President Emeritus Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C.

Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C. portrait

Elected in 2005 as the University of Notre Dame’s 17th president, Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C., served four terms on behalf of the Board of Trustees, stepping down in 2024 after 19 years of exemplary leadership and growth.

As president, he devoted himself to fostering the University’s unique place in academia, the Church, the United States, and the world. At his inauguration, Father Jenkins said Notre Dame holds a special responsibility to address the most complex issues facing our society.

“Let us rise up and embrace the mission for our time: to build a Notre Dame that is bigger and better than ever—a great Catholic university for the 21st century, one of the preeminent research institutions in the world, a center for learning whose intellectual and religious traditions converge to make it a healing, unifying, enlightening force for a world deeply in need,” he said. “This is our goal. Let no one ever again say that we dreamed too small.”

Father Jenkins has been committed to combining teaching and research excellence with a cultivation of the deeper purposes of Catholic higher education. While pursuing academic distinction, he brought renewed emphasis to Notre Dame’s distinctive mission, rooted in the tradition of the Congregation of Holy Cross, the University’s founding community, to educate the whole person—mind, body, and spirit—to do good in the world.

These commitments are manifest in the University’s dedication to excellence in undergraduate education in the classroom and beyond, while simultaneously building a reputation as a preeminent global research institution—all in the context of Notre Dame’s Catholic identity.

“There are no universities that have done what Notre Dame aspires to do: to become a preeminent research University, to offer an unsurpassed undergraduate program, and to infuse both with a religious and moral framework that imbues knowledge with the power to benefit human beings,” Father Jenkins said.

In 2023, under Father Jenkins’ leadership, the University was invited to join the Association of American Universities, a consortium of the nation’s leading public and private research universities, making it the only religiously affiliated university in the nation to be so honored. In 2022, the University attracted more than $281 million in external research funding becoming one of the fastest-growing research universities in the country.

The University provides more than $200 million in aid for undergraduates, a number which has doubled in Jenkins' tenure, with 60% of all students receiving aid. This was accomplished in large part through an endowment that grew from nearly $4 billion in 2005 to about $20 billion when Father Jenkins stepped down as president in 2024.

In the two decades of his presidency, the student body grew, while becoming more diverse and increasing in academic caliber. As applications rose, the acceptance rate continued to drop, resulting in an undergraduate student pool with higher average test scores and academic rankings. The number of endowed academic positions nearly doubled.

The University’s campus, its economic reach into the surrounding community, and its imprint around the globe expanded rapidly in these two decades. Father Jenkins oversaw the largest single construction project in school history, the Campus Crossroads Project at Notre Dame Stadium.

"Notre Dame will be one of the preeminent research institutions in the world, a center for learning whose intellectual and religious traditions converge to make it a healing, unifying, enlightening force for a world deeply in need."

- Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C., in 2005 inauguration speech

The University in this period also created a new Arts Gateway at the southern entrance to campus, adding new buildings for architecture, music, and an art museum. Other major projects include a dedicated research building as the first part of a complex that crosses science and engineering, a nanotechnology research center, a new campus hotel and conference center, and a new home for international studies and social sciences (Jenkins Nanovic Halls).

Under Father Jenkins’ leadership, Notre Dame also enhanced the connections between campus and South Bend with the creation of a $300 million mixed-use development south of campus and the building of a larger community center for the Northeast Neighborhood. The University also established the IDEA Center and Innovation Park to support innovation and the commercialization of research by students, staff, and faculty, bringing new businesses to the region.

Over the last decade of Father Jenkins’ presidency, Notre Dame, in partnership with local civic and industry leaders, played a leading role in a regional strategy that secured more than $130 million in grants for economic development activities, leading to unprecedented investments in research facilities, workforce development programs, new transit connections, cultural amenities, and housing in the region.

Across the world, Father Jenkins oversaw the expansion of the University’s imprint with the 2011 creation of Notre Dame International (now Notre Dame Global), founding 11 new facility sites from South America to Asia, and from Ireland to Africa. Notre Dame continues to send a greater percentage of its students abroad than any other top 20 national research university. On campus, Notre Dame created the first new school in nearly a century, the Keough School of Global Affairs, and doubled the number of international students the University welcomes.

