Research
As an academic discipline, the study of history is rooted in researching the past, and the history faculty at Notre Dame encourage our majors to pursue the research opportunities available to undergraduate students. Some of the options include:
- Departmental Seminars, which focus on a specific topic in history and allow students to do research with the advice of the faculty member during a single semester.
- The History Honors Program, which is built around independent research and the writing of a year-long senior honors thesis.
- History majors with a 3.7 cumulative GPA may apply to the Honors Program in the fall of their junior year.
- Students wishing to take part should identify an area of interest and start developing a research question in their junior year; they should also initiate conversations with faculty members who could guide their research and identify one who is willing to serve as the director of their thesis.
- In some cases, students may work one-on-one with a history faculty member on a particular research project, whether as an assistant on the faculty member’s work or under faculty supervision on their own research topic.
Funding
In order to facilitate undergraduate research, students are encouraged to apply for funding from the following units (and others) to allow them to travel to an archive, visit a museum, attend a conference, or purchase texts.
- Liu Institute for Asia and Asian Studies
- Flatley Center for Undergraduate Scholarly Engagement
- Franco Family Institute for Liberal Arts and the Public Good undergraduate funding opportunities
- Kellogg Institute for International Studies
- Nanovic Institute for European Studies
In addition, the Department of History's McAvoy Fund is dedicated exclusively to research projects undertaken by undergraduate history majors. Students writing senior theses or doing primary research in departmental seminars may be particularly interested, but any major conducting historical research under the supervision of a faculty member may apply.
Contact the Director of Undergraduate Studies, Professor Lisa Lillie (llillie@nd.edu), to learn more.