Mission
Department of History Mission Statement
The History department is a community of teachers/scholars united by a common commitment to enhance knowledge of, and understanding of, the human past, to communicate that knowledge to students--undergraduates and graduate students--and to equip those students with both an appreciation for, and facility for a critical appraisal of lives, institutions, and events past and present. It sees these endeavors as an essential part of the mission of any university. With regard to the mission of this University, the Department believes it conforms to and serves that mission as it is outlined in the Colloquy 2000 (approved May 11, 1997). Through its mission statement, the history department shows how it contributes to specific elements of the University's mission and addresses issues of the Catholic character of the University and the Department's role in the academic life of Notre Dame.
The Department contains "the presence and voices of diverse scholars and students" which the Colloquy 2000 describes as "essential to a university" (Colloquy 2000, final report, p. 2). Temporally and geographically, in subject and in method, the sweep of its members' interests and expertise is formidable. The cultural and religious backgrounds of its members vary greatly as well, and it regards diversity both in subjects studied and in the persons studying them as crucial to a "constructive and critical engagement with the whole human culture" (final report, p. 3).
Valuing Diversity, the department also recognizes, values, and seeks to cultivate the unity that is characteristic of a "Catholic academic community", understanding too, that "the Catholic tradition itself is characterized by its breadth and its manifest diversity" (final report, p. 4). That recognition is evident in many dimensions of departmental life. It is evident in the prominence in the scholarship of the faculty as well as through courses it teaches in religious history. Indeed, the Department has long been recognized as a leading center in this field of scholarship, which it has treated as a major focus of departmental specialization since our first graduate review in 1975-76. The same concern also is reflected in courses offered in intellectual history and the history of science--the records of our attempts as humans to come to grips with the mundane and eternal significances of our lives. It is likewise evident in the focus of many members of the Department on places and times in which Catholicism has been particularly important; Europe in the middle ages; modern Poland, France, Ireland and Austria; Latin America and the immigrant experience in America. Finally, it is evident in the concern of many members of the department with what the colloquy refers to as "human solidarity," matters of political participation, and of social and political justice as they are mediated by national, cultural, racial and gender identities. None of these subjects of study is unique to the Catholic academy; yet studied and taught in a Catholic university they may cohere differently and acquire different significances than would be the case elsewhere. We understand that all are contributions of academic leaders in building a society that is "at once more human and more divine" (final report, p. 3).
Recognizing this role of leadership, the Department affirms a commitment "to advance knowledge through an original inquiry and publication" (final report, p. 3) and to recruit, and maintain "a faculty of teacher-scholars who meet standards at least equal to those of the top 25 universities in the pertinent discipline" (final report, p. 8) of history. With an exemplary tradition in teaching as well as in research, the Department particularly stresses the ideal of the single faculty "of the highest possible quality" (final report, p. 7).
Recognizing that "research invigorates teaching and teaching stimulates research" (final report, p. 6) and that "no genuine search for truth in the human or the cosmic order is alien to the life of faith" (final report, p. 3), the department affirms a commitment to that "academic freedom which makes open discussion and inquiry possible" (final report, p. 2).
Finally, recognizing the difficulty of balancing diversity with unity, and of research with teaching, the Department nonetheless conceives that it is essential to its success to maintain those balances. Its affirmative action statement recognizes the special, and indeed, essential contributions that women, minority and Catholic faculty can make in those endeavors.
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