Baumer Hall is one of the 32 residence halls at the University of Notre Dame.[1] It located on West Quad, south of Keough Hall and west of Ryan Hall, on the McGlinn fields (also known as Baumer Bay).[2] It is the newest men's residence hall, built in 2019, after a donation from John and Mollie Baumer.[3][4][5] Father of Duncan Hall and Keough Hall, Baumer Hall is the proud home of the buccaneers.
Construction started November 2017 in and was completed August 2019.[13][5] It was built to attain LEED silver certification.[14] For the 2019–2020 school year, the Dillon Hall community lived in Baumer while Dillon was under renovation.[15]
Baumer Hall opened as its own community in 2020, amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. Its first rector is Robert Lisowski, C.S.C.,[16] also known as "The Admiral,” who served from 2020 until the end of the 2023–24 academic year. Lisowski, from Scranton, earned his undergraduate degree from St. John's University and entered the Congregation of Holy Cross in 2014, served as an assistant rector for Dillon Hall in 2019, and completed his Master of Divinity at Notre Dame in May 2020. He was ordained to the priesthood on April 10, 2021.[17][18] Following Lisowski, Thomas J. (T.J.) Groden, C.S.C., serves as the current rector. T.J. was an assistant rector in Dillon hall throughout the 2024-2025 academic year. He entered formation with Holy Cross in 2019, and recently professed his final vows and was ordained a Deacon on August 30, 2025.
The dorm developed a rivalry with the nearby Duncan Hall. The dorm sponsored a plasma donation drive to benefit the South Bend Medical Foundation in its fight against COVID-19.[19][20]
In January 2022, the hall received LEED gold certification.[21]
Since its inception in 2020, Baumer Hall has developed several traditions, including Baumer Boo,[1] where the dorm is turned into a haunted house to raise funds for the homeless, Buc-an-Ear, a corn sale for charity, and Baumer Voyage, a campus-wide music festival. Baumer residents also consistently sit at the head table at South Dining Hall. [2]
Description
The hall is four-stories high and 78,000-square-feet.[7][11] It features a two-story common lounge, a reading room and communal kitchen, a chapel, a laundry room, a vending area, storage space, a food sales operation known as Smuggler's Cove, and a gym.[2][11][6] The architecture of the hall reflects a modernist collegiate Gothic style of the rest of the campus.[22][23] The chapel, dedicated to St. Martin de Porres, was designed with clean Gothic architecture and wood detailing.[14]
