Notre Dame Athletics Department
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NOTRE DAME WELCOME TO NOTRE DAME The interior of the golden-domed Main Building on the Notre Dame campus was closed for the 1997-99 academic years as it underwent a renovation. The facility was rededicated in ceremonies in August of ’99. It also underwent a $5 million exterior renovation, which included the cleaning and repair of the 4.2 million bricks of the facility, in 1996. The University of Notre Dame decided, however, was precisely the type of institution Notre Dame would become. How could this small Midwestern school without endowment and without ranks of well-to-do alumni hope to compete with firmly established private universities and public-sup- ported state institutions? As in Sorin’s day, the fact that the University pursued this lofty and ambitious vision of its future was testimony to the faith of its leaders — leaders such as Father John Zahm, C.S.C. As Schlereth describes it: “Zahm… envisioned Notre Dame as potentially ‘the intellectual center of the American West’; an institu- tion with large undergraduate, graduate, and profes- sional schools equipped with laboratories, libraries, and research facilities; Notre Dame should strive to become the University that its charter claimed it was.” Zahm was not without evidence to support his faith in Notre Dame’s potential. On this campus in 1899, Jerome Green, a young Notre Dame scientist, became Notre Dame’s founding can perhaps best be charac- University’s academic offerings. While a classical col- the first American to transmit a wireless message. At terized as an outburst of missionary zeal. How else legiate curriculum was established early on, so too about the same time, Albert Zahm, Father John’s can one describe the action of Father Edward Sorin, were elementary and preparatory programs as well as younger brother, was designing the first successful the 28-year-old French priest of the Congregation of a manual labor school, and for several decades the col- helicopter and first wind tunnel, and was launching Holy Cross who, with $310 cash and three log build- legiate program never attracted more than a dozen the first man-carrying glider from the roof of a build- ings in various stages of disrepair in the middle of the students in any year. As Notre Dame’s chronicler, ing on campus. The University also had established northern Indiana frontier, had the temerity to chris- Father Arthur Hope, C.S.C., has written, “If (Sorin) the nation’s first architecture, law and engineering ten his enterprise the University of Notre Dame du was to begin at all, the head of this new college had to schools under Catholic auspices. Lac? be mightily concerned about frostbite and empty The debate over Notre Dame’s future was effectively Notre Dame at its founding was a name in search of, stomachs. The more elusive problems of intellectual ended in the two decades following the First World or perhaps in anticipation of, a university. The won- development would have to wait.” War. In 1919 the University installed its first president der is not so much what the University has become If Notre Dame in its infancy was the child of Sorin’s to have earned a Ph. D., Father James Burns, C.S.C., more than a century and a half later, but that it sur- vision and will, its subsequent growth and develop- and the changes he initiated were as dramatic as they vived at all in those early years of beginning almost ment were the products of large and powerful social were far-reaching. The elementary, preparatory and literally from nothing. In his book, “The University of and historical forces. Just as the University was being manual labor programs were scrapped; the Notre Dame: A Portrait of Its History and Campus,” established, the first waves of European immigrants, University’s first board of lay advisors was established historian Thomas Schlereth overwhelmingly Catholic, with the goal of creating a $1-million endowment, of the American studies were reaching America’s and a national campaign was conducted to achieve department has described The University of Notre Dame’s institutional shores, and Notre Dame’s that goal; and the first annual giving program for the odds the University was mission is to attain the highest standards of location — though seem- alumni was launched. With this impetus established, up against: excellence in teaching, scholarship, and ingly remote — in fact put between 1919 and 1933 the University would erect 15 “Only nine other Catholic selected fields of research in a community it within easy reach of new buildings and triple the numbers of both its stu- colleges existed when Notre of learning where truth is seen to be cities like Chicago, Detroit Dame was founded but that informed by belief and where, specifically, and St. Louis, all of which U.S. News & World Report number had grown to 51 by the Catholic faith and intellectual soon would have large 1861. Presently only seven tradition are celebrated and lived. immigrant Catholic popu- 2004 Top 20 Rankings of of these antebellum institu- lations. The growth of the National Universities tions still exist. One histori- University of Notre Dame an estimates a mortality rate of approximately 80 per- and the immigrant experience would be inextricably 1. Harvard cent among Notre Dame’s contemporary secular linked. Princeton institutions. Yet Notre Dame survived...” A number of forces were at work in this relationship. 