“Words cannot explain my gratitude to Mr. Weigand. Through his generosity, I am able to attain to not only one but two of my greatest dreams: to attend law school at Notre Dame, and to return to my beloved home state of Kansas. I am grateful beyond measure.”
Ellie Augustine
University of Notre Dame
Weigand Scholar: 2022, 2023, 2024
Hometown:
Bucyrus, KS
Education:
B.A. Classical Languages
Minors in Philosophy and Spanish
University of Kansas ‘20
- University Honors Program
- Phi Beta Kappa
- Dean’s List 2016-20
- Philosophy Department Essay Award
- Paretsky Award for Creativity
- SLLC Languages Scholarship
- Proficient in Spanish
J.D. Candidate, University of Notre Dame Law School, 2024
Ellie Augustine grew up on the outskirts of Overland Park in Bucyrus, KS. Her freshman year of college at the University of Kansas, she entered a Great Books program called Humanitas that greatly impacted her life. The deep wonder and awe of the academic and experiential knowledge that Humanitas fostered led her to a great love of people and society and, ultimately, to the desire to become a lawyer. As a fifth-generation Kansan, Ellie plans to return to Kansas after attending Notre Dame Law School.
Ellie graduated from the University of Kansas in May 2020 with a B.A. in Classical Languages and minors in Philosophy and Spanish. During her time there, she was deeply involved with the St. Lawrence Center’s Institute for Faith and Culture and the Kansas Chapter of the Thomistic Institute. Her studies allowed her to dive into many languages, such as Spanish, Latin, Ancient Greek and French. Her senior thesis, Memory, Mirroring and Mimesis: Ovid’s Metamorphoses in Cervantes’ Don Quixote, focused primarily on the interplay between Spanish and Latin and their corresponding literary structures in the classical texts.
During the COVID year of 2020-21, Ellie served as a Seton Teaching Fellow in the Bronx, New York. Her love for languages, especially Spanish, has allowed her to connect with her students and families and is something she would like to incorporate into her legal career.
Ellie will be a second-year law student at Notre Dame in the fall.
“My goal, inspired by one of my Humanitas readings, Gaudium et Spes, is to return to Kansas with the experience which will ‘[render] social life more human both in the family and the civic community, through improvement of customs and institutions’ (GeS §53). The love that I have for my home state, for the memories that I have made and for the people who live there animate my desire to serve Kansas with excellence and virtue.”