STRATEGIC FRAMEWORK
Investment: $4,300,000
Less than a month after arriving in the Northern Indiana wilderness in November of 1842, Fr. Sorin boldly wrote to Fr. Moreau, “This college cannot fail to succeed. Before long, it will develop on a large scale. It will be one of the most powerful means for good in this country.” Through epidemics, world wars, pandemics, and civil strife, Notre Dame has not only held true to this founding vision but expanded upon it as we aspire to be a “healing, unifying, and enlightening force for a world deeply in need” in the words of Fr. John Jenkins.
With the completion of Notre Dame’s strategic framework this fall, Fr. John has allocated $4,300,000 to provide seed funding for the framework’s core tenets, particularly around poverty, ethics, and democracy. New initiatives are already being launched with key activities. The Ethics Initiative directs the Zahm retreat, which invites faculty from across campus to think and pray together on how Catholic social teaching can inform our teaching and research in the 21st century. In his affiliation with the Poverty Initiative, Keough-Hesburgh Professor of Economics Bill Evans is leading a multidisciplinary effort to explore – and counteract – how economic, demographic, and technological forces of modern society are impacting how individuals and families live, work, and worship. As St. John Paul II declared, "as the family goes, so goes the nation and whole world in which we live."
The leadership and generosity of our Cavanaugh Council and President’s Circle members provide Notre Dame with the resources to seize this moment and become a greater force for good.
POVERTY
Driven by a moral imperative to put the needs of the disadvantaged first, Notre Dame is well positioned to reshape the study of poverty to promote more dignity-affirming approaches to poverty alleviation.The Poverty Initiative is a campus-wide project, supported by major academic units that focus on poverty-related activities including the Wilson Sheehan Lab for Economic Opportunities (LEO) and the Pulte Institute for Global Development through research, formation, and engagement.
ETHICS
Notre Dame is the only major research university that seriously understands and integrates religious, spiritual, and dignity-centered dimensions into ethical debates, essential to addressing complex ethical questions and shaping the public’s moral imagination and conviction. Accordingly, the newly founded Institute for Ethics and the Common Good will energize the Notre Dame Ethics Initiative’s objectives to form students with a strong ethical framework informed by Catholic Social Teaching.
DEMOCRACY
Notre Dame is uniquely situated to transcend the polarization that divides humanity and speak credibly on issues of democracy, truth, and human dignity. While Notre Dame has long been a leader in the study of democracy in Latin America, the global challenge to democracy is an opportunity for the University to become the leader for the study of democracy worldwide. The Rooney Center for the Study of American Democracy and Kellogg Institute for International Studies are leading this Initiative.