Moreau Peer Leader Program

form community around big questions that matter

Moreau Peer Leaders are upper-class Notre Dame students who serve as catalysts in building a sense of genuine community and mentors in integrating the course's perennial questions with real-life applications as a student at Notre Dame.

Each week, Moreau Peer Leaders work with their paired Moreau faculty member to offer testimonials on class topics, questions, and themes and offer students a personalized, contextualized application of the course topics with life at Notre Dame. Within and beyond class sessions, Moreau Peer Leaders extend a culture of encounter and active participation in holistic formation by leading students to course-sponsored co-curricular events and informal class gatherings.

View Moreau Peer Leaders (Fall 2025)

lead by example

An important component of the Moreau Peer Leader role is to craft and deliver a short (~5 min.) testimony each class session. These testimonials will bridge between a given class topic/question, assigned readings, and life as a student at Notre Dame. They serve as a model to first-year students of the “study and practice of living well” by demonstrating how students might apply the Moreau course to deeply consider their life at Notre Dame as a whole. Testimonies should also showcase a pedagogy of encounter in which honest self-reflection is invited and celebrated.

While each testimony ought to be informed distinctly by the life experiences and talents of the Moreau Peer Leader, some general guidelines are below.

1. Testimonies should be approximately 5 minutes long when delivered in class.

2. Testimonies should be thoughtfully prepared and/or pre-written, but should not be read verbatim from a paper, laptop, or phone.

3. Testimonies should be relevant to the class topic/question and relate to at least a portion/reference/section/quote from the assigned reading.

4. Testimonies should often include an element of story-telling that highlights one’s experiences and encounters as a student at Notre Dame.

5. Testimonies should be personal and speak to your distinct experience and contemplation, but should also be accessible to and understood by a general audience of first-year students.

6. To the extent of your comfort, testimonies should model critical self-reflection and vulnerability.

7. When appropriate or preferred, testimonies should be crafted in collaboration with your Moreau instructor.

apply to serve as a Moreau Peer Leader for Fall 2026

The Moreau Peer Leader application will launch in February 2026.

Ideal candidates demonstrate a zeal for holistic student development and have experience leading their peers. Candidates should be able to work with the instructor to inspire thoughtful discussion of texts from a variety of eras and fields, consider the practical implications and possible applications of these texts to everyday life, and foster rich interactions between and among students both in the classroom and beyond. Candidates must be current Notre Dame first-year, sophomore, or junior-year undergraduate students and be in good academic standing.