NOTRE DAME, UNIVERSITY OF

private institution of higher learning in Notre Dame, near South Bend, Indiana, affiliated with the Roman Catholic church. Formerly a men's university, it became coeducational in 1972. The university was founded in 1842 by the Congregation of the Holy Cross, a French religious community led by Father Edward Sorin (president from 1842 to 1865). It included a men's college, an elementary school, a college-preparatory school, a vocational (manual labour) school, and a novitiate. A sister school for women, St. Mary's Academy (later St. Mary's College), was opened in 1843. The university added science, law, and engineering departments, an academic press, and a library in the 1860s and '70s. In the 1920s the secondary school was discontinued, and the university was reorganized into colleges of arts and letters, science, engineering, and business administration. The university also has a graduate school and a law school. It was in the 1920s that Notre Dame's reputation in intercollegiate gridiron football was first built under a famous coach, Knute Rockne. Under the presidency (195287) of the Reverend Theodore M. Hesburgh, undergraduate and graduate programs were strengthened.