In keeping with its mission as a Catholic University to support families and the choice of life, this fall the University of Notre Dame opened the new Family Resource Center (FRC) to serve married, parenting, and pregnant students to ensure all families thrive at Notre Dame.

The result of a recommendation from a 2017 Task Force on Graduate Housing Services, the FRC works to build community for Notre Dame’s married, parenting, and/or pregnant students and their families and collaborate with established partners throughout the University to connect these students with resources to enhance their intellectual, emotional, social, and spiritual formation.

 “The Family Resource Center is important not only for our graduate students and their families, but also for pregnant students who may be in need of someone to walk with them no matter their academic progress at the University,” said Erin Hoffmann Harding, vice president for student affairs. “We’re so excited to be able to serve such a wide variety of students and care for them in their time at Notre Dame.”

The FRC office is currently located in 436 Grace Hall, but will relocate to the Beichner Community Center within the new Notre Dame Related Property for married and parenting students on Cripe Street in Roseland upon the facility’s completion in August 2020.

Peggy Hnatusko became the Center’s inaugural program director in August, bringing over 20 years of student programming, facilities management, and pastoral care to the position. Her extensive knowledge of student development and the Notre Dame mission is evident in the many roles she’s maintained at Notre Dame, including most recently as the Director of Student Activities and the advisor to the undergraduate Student Government Senate and Executive Program Board.

Hnatusko earned her Master of Science degree in Recreation and Park Administration with an emphasis on College Union Administration from Western Illinois University and her Bachelor of Science degree from Bradley University where she double majored in Elementary and Special Education. She and her husband, Russ, have a 13-year-old son, Kyle.