Founded in 1842, Notre Dame stands on 1,250 acres considered by many to be among the most beautiful possessed by any university in the nation. From the collegiate Gothic architecture and park-like landscape to exquisite outdoor sculpture and breathtaking views, Notre Dame’s campus is a visual splendor.

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 with Father Sorin’s vision.Notre Dame is one of the few universities to regularly rank in the top 25 in the U.S. News & World Report survey of America’s best colleges and the Learfield Sports Directors’ Cup standings of the best overall athletics programs.

• School of Architecture

  The School of Architecture was established in 1899, although degrees in architecture were first awarded by the university in 1898.Today the school, housed in Bond Hall, offers a five-year undergraduate program leading to the Bachelor of Architecture degree. All undergraduate students study the third year of the program in Rome. The university is globally recognized for its Notre Dame School of Architecture, a faculty that teaches (pre-modernist) traditional and classical architecture and urban planning (e.g. following the principles of New Urbanism and New Classical Architecture).It also awards the renowned annual Driehaus Architecture Prize.

  The mission of the University of Notre Dame School of Architecture is to educate leaders who will design and build for future generations, cities and towns that are based on a foundation of conservation and investment rather than consumption and waste.

  The School emphasizes classical and vernacular architecture within traditional urbanism; principles that encourage community, harmony with nature and economy of resources and energy. The School is part of a continuum from the past to the future, learning and inventing from it - carrying it forward with timeless ideals and cutting-edge technology. Around the world, regional and local traditional architecture and urbanism respect local climates, resources and culture with cities and buildings that are beautiful, enduring and do the least harm to the earth.  These values apply from the smallest towns to the greatest cities, establish civic identities with human scale and facilitate an efficient and satisfying way of life.

• College of Arts and Letters

  The College of Arts and Letters was established as the university's first college in 1842 with the first degrees given in 1849. The university's first academic curriculum was modeled after the Jesuit Ratio Studiorum from Saint Louis University.Today the college, housed in O'Shaughnessy Hall,includes 20 departments in the areas of fine arts, humanities, and social sciences, and awards Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) degrees in 33 majors, making it the largest of the university's colleges. There are around 2,500 undergraduates and 750 graduates enrolled in the college.

  The College is an extraordinary place. It is Notre Dame’s oldest and largest college, at the core of the University’s distinctive mission.The College’s 20 departments span three divisions—the arts, the social sciences, and the humanities—all of which contribute to the vibrant life of the College.

• Mendoza College of Business

  The Mendoza College of Business at the University of Notre Dame is a premier Catholic business school that fosters academic excellence, professional effectiveness and personal accountability in a context that strives to be faithful to the ideals of community, human development and individual integrity. 
  A leader in values-based education with the message of Ask More of Business™, the College offers innovative coursework that integrates real-life case studies, a faculty renowned for teaching and research, international study opportunities, and interactions with some of the foremost business thought leaders.
  Mendoza's undergraduate program has been ranked No. 1 in the nation by Bloomberg Businessweek for five consecutive years. The College also offers seven graduate degrees: Notre Dame MBA, Executive MBA, MS in Accountancy, MS in Management, MS in Finance, MS in Business Analytics and the Master of Nonprofit Administration.

• College of Engineering

  Engineering has been offered at the University since 1873, when Notre Dame became the first Catholic university in the country to have a school of engineering. In fact, Notre Dame boasts a long history of engineering developments in a variety of fields … from the construction of the first hand-driven wind tunnel in America (aerospace) and the successful transmission of one of the first wireless messages (communications) in the country to the discovery of a new class of actinyl peroxide compounds (energy) and demonstration of magnetic logic (computing).
  When the College of Engineering was officially founded in 1920, most of the students were pursuing civil engineering, due to the nation’s need for surveyors and designers of roads, bridges, and railroads. Today, graduate and undergraduate students continue to explore a wide variety of fields through the five departments housed within the college as they search for ways to address some of society’s most pressing needs.

• Keough School of Global Affairs

  The Keough School of Global Affairs — opening its doors to students and the world in August 2017 — will prepare students for effective and ethically grounded professional leadership in government, the private sector, and global civil society.The Keough School of Global Affairs, University of Notre Dame, seeks to advance Integral Human Development, a holistic model of human flourishing rooted in the dignity and full potential of the person. The students educated at the Keough School will learn to understand and attend to the cultural, social, ethical, economic, political, and technical dimensions of global development.
  Integral Human Development is a positive vision of human flourishing articulated in modern Catholic social teaching and shared by several other religious and humanistic traditions. It centers on the idea that the dignity of the human person is expressed in work and economic activity, but also in cultural and artistic creativity, religious belonging and spiritual practice. Most profoundly, human dignity is expressed in our relationships with, and obligations to, family, community, and all of humanity, around the globe.
  In keeping with Notre Dame's mission to place scholarship in service to the common good, the Keough School will focus its research and teaching on the design and implementation of effective and ethically sound responses to poverty, war, disease, oppression, and other threats to human wellbeing around the world. The Keough School also will respond to the clear need for the study of religion and ethics to be featured prominently in the education of global professionals.
  By building partnerships among the academy, government, business, and civil society, the Keough School will integrate disciplines and best practices in order to identify solutions responsive to the interconnected nature of global challenges.
  Upon graduation, students still use the foundational cross-disciplinary skills, global connections, and global understanding they develop at the Keough School to become leaders in government and non-governmental organizations, academic and policy-making institutions, and other entities worldwide that shape the development of humanity and the planet.

