About NDA
Teaching excellence since 1903
For more than a century Notre Dame Academy has provided a focused educational environment, challenging girls and young women to learn to their full capacities - an achievement greater than their times and their societies sometimes thought possible. Notre Dame Academy was founded in 1903 by smart, independent, powerful women, the Sisters of the Congregation of Notre Dame (CNDs). These women refused to accept the stereotypes about what girls could or should learn.
NDA has always provided a complete academic program, including physics and geometry; and has sought to cultivate girls' physical and athletic abilities. NDA students were prepared for college at a time when that was still a radical idea as the norm for young women.
Tomorrow's leaders
The Sisters didn't "finish" girls; they empowered girls. Notre Dame Academy enabled students to identify and unfold their boundless potential and gifts, and positioned them as future history-makers and leaders.
The CNDs use the term Liberating Education to describe the NDA educational approach. This approach cultivates the mind, heart, body and soul. It is rooted in the firm belief and bold hope that the search for God and the search for truth, for wisdom, for justice and for life itself are not just related but integral to one another.
Liberating Education is NDA's sacred legacy and single-minded commitment. As with any legacy, it has gone through many seasons, different generations and various understandings. Consequently, the curriculum, programs and facilities of NDA have continued to evolve over the decades. Today, educating girls and young women for global citizenship and leadership is the NDA educational imperative.