The Rev. Louis J. Putz, C.S.C., Award - 2017: James E. Coolahan, Jr. '71

2017: James E. Coolahan, Jr. '71

With this award, James E. Coolahan, Jr. ’71 is honored for his continued commitment and service to Our Lady’s University, the Catholic Church, and Catholic education.

Coolahan, a Baltimore native who has taught for decades at Johns Hopkins University, has been active in his parish, serving terms on its pastoral council and finance committee. For more than 25 years, he has volunteered for Resurrection-St. Paul School. In 2016, the school established a volunteer service award named in his honor. He is a fourth-degree member of the Knights of Columbus and helped establish a scholarship program for Catholic high school students.

In addition, Coolahan is a member of the Notre Club of Maryland, where he helped start annual Christmas parties and picnics for a transitional shelter serving women and children. In 2015, after the unrest in Baltimore, he was instrumental in founding the Help Baltimore initiative, establishing a partnership with St. Ignatius Loyola Academy. The tuition-free school serves more than 100 low-income boys in grades five through eight, and Coolahan and other club members tutor there on a weekly basis.

Coolahan served on the NDAA board from 1996 to 1999, and on the NDSA board from 2012 to 2015. In his final year on the NDSA Board, he initiated the annual Senior Open golf tournament, which has raised over $35,000 for the God, Country, Notre Dame Scholarship Fund in its first two years.

Coolahan and his wife, Elizabeth, have been married for 42 years, and have three children (Theresa ’00, Patrick ’02, and Kathleen, an ’04 Virginia Tech graduate), as well as two grandchildren.

“I consider this to be recognition of all of the Notre Dame alumni with whom I have been associated over the years who have contributed to the good works done in the name of Our Lady’s University,” Coolahan said.