• College of Science

  The College of Science was established at the university in 1865 by president Father Patrick Dillon. Dillon's scientific courses were six years of work, including higher-level mathematics courses.Today the college, housed in the newly built Jordan Hall of Science, includes over 1,200 undergraduates in six departments of study – biology, chemistry, mathematics, physics, pre-professional studies, and applied and computational mathematics and statistics (ACMS) – each awarding Bachelor of Science (B.S.) degrees.According to university statistics, its science pre-professional program has one of the highest acceptance rates to medical school of any university in the United States.Guided by our common human curiosity and Catholic character, the College of Science at the University of Notre Dame undertakes its mission to prepare the scientific leaders of tomorrow, inspiring them to seek greater understanding of the natural world, to translate that knowledge into human improvement, and to share discoveries in ways that make a difference in society.

• The Law School

  Founded in 1869, the Notre Dame Law School is the oldest Roman Catholic law school in the nation. Embracing equally the wealth of its heritage and a calling to address the needs of the contemporary world, Notre Dame Law School brings together centuries of Catholic intellectual and moral tradition, the historic methods and principles of the common law, and a thorough engagement with the reality of today’s legislative, regulatory, and global legal environment. At Notre Dame Law School, students and faculty of diverse backgrounds, experiences, and commitments are encouraged to cultivate both the life of the mind and the wisdom of the heart, to pursue their studies with a passion for the truth, and to dedicate their professional and personal lives to serve the good of all the human family.

History

The University of Notre Dame began late on the bitterly cold afternoon of November 26, 1842, when a 28-year-old French priest, Rev. Edward Sorin, C.S.C., and seven companions, all of them members of the recently established Congregation of Holy Cross, took possession of 524 snow-covered acres that the Bishop of Vincennes had given them in the Indiana mission fields.

A man of lively imagination, Father Sorin named his fledgling school in honor of Our Lady, in his native tongue, “L’Université de Notre Dame du Lac” (The University of Our Lady of the Lake). On January 15, 1844, the University was thus officially chartered by the Indiana legislature.

Father Sorin’s indomitable will was best demonstrated in April of 1879 when a disastrous fire destroyed the Main Building, which housed virtually the entire University. Saying “If it were ALL gone, I should not give up,” Father Sorin employed 300 workers daily throughout the summer and rebuilt the structure that still stands today, topped by a gleaming Golden Dome.

Accreditation 

Notre Dame is accredited by The Higher Learning Commission (HLC) and a member of the North Central Association (NCA). In spring of 2014, the University’s accreditation was reaffirmed for another 10-year period, with the next comprehensive HLC review to be in 2023-24. Notre Dame first earned accreditation from the NCA/HLC in 1913.

International rankings 

• #195 - QS World University rankings
• #83 - QS WU Rankings by Faculty ( Art and Humanities)
• #11 - QS WU Rankings by Subject (Philosophy)
• The Mendoza College of Business ranks No. 1 nationally for its undergraduate program by Bloomberg Businessweek in its surveys of top business programs.
• Faculty in the College of Arts and Letters have earned 53 fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities since 1999, more than for any other university in the nation over that time.

Campus Services 

Campus Services is a multi-faceted division operating under a common value of providing routine and special services to campus efficiently and hospitably. 

• Building Management
• Building Services
• Campus Work Control Center
• Central Receiving
• Continuous Improvement
• General Services
• Landscape Services
• Mail Distribution
• Recycling
• Surplus Property
• Sustainability
• Transportation Services

University Health Services

• Summer Medical Care
• Medical Care for University Guests
• Physicians Appointments
• Walk-In Clinic
• Immunizations
• Allergy Injections
• Travel Consultation
• X-Ray
• Pharmacy
• Laboratory
• Physical Therapy
• Inpatient/Observation Unit
• Health Education / Classes
• ND Athlete Pre-Physical Forms
• Event Medical Coverage
• Scooter Availability
• Transportation to Off-Campus Medical Facilities
• ND First Aid Volunteer

The University seeks to cultivate in its students not only an appreciation for the great achievements of human beings, but also 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.