Inside Notre Dame’s College of Arts and Letters

Committed to ScholarshipFaculty research is rooted most firmly within the 21 departments of the College of Arts and Letters, but such scholarship also drives a number of campus research centers and institutes, including these recent additions.

The Notre Dame Institute for Advanced

Study—scheduled to open this fall under

the direction of Vittorio Hösle, Paul G.

Kimball Professor of Arts and Letters and

one of the world’s most distinguished

philosophers—will offer faculty and

graduate fellowships tenable for up to a

full academic year. Welcoming proposals

from any field, it will support inquiries

grounded in a specific discipline that

engage the world’s greatest questions.

Funding for the institute and several other

projects is drawn from $80 million the

University has allocated for two phases of

faculty research initiatives.

Founded in 2004, the Center for the

Study of Religion and Society combines

cultural analysis with large-scale survey

research. The John Templeton Foundation

has awarded Director Christian Smith

(sociology) a $5 million grant for the

“Science of Generosity,” a multiyear

project that began in January 2009. Since

its inception, the center has received more

than $10 million in external funding.

David Campbell (political science) directs

the Rooney Center for the Study of

American Democracy, established last

year with a $10 million gift to Notre Dame.

The resulting endowment will be used for

a variety of purposes, from filling multiple

faculty positions to hosting conferences

and prominent visitors and speakers.

Distinguished FacultyWhether they are among the most well-respected senior scholars in their fields or early in their careers, Arts and Letters faculty contribute to that collective dialogue that moves knowledge forward. In the process, they regularly earn the recognition of their peers, leading to distinctions such as those detailed here.

Gerald Bruns (English) was elected a

fellow of the American Academy of Arts

and Sciences, making him one of 13 in

Arts and Letters. In addition, Thomas

Stapleford (Program of Liberal Studies)

was selected for the academy’s Visiting

Scholars Program.

Over the three-year period ending in 2008,

Notre Dame’s Department of History won

more research fellowships (six) from the

American Council of Learned Societies than

any other history department in the country.

Recipients were Gail Bederman, Olivia Remie

Constable, Alex Martin, Margaret Meserve,

Linda Przybyszewski, and John Van Engen.

Cambridge University Press published a

book of essays devoted to the work of Alvin

Plantinga (philosophy) in its “Contemporary

Philosophy in Focus” series, which to

date includes introductory volumes on

15“dominant philosophical thinkers of

the current age.” Plantinga is the second

member of Notre Dame’s Department of

Philosophy to be featured in the series,

joining colleague Alasdair MacIntyre.

These scholars are among those who have decided to join Notre Dame’s faculty in the past year.

After adding three assistant professors last fall, Notre Dame’s Department of Psychology now has one of the country’s largest quantitative faculties housed entirely within a psychology department.

Christian Davenport,

Professor of Political Science

and Peace Studies

(from University of Maryland)

Davenport’s primary research

interests include political

conflict, measurement, and

racism. The recipient of six

grants from the National

Science Foundation and

a J. William Fulbright

Foreign Scholarship grant,

he is spending 2008–09 as

a residential fellow at the

Center for Advanced Study

in the Behavioral Sciences at

Stanford University.

Margot Fassler,

Keough-Hesburgh Professor

of Music History and Liturgy

(from Yale University)

A fellow of the American

Academy of Arts and Sciences,

Fassler specializes in the liturgy

of the Latin Middle Ages and

sacred music, serving for more

than 10 years as the director

of the Yale Institute of Sacred

Music. She was named a

2008–09 Henry Luce III Fellow

in Theology and is currently

in residence at the Center

of Theological Inquiry in

Princeton, N.J.

Felipe Fernández-Armesto,

William P. Reynolds Professor

of History

(from Tufts University)

Fernández-Armesto is

the author of Millennium,

Civilizations, and The Americas, each a foundational

volume for global history, and

his work has been translated

into 25 languages. A frequent

contributor to Spanish and

British media, including The Times Literary Supplement, he won the 2007 World

History Association Book

Prize for Pathfinders.y

Peter Jeffery, Michael P. Grace

Professor of Medieval Studies

(from Princeton University)

Jeffery, whose research focuses

on medieval chant and the

history of liturgical music,

has received a MacArthur

Foundation “Genius Award”

and a fellowship from the John

Simon Guggenheim Memorial

Foundation, among other

honors. He joined Princeton’s

faculty in 1993 and is a visitor

at the nearby Institute for

Advanced Study during the

2008–09 academic year.

Distinctive Research and Resources

In just under a decade, faculty in the College of Arts and Letters have won 107 fellowships from agencies whose award decisions are tracked by the National Research Council. Included in Notre Dame’s total are 37 National Endowment for the Humanities fellowships, the most awarded to any university faculty in the country from 1999–2008; the eight received in 2007–08 represents the best year for any school during this time.

