Couple’s $1M Gift Boosts Notre Dame Security Center

(Image courtesy of the University of Notre Dame.)

A $1 million gift will support the University of Notre Dame International Security Center. Jack Kelly, a retired U.S. Army officer with nearly three decades of service who later served as an aide to presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, and his wife Gail Weiss, a longtime staffer in the U.S. House of Representatives, will boost the existing Jack Kelly and Gail Weiss Lecture in National Security and fund internships and research awards.

President John Jenkins says the couple has been a key to the center’s creation and development and "this latest gift will do much to significantly enhance the work of our faculty in this important area of study." The NDISC was founded in 2008 and is led by political science professor Michael Desch. It recently added three new faculty members.

Kelly graduated from Notre Dame in 1974 and is a partner at Washington lobbying firm the McPherson Group. He is a former Army Special Forces unit commander and received the Legion of Merit for his service. He is a former congressional and federal court staff member and currently serves as chairman of the U.S. Advisory Committee on National Cemeteries and Memorials.

Weiss’s public service career dates back to the Lyndon Johnson administration and includes 32 years as a congressional staffer. She held positions such as senior executive staff director of the Committee on Post Office and Civil Service and the Committee on Education and Labor. Weiss was the principal legislative staff person responsible for legislation including the Family and Medical Leave Act, the Civil Service Reform Act, Hatch Act reform and the Higher Education Act.

You can connect to more about the gift from Kelly and Weiss by clicking here.