May 2, 2013
2013 Postgraduate Scholarships Photo Gallery
NOTRE DAME, Ind. – The Monogram Club awarded postgraduate scholarships to University of Notre Dame senior Monogram winners Meghan Salomon (Cincinnati, Ohio) and Dean Odegard (St. Louis, Mo.) at the athletic department’s annual O.S.C.A.R.S. on Wednesday night.
In recognition of outstanding academic achievement, service, leadership and potential for success in postgraduate study each student-athlete receives a one-time, nonrenewable grant of $5,000 to attend graduate school.
Salomon (’13, rowing) and Odegard (’13, track & field) were presented their awards by Monogram Club executive director Beth Hunter, as well as student-athletes Sam Calabrese (’13, hockey) and Kim Holden (’13, swimming).
Odegard is a multi-event athlete on the Irish track & field team and has competed in the pentathlon, heptathlon and decathlon. A biology major with a minor in theology, he owns a 3.78 cumulative grade point average and plans to pursue a Ph.D. in ecology and evolutionary biology at St. Louis University.
While not training for the strenuous multi-event competitions, Odegard has represented the track & field team on the Student-Athlete Advisory Council, served as a musician for the campus ministry group Iron Sharpens Iron, and volunteered at the Sister Maura Brannick Health Clinic in South Bend.
Odegard has also taught math at Dismas House, volunteered in a high school while studying abroad in Santiago, Chile, and participated in Notre Dame’s Fellowship of Christian Athletes.
He has been a Dean’s List member in five of his seven semesters at Notre Dame and has earned BIG EAST All-Academic recognition on multiple occasions.
“[Dean] attacks his athletics the same way he does academics,” Notre Dame track & field head coach Joe Piane said. “He was diligent. He’s moving onto graduate school because he has worked very hard academically, but there’s a real parallel between the two. He’s made a great contribution to the program in the multi-events.”
Salomon will graduate in May 2013 from Notre Dame’s College of Arts & Letters with a degree in English and psychology. She plans to enroll at Northwestern University, where she will seek a Ph.D. in psychology.
She has accumulated a 3.57 cumulative grade point average and is a three-time member of the BIG EAST All-Academic team. Salomon was also the lead author on a paper recently submitted for publication in Cognition, an international journal that publishes theoretical and experimental papers on the study of the mind, and she has performed summer research in her hometown, as well as in the Netherlands.
Salomon has been a member of the Irish rowing team that has won the BIG EAST title in each of the past three seasons.
In addition to her academic and athletic achievements, Salomon founded the High Five Club, an organization that mediates between the Take Ten violence-prevention program and the Notre Dame student body. In 2010, she participated in the Summer Service Learning Program, volunteering as a counselor for youth at the Boys and Girls Club in downtown Cincinnati.
The Monogram Club postgraduate scholarships have been given to one male and one female student-athlete since the 2008-09 academic year. Below is a list of student-athletes who have earned this distinction since the program’s inception.
Previous Scholarship Recipients
| 2009 – | Thomas Bemenderfer (football) and Mallorie Croal (volleyball) |
| 2010 – | Tim Andree (basketball) and Cosmina Ciobanu (tennis) |
| 2011 – | Tyler Davis (tennis) and Erin Marrone (softball) |
| 2012 – | Christopher Iverson (student manager) and Stephanie Myers (fencing) |