From July 2003 through June 2008,

psychology faculty won 90 external

research awards as principal investigators,

meeting with success on more than 50

percent of their proposals and receiving

$24.5 million in funding.

With Shakespeare at Notre Dame,

the University is building a national and

international reputation in Shakespeare

studies. The program consists of elements

such as the touring theatre company

Actors From The London Stage and the

McMeel Family Chair in Shakespeare

Studies, held by world-renowned scholar

Peter Holland (theatre).

Notre Dame features two of the country’s

premier university arts venues: the Snite

Museum of Art—home to more than

24,000 pieces—and the Marie P. DeBartolo

Center for the Performing Arts, which will

celebrate its fifth anniversary this fall.

Fellowships Awarded to Liberal Arts Faculty at U.S. News Top 25 National Research

Universities, 1999–2008

All fellowship numbers are taken from the fellowship lists provided by the funding agencies. Fellowship granting agencies are those used by the National Research Council in its rankings for the humanities. The Top 25 national research universities are from the U.S. News rankings (September 2003). The statistics include only faculty (rather than dissertation or pre-doctoral) fellowships. They also include only fellowships given to faculty in departments equivalent to those in Notre Dame’s College of Arts and Letters (humanities, arts, and social sciences). Fellowships awarded to scientists and engineers were excluded for the purpose of comparing Notre Dame’s College of Arts and Letters to other universities. The Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford does not make its fellowship lists public. Including those numbers could change the rankings slightly.

1 Notre Dame 372 Michigan 27

3 Harvard 23

4 Princeton 18

5 Virginia 16

National Endowment for theHumanities Fellowships

1 Princeton 126

2 California, Berkeley 123

3 Michigan 122

4 Harvard 120

5 Chicago 111

6 Notre Dame 1077 Columbia 95

8 Northwestern 85

9 Pennsylvania 79

10 Duke 74

11 Brown 71

12 Yale 71

13 Stanford 70

14 Virginia 68

15 Georgetown 67

16 Cornell 66

17 Emory 46

18 Dartmouth 45

19 Vanderbilt 45

20 Washington (St. Louis) 44

21 Johns Hopkins 39

22 MIT 39

23 Rice 32

24 Carnegie Mellon 17

25 Cal Tech 11

A growing investment in doctoral programs, both by the College of Arts and Letters and the University, is matched by the caliber of students choosing Notre Dame for graduate studies.

All students admitted into a doctoral program in

the Colleges of Arts and Letters, Engineering, and

Science are considered for a Richard and Peggy

Notebaert Premier Fellowship. For up to six

years, fellows receive full tuition, health insurance,

and a stipend that is among the most generous in

the country.

Notre Dame now offers a Ph.D. in peace studies.

One of the few of its kind in the world, the new

program was developed by the Kroc Institute for

International Peace Studies in partnership with

the Departments of History, Political Science,

Psychology, and Sociology.

Advances in Graduate Studies

Edward Sorin Postdoctoral

Fellowships allow select Ph.D.

recipients from Arts and Letters to

stay at Notre Dame after graduation

to further their research and gain

additional teaching experience.

Arts and Letters graduate students

continue to distinguish themselves

by securing external awards. Two

highlights from the past year are a

Charlotte W. Newcombe Doctoral

Dissertation Fellowship (Woodrow

Wilson National Fellowship

Foundation) and a Miller Center

Fellowship in American Politics,

Foreign Policy, and World Politics

(University of Virginia).

Of our recent graduate placements, those at the institutions listed here are among the most

notable: Ateneo de Manila University, Boston College, Fordham University, Harvard Divinity

School, College of the Holy Cross, University of Kansas, University of Miami, Ohio State

University, University of Oxford (five-year teaching fellowship), Pepperdine University, University

of Pittsburgh (postdoctoral fellowship), Princeton University (postdoctoral fellowship), Teachers

College (Columbia University), University of Texas at Arlington, Tulane University, Vanderbilt

University (postdoctoral fellowship), and Yale University (postdoctoral fellowship).

Note: Positions are tenure-track except where indicated.

The College offers grants and fellowships to students

through the Undergraduate Research Opportunity

Program (UROP). During 2007–08, UROP made 108

awards totaling nearly $190,000 to undergraduates from

all three divisions of Arts and Letters. Funded projects

ranged from a study of food and water scarcity in Egypt

to an examination of Italian comedic cinema.

Many undergraduates also receive research funding

from other campus sources, such as the Institute for

Latino Studies, the Kellogg Institute for International

Studies, and the Nanovic Institute for European Studies.

At Notre Dame, pursuing a liberal arts major immerses undergraduates in a nurturing yet challenging environment, one where they’re empowered to put an individual stamp on their education.

Undergraduate E xcel lence

In the last five years, industrial design

students have won four International

Design Excellence Awards (IDEA)

in a competition cosponsored by

BusinessWeek magazine and the

Industrial Designers Society of America.

