and staff can come together to think, to engage, and to share ideas and conversations.”
Dr. Stelluto expressed how “the opportunities for fostering closer ties among its community” are among the most significant advances this move provides. Student interns who have worked with the CCCG during their time on campus are likewise excited about the new space. Angela Moreno ‘27 shared how much she’s looking forward to how the new layout “encourages collaboration” and offers “ the intern team a dedicated area for group projects alongside quiet zones for individual tasks.” With spaces for individual and group projects, Moreno predicts the space will “expand these collaborative efforts and strengthen our dynamic workplace,” even if by simply allowing all the staff and students to participate in small joys like “Sweet Treat Tuesdays.”
Zach Taylor ‘27, another intern, is especially pleased about how this transition represents the growing ability for the Center to encourage conversations about “responsible citizenship and how to shape our democracy after a Notre Dame education.” This move, for Zach, is a physical “indicator that these conversations are growing in importance, and demonstrates the growing role that the CCCG hopes to play at our university.”
“This new home for the Center,” Stelluto shared, “would not have been possible without the generosity of several key benefactors.” The Center would especially like to thank the John F. Cuneo, Jr. Foundation; Jeanie Poole O’Shaughnessy and Family; and the Potenziani Family and the M&T Foundation for their generous support in this endeavor, as well as every individual who helped develop the new space. Thanks to the aid from both generous individuals and organizations, the CCCG is settling into its new home across campus and looking forward to continuing its programming for the 2026-2027 academic year.