University of Notre Dame

The   Catholic research university located near South Bend, Indiana, in the United  "Our Lady of the Lake" and refers to the university's patron saint, the Virgin Mary.

The school was founded by Father Edward  who was also its first president. Today, many Holy Cross priests continue to work for the university, including as its president. It was established as an all-male institution on November 26, 1842, on land donated by the Bishop o

. The university first enrolled women undergraduates in 1972. As of 2013 about 48 percent of the student body Dame's Catholic character is reflected in its explicit commitment to the Catholic faith, numerous ministries funded by the school, and the architecture around campus. The university is consistently ranked one of the top universities in the United States and as a major global university.

The undergraduate component of the university is organized into four colleges and one professional school, and its graduate program 26 doctoral deg of the university's 8,000 undergraduates live on campus in one of 29 single-sex residence halls, each of which fields teams for more than a dozen intramural sports, and the university counts approximately 120,000 alumni.

The university is globally recognized for i School of Architecture, a faculty that traditional and classical architecture anciples of wards the renowned annual  Architecture Prize.

The university's athletic teams are members of the NCAA Division I and are known collectively as the Fighting Irish. The football team, an Independent, has accumulated eleven consensus national championships, seven Heisman Trophy winners, and 62 members in the College Football Hall of Fame. Other ND teams, chiefly in the Atlantic Coast Conference, have accumulated 16 national championships.

The first degrees from the college were awarded in 184 The university was expanded with new buildings to accommodate more students new president, new academic programs were offered and new buildings built to accommodate them. The original Main Building e arrived was replaced by a larger "Main Building" in 1865, which housed the university's administration, classrooms, and dormitories. Beginning in 1873, a library collection was so ten thousand volumes that were housed in the Main Building.

The current Main Building, built in 1879.

This Main Building, and the library collection, was destroyed by a fire in April 1879, and rebuilt before the next school year.The library collection was also 

rebuilt and stayed housed in the new Main Building for years afterwards.Around the time of the fire, a Music Hall was opened. Eventually becoming known as Washington Hall, it hosted plays and musical acts put on by the school.

 By 1880, a science program was established at the university, and a Science Hall was built in 1883. The hall housed multiple classrooms and science labs needed for early research at the 1890, individual residence halls were built to house the increasing number of students.William (1846–1919) was dean of the law school 1883-1919, and when its new b

as opened shortly after his death it was renamed in his honor

e Holy Cross Provincial for the United States (1896–1906), with overall supervision of the university. Hegreat university, erecting buildings and added to the campus art gallery and library, and amassing what became a famous Dante collection. His term was not renewed because of fears and had run the Holy Cross order into serious debt