This total places Notre Dame among

the Top 5 winners since 2004 in the

“schools” category, along with Art

Center College of Design, California

College of the Arts, Hongik University,

and Seoul National University.

Seven Arts and Letters students

have been selected to participate

in the Intercollegiate Studies

Institute Honors Program in the past

three years. The program annually

recognizes “50 of the nation’s most

promising undergraduates.”

The Department of Anthropology has

added a field study option to its signature

Smithsonian summer internship, still the

only internship at the National Museum

of Natural History offered exclusively to

the students of one university.

Notre Dame’s first Undergraduate Scholars Conference, held in May 2008, featured the original research of more than 200 students from across the University.

Notre Dame’s Catholicism provides an intellectual framework that allows Arts and Letters to be a leading center of scholarship in many areas outside theology. These fields range from Dante studies to the psychology of children and families and help animate entire programs as well as special events.

An Intel lec tual Tradition

Together with the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for

Culture and Pontifical Gregorian University, Notre

Dame’s Reilly Center for Science, Technology,

and Values is sponsoring “Project Evolution,”

a lineup of conferences and workshops that

underscores the compatibility of Catholicism

and evolutionary theory while facilitating

dialogue between scientists, philosophers, and

theologians. “Darwin at Notre Dame” is a series

of on-campus conversations that, like “Project

Evolution,” marks the 150th anniversary of On the Origin of Species.

The newly established Tocqueville

Program for Inquiry Into Religion

and American Public Life, directed

by Michael Zuckert (political science),

held an inaugural conference to

explore competing conceptions of

religious freedom.

Notre Dame’s Medieval Institute—

directed by Olivia Remie Constable

(history), who was just elected a

fellow of the Medieval Academy of

America—houses the largest group

of medievalists at any North American

university. The institute recently

welcomed the Société Internationale

pour l’Étude de la Philosophie

Médiévale for a conference organized

by Kent Emery, Jr., (Program of

Liberal Studies) marking the society’s

50th anniversary.

Graduate students from nine universities

came to Notre Dame in October

2008 for a conference focused on the

varied ways people have defined “the

common good.” Sponsored by the

University’s Graduate School, Kellogg

Institute for International Studies, and

Nanovic Institute for European Studies,

the event gave participants a forum

to discuss their research with peers in

multiple disciplines.

Rev. Timothy Scully, C.S.C., (political science) received a Presidential Citizens Medal—the second highest distinction the president can confer upon a civilian—at the Oval Office in December. Director of the University’s Institute for Educational Initiatives, Scully was honored for developing “innovative ways to support under-resourced schools.”

Inherent to the success of a genuinely Catholic college or university is its ability to serve as a means for scholars and students with diverse ideas, perspectives, and interests to engage each other and the rest of the world.

Notre Dame is consistently a leader

among U.S. News’ Top 25 national

universities in the percentage of

undergraduates who study abroad.

With approximately 40 international

study programs in more than 20

countries, the University is currently

second in this group according to

data compiled by the Institute of

International Education.

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E xplor ing Worldv iews

Opened in January, the Center for the

Study of Languages and Cultures

is an innovative facility with space,

technology, and programming that

promote advanced foreign language

and cultural competency. The center

provides students opportunities for

informal and structured practice,

interaction, and communication.

Undergraduates now have 14 options for

foreign language study with the launch

last fall of a Korean program in the

Department of East Asian Languages

and Cultures. In addition, several

campus sources offer grants that support

the summer study of languages not

taught at Notre Dame.

The Department of Romance Languages

and Literatures has created a graduate

student exchange program with

l’Université de Rennes 2 Haute Bretagne,

western France’s most important research

center and higher education community

for the humanities and social sciences.

Dianne Pinderhughes (Africana studies and political science), the 2007–08 president of the American Political Science Association, is one of four principal investigators for the Gender and Multi-Cultural Leadership Project. Funded by the Ford Foundation, the project studies African-American, American Indian, Asian-American, and Latino/a elected officials.

Notre Dame at a Glance Founded in 1842 Undergraduate

acceptance rate in

2008 of 26.7%

Total 2008–09 enrollment

of approximately 11,700

from all 50 states and

nearly 90 other countries

97.7% retention of

first-year students

(four-year average)

1,250-acre campus

President Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C.

Provost Thomas G. Burish

University of Notre Dame Academic Leadership

College of Arts and Letters John T. McGreevy

Mendoza College of Business Carolyn Y. Woo

College of Engineering Peter K. Kilpatrick

Deans

College of Science Gregory P. Crawford

School of Architecture Michael N. Lykoudis

Law School Patricia A. O’Hara

Graduate School Gregory E. Sterling

First Year of Studies (The Rev.) Hugh R. Page

Notre Dame, Indiana 46556

574.631.5000

www.nd.edu