Former president Jimmy Carter and former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice will be speaking Wednesday at a tribute service for the late Rev. Theordore Hesburgh.
Hesburgh, who served as the university's president from 1952 to 1987, died Thursday in South Bend at age 97.
He oversaw major changes to the university during his 35-year presidency, including the shift of the university's governance to a board of lay and religious trustees and fellows in 1967 and the admission of women undergraduates in 1972.
But Hesburgh was also influential outside of the university. He held 16 presidential appointments during his life, including chairing the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and the Select Commission on Immigration and Refugee Policy.
Hesburgh was the first individual from higher education to receive the Congressional Gold Medal, and he was awarded the Medal of Freedom in 1964.
The 7:30 p.m. tribute will be held at the Purcell Pavilion at the Joyce Center. Other guest speakers include Gov. Mike Pence, Sen. Joe Donnelly, who is a Notre Dame alumn, and Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the archbishop emeritus of Washington, D.C..
A funeral Mass will also be held Wednesday at 2 p.m. in the Basilica of the Sacred Heart on the campus of the University of Notre Dame.
The Rev. Thomas O'Hara will preside and current university president the Rev. John L. Jenkins will deliver the homily, according to a release from Notre Dame.
The Mass for invited guests will be streamed on the university's home page, and a procession and tribute to Hesburgh will follow the service. The university has canceled all afternoon classes on Wednesday.
Visitation will begin at noon on Tuesday in the Basilica and will be open to faculty, staff, students, alumni and the general public. A wake for invited guests will begin at 7:30 p.m.
The public is invited to view the wake, funeral and a celebratory tribute to Hesburgh at the Compton Family Ice Arena on Notre Dame's campus, and the university has also invited the community to line to funeral procession route.
