Fellowship Record

The ongoing scholarship of the College’s faculty has a strong record of attracting research funding from private foundations, corporations, and the federal government. Over the past decade, the number of faculty who have received major national fellowships in the arts, humanities, and social sciences places us among the top six universities in the nation. Our faculty has also had record success with the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Fellowships Awarded by the
National Endowment for the Humanities

1999–2012

  1. Notre Dame – 46
  2. Michigan – 36
  3. Harvard – 28
  4. Princeton – 23
  5. UC Berkeley – 21


Fellowships Awarded to Liberal Arts Faculty at
Top 25 National Research Universities

1999–2011

  1. Princeton University – 171
  2. Harvard University – 163
  3. University of Michigan – 160
  4. University of California, Berkeley – 149
  5. University of Chicago – 146
  6. University of Notre Dame – 128
  7. Columbia University – 127
  8. Northwestern University – 112
  9. University of Pennsylvania – 107
  10. Yale University – 97
  11. Stanford University – 94
  12. Brown University – 92
  13. Duke University – 91
  14. University of Virginia – 86
  15. Georgetown University – 81
  16. Cornell University – 78
  17. Vanderbilt University – 64
  18. Emory University – 63
  19. Washington University in St. Louis – 62
  20. Johns Hopkins University – 55
  21. Dartmouth University – 52
  22. Massachusetts Institute of Technology – 42
  23. Rice University – 38
  24. Carnegie Mellon University – 19
  25. California Institute of Technology – 12


Note: 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 has not until recently made its fellowship lists public. Including those numbers could change the rankings slightly.


Research in the Humanities

Notre Dame Fellowships


Arts and Letters News

  • History Major Explores Work of Missionaries in Colonial Peru

    It is widely known that Spanish missionaries played a significant role in introducing Catholicism to the peoples of the Andes throughout the colonial period. Notre Dame senior history major Joseph VanderZee traveled to archives in Lima and Rome to dig a little deeper and find out what these early missionaries thought of the indigenous population—and how their attitudes affected the development of the Peruvian Church. Read More >

  • Theologian Gary Anderson Elected to American Academy of Jewish Research

    Gary Anderson, Hesburgh Professor of Catholic Theology at the University of Notre Dame, has been named a fellow of the American Academy of Jewish Research (AAJR). The AAJR is the oldest organization of Judaic scholars in North America, and fellows are nominated and elected by their peers. The group has approximately 100 members in the United States—and Anderson is one of a select few who are not Jewish. Read More >

  • Solving a Fascinating Puzzle

    Robert Goulding, an associate professor in the University of Notre Dame’s Program of Liberal Studies, was recently awarded a grant from the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) to support a research project that combines mathematics, philosophy, and Renaissance science. Goulding, who also teaches in the History and Philosophy of Science graduate program, says his work focuses on English scientist and mathematician Thomas Harriot (1560–1621), whom he calls “a really unusual figure” in intellectual history. Read More >

  • Microfinance Yields Mixed Results in Thailand, Economist Joseph Kaboski Finds

    Large-scale microfinance programs are widely used as a tool to fight poverty in developing countries, but a recent study by University of Notre Dame economist Joseph Kaboski and MIT colleague Robert Townsend suggests that microfinancing can have varying results for participants and may not be the most cost-effective use of funds for many situations. The study was published in a recent issue of Econometrica. Kaboski and Townsend used the Thai Million Baht Village Fund, one of the largest government microfinance initiatives of its kind, to evaluate and understand the benefits and disadvantages of microfinance interventions. Read More >