The University of Notre Dame is a Catholic academic community of higher learning, animated from its origins by the Congregation of Holy Cross. The University is dedicated to the pursuit and sharing of truth for its own sake. As a Catholic university, one of its specific goals is to provide a forum where, through free inquiry and open discussion, the various lines of Catholic thought may intersect with all the forms of knowledge found in the arts, sciences, professions, and every other area of human scholarship and creativity.
The intellectual interchange essential to a university requires and is enriched by diverse scholars and students' presence and voices. The Catholic identity of the University depends upon and is nurtured by a predominant number of Catholic intellectuals. The University leadership has consistently maintained this ideal throughout its history. However, what the University asks of all its scholars and students is not a particular creedal affiliation, but a respect for the objectives of Notre Dame and a willingness to enter into the conversation that gives it life and character. Therefore, the University insists upon academic freedom that makes open discussion and inquiry possible.
The University prides itself on being an environment of teaching and learning that fosters its students' development of those disciplined habits of mind, body, and Spirit that characterize educated, skilled, and free human beings. Also, the University seeks to cultivate in its students an appreciation for the outstanding achievements of human beings and a disciplined sensibility to the poverty, injustice, and oppression that burden the lives of so many. The aim is to create a sense of human solidarity and concern for the common good that will bear fruit as learning becomes service to justice.
Notre Dame also has a responsibility to advance knowledge searching for truth through original inquiry and publication. This responsibility engages the faculty and students in all areas of the University, but particularly in graduate and professional education and research. The University is committed to constructive and critical engagement with the whole of human culture.
The University encourages a living consonant with a Christian community and manifests in prayer, liturgy, and service. Residential life endeavors to develop that sense of community and responsibility that prepares students for subsequent leadership in building a society that is at once more human and more divine.
The mission statement speaks of the University of Notre Dame as teaching and research, scholarship and publication, service, and community. These components flow from three characteristics of Roman Catholicism that image Jesus Christ, his Gospel, and his Spirit. A sacramental vision encounters God in the whole of creation. In and through the visible world in which we live, we come to know and experience the invisible God. In mediation, the Catholic vision perceives God present in but working through persons, events, and material things. There are intelligibility and coherence to all reality, discoverable through Spirit, mind, and imagination. God's grace prompts human activity to assist the world in creating justice grounded in love. God's way to us comes as communion, through the communities in which men and women live. This community includes the many theological traditions, liturgies, and spiritualities that fashion the Church's life. The emphasis on community in Catholicism explains why Notre Dame historically has fostered familial bonds in its institutional life.
A Catholic university draws its primary inspiration from Jesus Christ as the source of wisdom, and from the conviction that in him, all things can be brought to their completion. As a Catholic university, Notre Dame wishes to contribute to this educational mission.
The University of Notre Dame was founded in November 1842 by Edward F. Sorin, a priest of the Congregation of Holy Cross, a French missionary order. It is located adjacent to South Bend, Indiana, the center of a metropolitan area with more than 300,000. Chartered by the state of Indiana in 1844, the University was governed by the Holy Cross priests until 1967, when governance was transferred to a two-tiered, composite board of lay and religious trustees and fellows. Notre Dame has grown from the vision of Father Sorin, who sought to establish a great Catholic university in America, and has remained faithful to both its religious and intellectual traditions. Over the years, Notre Dame has been a place where the Catholic Church could do its thinking. The first national study of Catholic elementary and secondary education was done at Notre Dame, the most extensive study of Catholic parish life and a landmark historical study of the Hispanic Catholic community in the United States. One of America's leading undergraduate teaching institutions, Notre Dame also has been at the forefront in research and scholarship. The aerodynamics of glider flight, the transmission of wireless messages, and the formulae for synthetic rubber were pioneered at the University. Today researchers are achieving breakthroughs in astrophysics, radiation chemistry, environmental sciences, tropical disease transmission, peace studies, cancer, robotics, and nanoelectronics.
Notre Dame always has been heavily residential, with about four in five undergraduates living on campus. Students come to Notre Dame to learn how to think and how to live, and often the experiences alumni carry from residence hall communities at Notre Dame remain vivid over a lifetime. The University has always attracted scholars interested in teaching and scholarship. Men and women who know that a Notre Dame education is more than what is taught in classrooms and laboratories. Notre Dame has a unique spirit. It is traditional yet open to change. It is dedicated to religious belief no less than scientific knowledge. It has always stood for values in a world of facts. It has kept faith in Father Sorin's vision.
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