Academics

“Every Catholic University, as a university, is an academic community which, in a rigorous and critical fashion, assists in the protection and advancement of human dignity… It possesses that institutional autonomy necessary to perform its functions and guarantees its members academic freedom, so long as the rights of the individual person and of the community are preserved within the confines of the truth and the common good.”

-Saint John Paul II, Ex Corde Ecclesiae (1990)

Potenziani Minor in Constitutional Studies

Launched in 2012, our undergraduate minor educates Notre Dame students in the enduring principles of constitutional government and ideas and institutions of a free society. The minor seeks to cultivate thoughtful and virtuous citizens, thereby contributing to the University’s mission to pursue truth and to nurture a concern for the common good that will bear fruit as learning becomes service to justice.

Graduate Education

The Center supports Notre Dame Ph.D. students with a focus on constitutional studies with fellowships, research sponsorship, and faculty mentorship.