Melvin Tardy

Deacon Mel Tardy is an advisor for first-year students. He holds the rank of Associate Advising Professor.

Deacon Tardy has served as an academic advisor at Notre Dame since 1997 and has experience advising students in all of Notre Dame’s undergraduate disciplines. His other advising experiences include serving as editor of the First Year of Studies monograph First Year Advising: A Compendium of Best Practices, as a member of the National Academic Advising Association, as former Associate Director of the Balfour Hesburgh Scholars Program and as a Posse Scholars Program mentor. He also has particular experience advising student athletes, students with disabilities and students from traditionally under-represented groups. 

A Double Domer, Deacon Tardy has a B.A. in Studio Art and an M.B.A. in International Finance from Notre Dame. Ordained a permanent Deacon in 2011 by the Catholic Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend, he has served as the Chaplain to faculty and staff in the Center for University Advising within which First Year Advising is housed, as well as for students in the Balfour-Hesburgh Scholars Program. He is an artist, jazz musician, and youth minister as well as the faculty advisor to the Voices of Faith Gospel Choir. Notre Dame’s Student Activities Office twice named him Special Interest Faculty Advisor of the Year. He is also active in the local community, including at St. Augustine Parish, where he founded a youth ministry program in 2005 and continues to serve as its director today.