The Jodi and Ivan Ludington, Jr. Family Endowment for the Study of the Great Lakes was established in 1998. Ivan’s grandfather was a skipper on the Great Lakes, but Ivan’s father moved the family to Detroit in the early 1900s when he purchased a small magazine distribution agency and renamed it Ludington News Company. It grew to distribute more than 1.5 million periodicals a week. Ludington News was one of Michigan’s top 100 privately owned companies until it was sold in 1997. Joann “Jodi” Fairchild-Ludington, who passed away in 2002, worked for New York Magazine, MS Magazine, and Viva Magazine and was a disc-jockey, reporter, and radio talk show host. Ivan and Jodi have one son, Michael Ludington Fairchild (’00, ’04 M.B.A.).

Targeted for holdings in the history and culture of the Midwest and Great Lakes, the Ludington Endowment benefits students and researchers in history, government, art, literature, culture, environmental and ecological studies, law, civil rights, and many other areas. It has also supported the acquisition of microtext and digital versions of regional newspapers, manuscripts, and letters, which have been heavily used for teaching and research at Notre Dame. As regional studies are a growing field in academe, the value of this fund becomes increasingly acute.