Distinctive Features
The Notre Dame community looks forward to building upon a number of the University’s unique features that have been noted nationally in recent years.
USA Today
USA Today named Notre Dame of Maryland among the 10 groundbreaking colleges that paved the way for women’s higher education in the United States. Notre Dame was the first Catholic college for women to award the baccalaureate degree in the United States.
US News & World Report Rankings
Notre Dame of Maryland was named among “Great Schools, Great Prices,” by U.S. News & World Report. It is ranked 29 overall among Best Regional Universities – North, recognized particularly for its low faculty-to-student ratio, with 85 percent of classes containing fewer than 20 students.
Learning for Life
Based on their scores as incoming students and again as seniors, Notre Dame students showed more improved critical, analytical and communication skills after three years in college than 92 percent of those surveyed among the 500 institutions nationwide participating in the College Learning Assessment (CLA).
The Fulbright Program
Notre Dame was recently listed by the Institute for International Education, which administers the Fulbright program, among the U.S. colleges and universities that produced the most Fulbright students for the 2009-2010 academic year. Since 1991, 12 Notre Dame alumnae have been named as Fulbright scholars.
Service Learning
Notre Dame was featured in a 2010 segment of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. The University assembled teams of volunteers to build a home for the girl scholars of Boys Hope Girls Hope, who were then awarded full scholarships by the University.
Every year, Notre Dame faculty and alumnae are counted among Baltimore’s Healthcare Heroes for their commitment and innovation in community health. In May 2011, four faculty members from the School of Arts and Sciences, School of Pharmacy and School of Nursing were feted for their work in service learning, global nursing and traumatic brain injury treatment.
Notable graduates
Notre Dame alums can be found in nearly every professional field. They include a pioneering microbiologist and nationally and internationally recognized medical doctors and researchers; award-winning educators, including a college president and the head of a major medical school; military leaders, including the first female Brigadier General in the U.S.; communication experts, including newspaper editors, a group vice president of Discovery and TLC networks, and the first female announcer for major league baseball; legal experts, including a federal judge and the first Hispanic judge elected to a Circuit Court in Baltimore; two NASA engineers; and noted business executives throughout the corporate world.
Top 100 Women
More than 27 alumnae have been named to The Daily Record “Maryland Top 100 Women” since its inception in 1996—in addition to our current president, a past president, three faculty, five current board members and six past board members. Notre Dame’s current president, the current chair of the board, and 6 current and past board members are members of the “Circle of Excellence,” each having been named to the Top 100 three times.