In fact, the early Notre Dame was a university in name only. It encompassed religious novitiates, preparatory and grade schools and a manual labor school, but its classical collegiate curriculum never attracted more than a dozen students a year in the early decades. Notre Dame faculty members have won 20 fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities in the past six years, more than for any other research university in the nation. In recent years, the University also has the most in the nation of recipients of fellowships from the American Council of Learned Societies. Faculty have been elected to membership in such prestigious organizations as the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Society of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the American Law Institute.Research awards to Notre Dame have more than doubled in the last five years to more than $80 million in fiscal year 2005.
More than 70 percent of the funding came from the federal government, for research, facilities and equipment, and educational and service programs. About 70 percent of the teaching and research faculty in science and engineering are principal investigators on sponsored research projects. Research expenditures have also doubled in recent years, from $30.4 million in 1999 to more than $68 million in 2005. Awards from industry also have increased significantly, from an average of less than $2 million per year over the last five years to more than $7 million in 2005.Notre Dame is one of a handful of truly international universities, with a student body drawn from all 50 states and 100 countries. About 80 percent of the undergraduates and 21 percent of advanced students live on campus, and some 80 percent are active in service learning and community volunteer activities. There are no social fraternities or sororities at Notre Dame--the residence hall is the focus of social, religious, and intramural athletic activities.
