History
| 1842 | 1850s to 1860s | 1870s to Early 1900s | 1918 | 1920s | 1930s | Early 1940s | 1950s | 1960s | 1970s | Early 1980s to 1990s | 2000s |
1842
The Reverend Edward Sorin, C.S.C. arrived at the site of a frontier mission on 524 acres near the southernmost bend of the St. Joseph River.
Within two years, Fr. Sorin and his companion brothers had constructed a religious novitiate, a vocational institution for apprentices, a preparatory high school, and a men’s college. Fr. Sorin named the fledgling school, in his mother tongue, L’Universite de Notre Dame du Lac.
1850s–1860s
The University began to award graduate degrees, although most were honorary, given to successful businessmen in recognition of their achievements.
1870s–Early 1900s
Graduate-level courses in philosophy, history, and natural sciences were offered.
As Holy Cross Provincial for the United States from 1897 to 1906, Fr. John Zahm, C.S.C. worked to transform Notre Dame into a great university. He erected buildings and added to the campus art gallery and library. During these years he purchased about 200 volumes a year on Dante, amassing a significant collection which included most of the Renaissance editions. A brilliant scholar who later accompanied former President Theodore Roosevelt on a South American expedition, Fr. Zahm built the science departments at Notre Dame and inspired the University’s first flowerings in research. His brother, Albert, was among the earliest and most influential pioneers of the aerodynamics of flying machines, and Prof. Jerome Green achieved the nation’s first wireless transmission at Notre Dame.
Announcement for the first graduate course offered by the university in 1874:
“The want of such a course has been for a long time felt by students desirous of continuing to perfect themselves in those studies which require several years of close attention. The Postgraduate Course is now open, and we invite our Graduates, and such others as are able, to enter it and avail themselves of the advantages it affords of prosecuting their studies to a successful conclusion. The students in this course occupy themselves with Philosophy, History, and Natural Sciences. Law and Civil Engineering may be optional studies of the course.”
Fr. Zahm was also concerned with reconciling faith and reason:
No, the man of science is not intellectually hampered because he happens to be a man of faith and of strong religious persuasions. His acceptance of the Bible does not handicap him in research nor preclude him from enjoying the completest mental liberty of which moral man is capable. His faith shields him from danger as the beacon-light protects the mariner from harm, but it in no wise restricts his freedom of thought and action.
By hearkening to the gentle voice of religion he escapes the errors of Atheism, Pantheism, Materialism, and Monism, which are at present so rampant, and which have more than anything else obstructed research and retarded the progress of true science.
— Bible, Science, and Faith by John Zahm, C.S.C
Early 1900s
The Committee of the Faculty on Graduate Work was appointed in 1905. It mandated that candidates for advanced degrees must pursue one major and two minor courses, pass a written examination, and write a dissertation. Rather than individual tutorial arrangements with faculty members, graduate education was recast in the German model, in which students conduct research as a primary learning tool.
“We have a [faculty member] who devotes most of his time to research … My ambition is to have this kind of work going on in every department. But money is necessary, and we have to proceed slowly and patiently.”
—Rev. James A. Burns, C.S.C. President of the University, 1919-1922 in a letter to a friend
1918
Notre Dame’s Summer School opened. Devised primarily for secondary school teachers to continue their own education during the summer, it became the principal vehicle for graduate study. Many students were religious teachers seeking advanced training.
1920s
President James Burns, C.S.C., the first Notre Dame president with an advanced degree, was instrumental in elevating graduate education. President Burns recruited faculty with doctorates, created the five-college administrative structure, encouraged research, and was a prodigious fundraiser with foundations such as the Rockefeller and Carnegie Corporations. The legacy of early research at Notre Dame includes the work of the Rev. Julius Nieuwland, a renowned botanist, who experimented with chemical reactions on vinyl-acetylene in the 1920s. His work led to the Du Pont Chemical Company’s development of neoprene, the first synthetic rubber.
1930s
The Graduate School was officially created in 1932. Still, most of the University’s graduate work continued to be concentrated in the Summer Session, which was attended largely by Catholic religious. In 1931, 437 graduate students studied in the summer session; only 59 during the academic year. Prominent visiting faculty were brought to campus during the summer months to augment the faculty ranks.
Doctoral degrees offered in 1932:
- Systematic Botany
- Organic Chemistry
Master of arts programs offered during the academic year 1932–1933:
- Boy Guidance
- Economics and Politics
- Education
- English
- History
- Philosophy
- Sociology
Master of science programs offered during the academic year 1932–1933:
- Biology
- Chemistry
- Mathematics
- Physics
Master of arts programs offered during the Summer Session 1932:
- Classics
- Modern Languages
- Music
University President Rev. John O’Hara, C.S.C.traveled to Europe in search of artists, scientists, and scholars eager to flee the policies of Adolf Hitler’s National Socialist Party and other fascist organizations. Among them were mathematician Karl Menger, physicists Arthur Haas and Eugene Guth, and political scientists Waldemar Gurian and F.A. Hermens, all of whom helped establish doctoral programs at Notre Dame in their specialties and were the pioneers in a migration that eventually brought more than 40 distinguished European educators and researchers to campus.
