A librarian, a front porch and a legacy

Heidi Good Gauder ’90 loved reading outside. Her husband recalls it was impossible to get her indoors during the spring and summer. She would start the mornings on their deck with a coffee and stay under its canopy after dinner until dark. And she always, always had a book in her hand.

It was fitting, then, that the University of Dayton chose to memorialize her with a porch, one that students can visit no matter the weather or the season, because this porch is inside Roesch Library.

Nearly 100 guests gathered April 28 to celebrate the dedication of Heidi's Porch, a donor-funded, life-size porch replica complete with a backlit photo of the student neighborhood, sitting near the leisure reading collection on the first floor of Roesch Library. Gauder, a librarian and researcher who spent her career building community around books, died in November 2024.

Guests shared hugs and memories despite the years that had passed between them, setting the tone for the celebration of Gauder's legacy.

The dean of University Libraries, Matt Shaw, opened the dedication. “This physical work, which replicates the porches of our historic student neighborhood, meaningfully connects to both Heidi’s work and the Porch Reads program,” Shaw said. “Creating this space was a true labor of love.”

Gauder created Porch Reads in 2005 in response to research that showed leisure reading had declined among college-aged students. The format was simple: free books for students, faculty-led discussions and a space where students could pull up a seat and join in casual conversation. The program drew its name and spirit from the porches lining the streets of UD’s student neighborhood, which Gauder saw as a model for the kind of space that sparks conversation and brings people together.

Mandy Shannon, associate professor and director of teaching, research and engagement as well as Gauder’s colleague and friend spoke at the dedication.

“This porch is such a lovely representation of Heidi’s legacy. She brought people together. She created connections across spaces,” Shannon said. “Even the people who never had the privilege to know Heidi will have the opportunity to feel the connection and the community she built by visiting this porch.”

“This porch is such a lovely representation of Heidi’s legacy. She brought people together. She created connections across spaces."

Christine Schramm, former associate vice president and dean of students, co-wrote an academic paper with Gauder that helped share Porch Reads’ success beyond UD. Gauder’s message: “These porches are powerful.”

Schramm described Gauder as someone who could see connections others missed — between the library and the residential campus, between leisure reading and student development, between a book club and a student’s sense of belonging.

“This isn’t about passing your class or using the library for research,” Schramm said. “It’s about a community investment and involvement that creates this whole experience and this whole student.”

Porch Reads went on hiatus during the pandemic, but Gauder worked to bring it back. She partnered with Zachary Lewis, associate professor and student success librarian, to relaunch the program in fall 2021. Lewis came away struck by what he found.

“Each [student] was willing to share their own unique insights with the group,” he wrote afterward.

Former participant Emma Allington ’23 remembered the same quality of conversation. The moderator, she said, made sure everyone could join regardless of how much they had read or what angle interested them. “I felt like it was an easy entry for everyone,” she said. “And that felt very intentional.”

At the dedication, Gauder’s husband, Chris Gauder ’95, closed his remarks with a quote from another UD alumna, Erma Fiste Bombeck ’49, whose burial site, he noted, is about 100 yards from Heidi’s: “When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left and could say, I used everything you gave me.”

“I think Heidi's Porch proves [Heidi] did,” he said.

Chris Gauder also announced he and their son, Daniel Gauder, would donate an additional $10,000 to the Libraries’ Dean’s Fund for Excellence, on top of their contribution to the construction of the porch. Daniel, who just completed his senior year of high school, will attend UD in the fall to study engineering. He remembered his mother the way people who worked alongside her did, in terms of what she gave to others.

“Her biggest strength is how she cares for everybody,” Daniel said. “If someone asked a question, she would go out of her way to understand, to find the answer. She wanted to help people.”

“Her biggest strength is how she cares for everybody. If someone asked a question, she would go out of her way to understand, to find the answer. She wanted to help people.”

The porch will be there when he arrives, near the books his mother spent her career encouraging people to pick up, in the library where she spent her days laying the groundwork for the next generation of readers and researchers. 

Photographs by Sylvia Stahl '18.

A version of this article appears in print in the Summer 2026 University of Dayton Magazine, Page 11. EXPLORE THE ISSUE — MORE ONLINE