As a Catholic university, one of [Notre Dame's] distinctive goals is to provide a forum where, through free inquiry and open discussion, the various lines of Catholic thought may intersect with all the forms of knowledge found in the arts, sciences, professions, and every other area of human scholarship and creativity.

    —From Notre Dame's Mission Statement

Research and graduate education have an inextricable connection to one another. Both professor and student benefit from working together, the former by mentoring a new colleague who can provide not only assistance but also a fresh perspective, and the latter by learning how one contributes to the body of knowledge in a particular field.

Notre Dame fosters an outstanding environment for this type of collaboration, as our faculty are among the best at what they do.

Indicators of their excellence are numerous, ranging from an impressive fellowship record in the liberal arts to partnerships such as the Notre Dame Deloitte Center for Ethical Leadership and the Joint Institute for Nuclear Astrophysics. These faculty in turn bring their considerable expertise to the graduate programs administered by the School of Architecture, the Mendoza College of Business, the Graduate School, and the Law School, allowing the University to offer approximately 30 doctoral and 60 master’s degrees as well as the J.D.

Building on our commitment to support scholarship at the most advanced levels, recent University initiatives—highlighted by the Strategic Research Investments and the Notebaert Premier Fellowships for graduate students—promise to raise the bar even higher with regard to research and graduate education. This is a fitting trajectory for an institution founded on the premise that it would someday be “one of the most powerful means for doing good in this country.”

Indeed, those words, spoken by Rev. Edward Sorin, C.S.C., when Notre Dame was little more than an idea, continue to drive our research agenda some 170 years later.