Universityof Notre Dame

University of Notre Dame The elusive problems of intellectual development would have to wait.” University If Notre Dame in its infancy was otre Dame’s founding can the child of Sorin’s vision and will, perhaps best be character- its subsequent growth and devel- Nized as an outburst of mis- opment were the products of large sionary zeal. How else can one and powerful social and historical describe the action of Father Edward forces. Just as the University was Sorin, the 28-year-old French priest of being established, the first waves the Congregation of Holy Cross who of European immigrants, over- — with $310 cash and three log build- whelmingly Catholic, were reach- ings in various stages of disrepair in ing America’s shores, and Notre the middle of the northern Indiana Dame’s location — though seem- frontier — had the temerity to christen ingly remote — in fact put it his enterprise the University of Notre within easy reach of cities like Dame du Lac? Chicago, Detroit and St. Louis, all Notre Dame at its founding was a name in of which soon would have large search of, or perhaps in anticipation of, a uni- immigrant Catholic populations. versity. The wonder is not so much what the The immigrant experience and University become more than a century and a the growth of the University of half later, but that it survived at all in those Notre Dame would be inextricably early years of beginning almost literally from linked. nothing. A number of forces were at In his book, The University of Notre Dame: A work in this relationship. The Portrait of Its History and Campus, historian “American Dream” was coming into being, ties. Notre Dame should strive to become the Thomas Schlereth of the American studies and with it the hope and expectation that, University that its charter claimed it was.” department has described the odds the through hard work and education, children Zahm was not without evidence to support University was up against: “Only nine other would enjoy greater opportunities than their his faith in Notre Dame’s potential. On this Catholic colleges existed when Notre Dame parents. At the same time, anti-immigrant and campus in 1899, Jerome Green, a young Notre was founded, but that number had grown to anti-Catholic sentiments were open and per- Dame scientist, became the first American to 51 by 1861. Presently only seven of these ante- vasive in American society, creating barriers transmit a wireless message. At about the bellum institutions still exist. One historian to immigrant Catholic students. Equally same time, Albert Zahm, Father John’s estimates a mortality rate of approximately strong sentiments among many Catholics younger brother, was designing the first suc- 80 percent among Notre Dame’s contemporary regarded public schools at any level as dan- cessful helicopter and first wind tunnel and secular institutions. Yet Notre Dame survived gerous places where young people might lose was launching the first man-carrying glider …” their faith. For all these reasons, education — from the roof of a building on campus. The The University’s survival of those early primary, secondary and higher education — University also had established the nation’s years is a tribute not only to the faith of Father became a centerpiece of American first architecture, law and engineering Sorin, but also to his pragmatism and wit. In Catholicism. schools under Catholic auspices. the beginning, his institution’s only admis- Though it may not have seemed so at the The debate over Notre Dame’s future was sions requirement was the ability to pay — time, this great historical movement of peo- effectively ended in the two decades follow- some payment, at least, and not necessarily in ples and the creation of the American melting ing the First World War. In 1919, the currency or coin; livestock or the services of a pot dramatically enhanced the odds of Notre University installed its first president to tradesman or some other “in-kind” payment Dame’s survival. What still had to be decided, have earned a Ph.D., Father James Burns, also were cheerfully accepted. Nor were however, was precisely the C.S.C., and the changes he admissions limited by religious preference. type of institution Notre Dame 2004 NCAA initiated were as dramatic Father Sorin’s mission and inspiration were would become. How could Graduation Rates as they were far-reaching. thoroughly and indisputably Catholic, but this small Midwestern school The elementary, preparatory from the beginning he made it clear that without endowment and with- All Student-Athletes and manual-labor programs would-be students of any religious persuasion out ranks of well-to-do alumni 1. Duke 90% were scrapped; the were welcome; indeed, that Notre Dame’s stu- hope to compete with firmly- 2. Notre Dame 87 University’s first board of lay dent body eventually would become over- established