Early 1940s
Replacing the Committee on Graduate Study, the Graduate School was re-organized under the direction of a dean (first, the Rev. Philip Moore, C.S.C.) and a graduate council. In Fall term 1940, 149 students were enrolled in graduate courses in the regular session; yet, during the war years, enrollment decreased markedly.
In 1946, the Rev. John J. Cavanaugh, C.S.C. made advanced study and research a priority when he became the University’s 15th president. More doctoral and master’s degree programs were added, including programs in engineering mechanics and aeronautics, English, history, sociology, education, and medieval studies. The Medieval Institute was formally founded in 1946; a second institute was founded four years later: the Laboratories of Bacteriology, University of Notre Dame (LOBUND), which performed important research into bacteria-free life.
1950s
The Rev. Theodore Hesburgh, C.S.C., presided over the expansion of graduate education. Graduate students numbered 750 in the 1956–1957 academic year. The Distinguished Professors Program attracted world-renowned scholars such as sculptor Ivan Mestrovic, historian Rev. Philip Hughes, and philosophy professor Rev. I.M. Bochenski, OP.
1960s
Graduate programs in science flourished, as government funding increased during America’s effort to surpass the Soviet Union in the space race. By the mid-1960s, graduate enrollment rose at Notre Dame and at other institutions across the country as many students sought to delay induction into the military during the Vietnam War. By the end of the 1960s, graduate enrollment was a record 1,270 students in 23 different programs.
1970s
Using outside review reports, the University took steps to locate graduate studies in programs in which it could excel, building up resources in those areas and combining or eliminating other departments (including the graduate program in the Department of Education). Graduate resources at the library were also improved, and stipends for graduate students were increased to attract more top-level students.
Early 1980s-1990s
The focusing of programs continued, as did the quest to intensify the research aspects of the University. Under the leadership of the Rev. Edward Malloy, C.S.C., great strides were taken to increase the number of endowed professorships held by faculty members who advance the academic frontiers of their disciplines through research and scholarship. Also in the 1990s, Presidential Fellowships were created to attract the best graduate students in the humanities and social sciences and to allow Notre Dame to compete for these students with the top universities in the country.
2000s
Currently, more than 1900 students are enrolled in the four divisions of the Graduate School:
Engineering, Humanities, Science, and Social Science, and the School of Architecture. The University awards approximately 330 master’s degrees and 150 Ph.D. degrees every year.
University President John I. Jenkins, C.S.C. places a renewed emphasis on graduate education and research. Building upon traditional strengths in teaching and in pursuing knowledge with an awareness of its ethical and moral implications, Notre Dame commits itself to elevating all of its graduate programs to excellence.
2007 and forward
In 2007, the Graduate School and the Office of Research were reorganized as separate entities. Two acting deans served as head of the Graduate School: Donald Pope-Davis, now Vice President and Associate Provost, and then Peter Holland, McMeel Family Professor in Shakespeare Studies. Professor of Theology Gregory E. Sterling assumed the office of Dean of the Graduate School on July 1, 2008.
Earlier in 2008, Richard and Peggy Notebaert endowed a Premier Fellowship Program, designed to attract top doctoral prospects from around the globe to study at Notre Dame. The Notebaert Fellowships provide generous, competitive stipends as well as additional funding for professional development. The first Notebaert Fellows entered the departments of history, computer science and engineering, English, theology, and aerospace and mechanical engineering.
Sources and Acknowledgements:
- Academic Development, University of Notre Dame, Past, Present, and Future, Philip S. Moore, C.S.C. (1960)
- The Graduate School at Notre Dame: A Historical Perspective, Dana Heupel (1992)
- University of Notre Dame: A Contemporary Portrait, Robert Schmuhl (1986)
- University of Notre Dame Archives, with special thanks to Charles Lamb, Assistant Director
- The Dante Collection, Department of Special Collections, University of Notre Dame
Maintaining and even deepening our fidelity to our Catholic mission, we must excel in training the minds of our students, cultivating the convictions of their hearts, and seeking preeminence as a research university. Only in this way can we be the unifying, healing, enlightening place we are called to be, and fulfill the hopes so many have for this University.
— Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C.,
President of the University of Notre Dame
Address to the Faculty, September 26, 2006