Following Pope Francis’s call to care for our common home, Father Jenkins increased Notre Dame’s environmental commitment. He began implementing a comprehensive sustainability strategy to cut the University’s carbon footprint in half by 2030, including a transition from coal to clean energy through ongoing investments in geothermal, solar, and hydroelectric energy, as well as sustainable building practices.

Perhaps the greatest test of Father Jenkins’s leadership came with the COVID pandemic in 2020. After canceling spring classes, Father Jenkins made a bold decision to announce, well before other major universities, that in-person classes would resume in the fall.

A aerial view of Notre Dame stadium at night, show the campus crossroads additions to the staidum.
During Father Jenkins' tenure, 67 new facilities and 3.6 million square feet of additional space were added, including the Campus Crossroads Project, the largest construction project in the University's history.
An aerial view of the Golden Dome on the campus of Notre Dame.
Father Jenkins set the University on a course to cut its carbon footprint in half by 2030, a plan that included ceasing the use of coal as a fuel in 2019.
A girl wearing glasses takes a sample in a science lab
Under Father Jenkins' leadership, the University was admitted to the Association of American Universities, the nation's most prestigious group of leading research institutions.

In a New York Times opinion piece, Father Jenkins said that if virtual-only classes continued, “we would risk failing to provide the next generation of leaders the education they need and to do the research and scholarship so valuable to our society.” Notre Dame introduced a comprehensive plan for cleaning, testing, and quarantining—and managed to stay open despite early struggles, which was considered a boon to students’ mental health.

Within the University and beyond, Father Jenkins has called for civil discourse—grounded in the Christian view of others as equally made in the image of God—as a way for people to find common ground rather than demonize those with different opinions. In a speech at Emory University in 2011, he said, “If we choose to attack our opponents before we have taken the time to understand them, if we prefer denunciations to genuine dialogue, if we seek political victory rather than constructive compromise … we will not be able to find solutions to the problems before us.”

Rev. Jenkins taking a selfie with two students
Rev. John Jenkins, C.S.C., takes a "selfie" with two undergraduate students in 2015.

The Commission on Presidential Debates, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that sponsors and produces all U.S. presidential and vice presidential debates, cited his leadership on this issue in electing Father Jenkins to its board of directors in 2011, a leadership role he continues to hold.

A philosopher trained in theology and a member of Notre Dame’s Department of Philosophy since 1990, Father Jenkins earned undergraduate and advanced degrees from Notre Dame, a doctorate of philosophy from the University of Oxford, and a Master of Divinity and licentiate in sacred theology from the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley.

He is the author of Knowledge and Faith in Thomas Aquinas and scholarly articles published in The Journal of Philosophy, Medieval Philosophy and Theology, and the Journal of Religious Ethics. Father Jenkins is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. A popular teacher, he has taught courses on ancient and medieval philosophy, faith and reason, and Thomas Aquinas.

He has served on the Independent Commission on College Basketball led by Dr. Condoleezza Rice and on the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities board of directors. Father Jenkins has written numerous op-eds that have appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and other prominent publications on a wide range of topics, including the importance of civil discourse, the future of college athletics, and the University’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Serving as president of Notre Dame for me, as a Holy Cross priest, has been both a privilege and a calling,” Father Jenkins said in his announcement that he would step down as president. “While I am proud of the accomplishments of past years, I am above all grateful for the Trustees, benefactors, faculty, staff, students, alumni, and friends who made them possible. There is much to celebrate now, but I believe Notre Dame’s best years lie ahead.”


Father Jenkins Communications Archive

This archive contains homilies, writings, messages, and addresses delivered by Fr. Jenkins throughout the course of his time as president of the University of Notre Dame. Please note this is not a comprehensive list of all statements by Fr. Jenkins, rather a large sampling of keynote addresses, major statements, and messages to the Notre Dame family.

View the Archive