private universi- Northwestern 87 advisors was established whelmingly Catholic was more a reflection of ties and public-supported Stanford 87 with the goal of creating a American culture than of parochialism on the state institutions? As in 4. Rice 82 $1-million endowment, with University’s part. Sorin’s day, the fact that the Virginia 82 a national campaign con- Sorin was equally flexible when it came to University pursued this lofty 6. Boston College 81 ducted to achieve that goal; his University’s academic offerings. While a and ambitious vision of its and the first annual giving classical collegiate curriculum was estab- future was testimony to the Male Student-Athletes program for alumni was lished early on, so too were elementary and faith of its leaders — leaders 1. Duke 88% launched. With this impetus preparatory programs as well as a manual- such as Father John Zahm, 2. Stanford 84 established, between 1919 labor school, and for several decades the colle- C.S.C. 3. Notre Dame 82 and 1933 the University 4. Northwestern 81 giate program never attracted more than a As Schlereth describes it: would erect 15 new build- 5. Rice 78 dozen students in any year. As Notre Dame’s “Zahm … envisioned Notre ings and triple the numbers Dame as potentially ‘the intel- of both its students and its chronicler, Father Arthur Hope, C.S.C., has writ- Female Student-Athletes ten, “If (Sorin) was to begin at all, the head of lectual center of the American faculty. 1. Northwestern 96% this new college had to be mightily concerned West’; an institution with Also during this period, a 2. Duke 95 about frostbite and empty stomachs. The more large undergraduate, gradu- new and utterly unantici- 3. Notre Dame 94 ate, and professional schools pated element was added to 4. Virginia 92 equipped with laboratories, the ethos of Notre Dame, and 5. Stanford 91 libraries, and research facili- the University forever after UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME 100 Irish Athletic Programs Excel Under NCAA’s New APR Standard The All 22 athletics programs at Notre Dame an APR score of 925 or better will be barred from University exceeded the new academic performance replacing a scholarship athlete who leaves the his arrival in this country. The tan- standard introduced in February of 2004 by the institution while academically ineligible. gible barriers faced then by NCAA, and 13 Irish teams scored a perfect 1,000. Programs with chronically poor academic Catholic students and scholars The Academic Progress Rate (APR) uses a records based upon a rolling four-year rate have largely been removed, and series of formulas related to student-athlete ultimately will be barred from postseason today one may find such students retention and eligibility to measure the competition, in addition to losing their and scholars at Harvard and academic performance of all participants who scholarships. Stanford and Duke, as well as at receive a grant-in-aid on every team at every Notre Dame registered an overal APR of 979, Notre Dame. American Catholics NCAA Division I college and university. It and among Division I-A schools it had the third- are firmly implanted in the replaced the annual graduation rates report highest percentage of teams with perfect scores. American mainstream. that previously was issued by the NCAA. The national average for Division I-A institutions At the same time, the seculariza- Beginning in 2005-06, programs that fail to earn was 944. tion of contemporary American society is an undisputed fact, and with that transformation would be a national institution. That new more than 190, the student body is among has come a weakening of common values, an element was, of course, the game of football. the most selective in the nation — with a antipathy to belief, and a resistance to the But for Notre Dame and for its legions of eth- third of entering freshmen ranking among very notion of underlying truths. One expres- nic American loyalists — most, but not all, the top five students in their high school sion of this viewpoint is the contention that a Catholic — the cliché was true: Football was graduating classes — and the graduation Catholic university is a contradiction in more than a game. Through its academic pro- rate annually is among the four or five high- terms, that reason and belief are somehow gram, Notre Dame already was part of the est in the nation. The University’s endow- mutually exclusive. The Catholic intellectual striving of ethnic Americans to earn a place ment, now more than $3 billion, is the tradition and the Western university tradition in the American mainstream. Now, even for 18th-largest in American higher education itself stand in opposition to this contention, as those who had never and would never attend and campus additions have included: new does Notre Dame.

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