The Impact Of Giving

Josh Eckert (’03,’09)

Growing up, it seemed like Josh Eckert was always building something.

He and his family spent eight years building their home in Huntington, Ind. Then there was the barn, and, when they weren’t working on their own projects, they were busy helping one of their many relatives—including two cousins who presently live in Keough Hall.

“The Eckerts have always just worked hard, and that is kind of a staple of what we enjoy,” Josh explains. “We get the job done, but at the end of the day we do celebrate.”

Eckert credits his upbringing, filled with family and construction, for shaping him into the man he is today. He learned about Notre Dame while visiting his uncle, Rev. Tom Eckert, C.S.C. (’95, ’02), who will be the first rector of Duncan Hall when it opens this fall.

Josh Eckert earned his undergraduate degree from Notre Dame on a Lilly Scholarship, majoring in—what else?—architecture. While on campus, he met his future bride, Diana (’02). The two were married in the Basilica and, after graduation, set off for the East Coast, taking jobs in New Jersey.

“I learned a lot,” Eckert recalls, “but I didn’t have enough time to do the research and reading that I wanted, so I decided to go back to graduate school.”

After looking into several programs, Eckert concluded that Notre Dame was second-to-none in the field he wanted to study: traditional architecture and urbanism. The full-ride Montedonico Fellowship he was awarded made attending possible.

So last fall Eckert began his graduate degree, which took him to Rome for the spring semester. “It was great because Diana was able to go,” he says, “and we traveled all over Europe, and learned a lot, and lived like the Romans do.”

Among his lessons learned? That Rome wasn’t built in a day, as the saying goes. But then, of course, the Eckert family wasn’t on the job.

>>Complete List of Impact Stories