University of Notre Dame
Catholic university located in Notre Dame, Indiana, United States
The University of Notre Dame du Lac (known simply as Notre Dame; NOH-tər-DAYM; ND) is a private Catholic research university in Notre Dame, Indiana, United States. The university was founded in 1842 by members of the Congregation of Holy Cross, a Catholic religious order of priests and brothers. Its main campus covers 1,261 acres (510 ha) in a suburban setting and has landmarks such as the Golden Dome main building, Sacred Heart Basilica, the Grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes, the Word of Life mosaic mural, and Notre Dame Stadium.
Notre Dame is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research spending and doctorate production". In the 2025–2026 academic year 13,042 students attended Notre Dame, making it the eighth largest Catholic university in terms of enrollment in the U.S. The university is organized into seven schools and colleges: College of Arts and Letters, College of Science, Notre Dame Law School, School of Architecture, College of Engineering, Mendoza College of Business, and Keough School of Global Affairs. Notre Dame's graduate program includes more than 50 master, doctoral and professional degrees offered by the seven schools.
The university's athletic teams are members of the NCAA Division I and are known collectively as the Fighting Irish. Notre Dame is noted for its football team, which contributed to its rise to prominence on the national stage in the early 20th century. Notre Dame teams in other sports, chiefly in the Atlantic Coast Conference, have won 17 national championships.
Between 1952 and 1987, Theodore Hesburgh's administration increased the university's resources and improved its academic programs and its reputation.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “University of Notre Dame” is catholic university located in Notre Dame, Indiana, United States. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through University, Notre and Dame, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “catholic university located in Notre Dame, Indiana, United States” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 26, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q178848. VIAF identifies the subject as 287201760. The Library of Congress control number is n79022791. Authority coordinates are 41.700, -86.239. 4 of 6 selected statements include explicit references; 3 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1842, 2025, 2026 and 1952.
Institutional narratives can privilege the records that survived while minimizing voices that were never formally collected. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.
- Event chronology
- Institutional context
- Locating named record creators
Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “University of Notre Dame”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow University of Notre Dame primary sources, University of Notre Dame archive and University research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “University of Notre Dame”?
- Who created the surviving record, and for what administrative purpose?
- Which voices are present, absent or mediated by the institution?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “University of Notre Dame” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.