3. Yale The University’s survival of those early years is a The American Dream was coming into being, and 4. Massachusetts Institute of Technology tribute not only to the faith of Father Sorin, but also with it the hope and expectation that, through hard 5. Cal Tech his pragmatism and wit. In the beginning, his insti- work and education, children would enjoy greater Duke tution’s only admissions requirement was the ability opportunities than their parents. At the same time, Stanford to pay — some payment, at least, and not necessarily anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic sentiments were Pennsylvania in currency or coin; livestock or the services of a open and pervasive in American society, creating bar- 9. Dartmouth tradesman or some other “in-kind” payment also riers to immigrant Catholic students. Equally strong Washington University (St. Louis) were cheerfully accepted. Nor were admissions limit- sentiments among many Catholics regarded public 11. Columbia ed by religious preference. Father Sorin’s mission and schools at any level as dangerous places where young Northwestern inspiration were thoroughly and indisputably people might lose their faith. For all these reasons, 13. Chicago Catholic, but from the beginning he made it clear education — primary, secondary and higher educa- 14. Cornell that would-be students of any religious persuasion tion — became the centerpiece of American Johns Hopkins were welcome; indeed, that Notre Dame’s student Catholicism. 16. Rice body eventually would become overwhelmingly Though it may not have seemed so at the time, this 17. Brown Catholic was more a reflection of American culture great historical movement of peoples and the creation 18. Emory than of parochialism on the University’s part. of the American melting pot dramatically enhanced 19. NOTRE DAME Sorin was equally flexible when it came to his the odds of Notre Dame’s survival. What still had to be Vanderbilt 434 2004 Notre Dame Football Nowhere But Notre Dame Highest University Graduation Rates and support of Notre Dame. It may be amusing to speculate how the University’s history might have Rk. University Pct.* been different without the phenomenon of football, 1. Harvard 98 but the University is happy to accept this legacy as is. 2. Notre Dame 95 If the post-World War I era saw Notre Dame’s first Yale 95 flowering as a true University, the half-century since Dartmouth 95 the Second World War has seen the vision of John Brown 95 Zahm reach full fruition. Father John Cavanaugh, * As reported in U.S. News and World Report (Sept. 2003) C.S.C., began the process after the war by toughening Highest Division I-A Notre Dame’s entrance requirements, increasing fac- The Grotto Student-Athlete Graduation Rates ulty hiring, and establishing the Notre Dame Rk. University Pct.* Foundation to expand the University’s development largest bookstores in higher education. 1. Northwestern 89 capabilities. Then, during the 35-year tenure of The question for Notre Dame today is, having Duke 89 Father Theodore Hesburgh, C.S.C., Notre Dame’s become a distinguished American university, to what 3. Notre Dame 87 enrollment, faculty and degrees awarded all doubled; should it now aspire? Stanford 87 library volumes increased five-fold; endowment cata- Some goals are self-evident. The University must 5. Rice 82 pulted from less than $10 million to more than $400 strive at all times to bring new vigor to its teaching 6. Virginia 81 million; campus physical facilities grew from 48 to 88 and to enhance both the breadth and the depth of the 7. Boston College 80 buildings; faculty compensation increased ten-fold; education it offers students. At the same time, it must 8. Penn State 79 and research funding more than twenty-fold. In addi- strengthen significantly its graduate programs and Syracuse 79 tion, two defining moments occurred during this faculty research to make ever greater contributions in 10. Vanderbilt 78 period: the transference of University governance in the quest for new knowledge. * According to 2003 NCAA Graduation Rates Report 1967 from the Congregation of Holy Cross to a pre- But the institutional mission of Notre Dame reach- dominantly lay board of trustees and the admission of es beyond these goals. dents and its faculty.