Faith & Service
Service in the Catholic Tradition
Faith without works is dead. James 2:26
A hallmark of the Catholic faith tradition is a concern for the common good borne out in service to others. Notre Dame students, faculty and staff alike find a wealth of opportunities to embrace this philosophy as a way of life.
- Notre Dame's Social Concerns Seminars, in which undergraduates spend fall and spring breaks offering assistance in Appalachia, on migrant farms and elsewhere, constitute the most comprehensive service-learning program in higher education.
- The University's Alliance for Catholic Education (ACE) annually sends nearly 200 recent graduates to teach in some 100 understaffed Catholic schools in the southern, southeastern and southwestern United States and in South Bend. A national model, ACE has received the Higher Education Award from the Corporation for National Service for leadership in using national service resources through AmeriCorps.
- Accountancy students annually prepare nearly 3,800 tax forms for area residents as a part of Notre Dame's 38-year-old Tax Assistance Program.
- The Gigot Center for Entrepreneurial Studies in the Mendoza College of Business each year hosts an annual Social Venture Plan Competition (SVPC) where participants submit a business plan with a social mission/purpose. Judges for the competition include social entrepreneurs and other business professionals.
- GALILEE, an acronym for Group Alternative Live-In Legal Education, gives Notre Dame law students an opportunity to learn about public interest law through student-designed urban immersion programs over Christmas break.
- More than 5,000 Notre Dame undergraduates have spent part of their winter breaks participating in the Urban Plunge, a Center for Social Concerns program in which students devote 48 hours to studying and experiencing the poverty, injustice and apathy in America's inner cities.
- Notre Dame's association with the Peace Corps goes back to the agency's founding in 1961, when the very first volunteers were trained on campus. Since then, 800 Notre Dame graduates have entered the Peace Corps -- more than from any other Catholic college or university.
Faith and Service
Related Links
Summer Service Learning
Notre Dame's Summer Service Learning Program has provided more than 3,800 scholarships since 1980 to undergraduate students who serve for eight weeks in communities of ND alumni clubs. Visit the CSC >
Alliance for Catholic Education
The University's Alliance for Catholic Education (ACE) annually sends nearly 200 recent graduates to teach in some 100 understaffed Catholic schools in the Southern, Southeastern and Southwestern United States and in South Bend. A national model, ACE has received the Higher Education Award from the Corporation for National Service for leadership in using national service resources through AmeriCorps. Visit ACE >
