Brief History of Notre Dame College

Notre Dame College was established in Lakshmibazar, Dhaka in

November, 1949. It was established by the Roman Catholic Priests
from the Congregation of Holy Cross for the reason of existing crisis
in education sector of the new born East Pakistan of that time. It was
Archbishop Graner, CSC,as Archbishop of Dhaka and leader of the
Catholic Church in East Pakistan, invited the Congregation of Holy
Cross Priest Society to found and administer a college in this new
country. Initially, it was known as the St. Gregory College, an
extension of the St. Gregory School, which was also established by
the Congregation. It was relocated to its current location in Motijheel
in 1954 and renamed to Notre Dame College. The Congregaion of
Holy Cross also maintains the Univeristy of Notre Dame, Portland
University, and Kings and Stonehill College in the United States. The
new name was a tribute to the University of Notre Dame, the alma
mater of many of the faculty members. In French Notre Dame
means Our Lady that stands for Mother Mary.
From the very begining the two main objectives of the founders of
the college have been to provide education at a college level to
Christian students and to provide quality and value based education
to students for the benefit of contributing to the development of this
country. In keeping with the ideals of social justice special emphasis
is to be given to students who would otherwise be deprived of
opportunity for such a quality and value based education due to
their economic condition, ethnic, rural or otherwise backward or
deprived social situation. The educational objective is to instill in the
student a love of God, his country and wisdom. Emphasis is given to
character formation.
Notre Dame College is seen as a family. All the students, teaching
and non-teaching staff and administrative staff are the members of
Notre Dame Family. Notre Dame Family life is based on mutual
respect, love, shairng of responsibility and common interest for the
integral formation of the students. Here every one performs duity
with sincereity, competency, and compassionately which bring a
unique dimension to the Notre Dame Family. The glory of Notre
Dames does not lie on its glorious exam result only, but also in the
opportunity it offers for the poor, under previlaged and tribal
students coming from different parts of the country.

At the present time the College receives no financial aid from the
the government of Bangladesh. It is supportaed entirely by tuition
payments and in times of need by loans and grants from the
Congregation of Holy Cross.

Vision of Notre Dame College:

Notre Dame College is a higher secondary educational institute
maintained and administered by the Fathers Holy Cross, which
envision providing an education to develop of the whole man by
adequately training his physical, moral and intellectual powers with
especial emphasis on character building. Inspired by the values of
love, unity and equality, the institution endeavors to become a
dynamic instrument of social transformation by offering integrate
quality education to form committed, productive, service-oriented
students who are academically competent and responsive to the
challenges of the times.

Mission of Notre Dame College:

Guided by its Vision Notre Dame College administrative body and
teaching and non-teaching staffs, under the inspiration and
patronage of its model, Our Lady, Mary, commits themselves to
become a model Catholic College that offers a relevant, student and
family-centered education, with Religious faith at the Core;
integrates institutional values of Competent, Compassionate,
respect and appreciation for cultural and religious diversity and
imbues learners with a sense of social responsibility.

Courses offered
Notre Dame college offers courses on Science, Commerce and Arts
for Intermediate level and only Arts for degree level. Admission to
the College is highly competitive. The averaqge enrollment is 2600.
Every year Notre Dame College takes 1500 students in science
section and 1100 students in commerce and arts section and 50
students for degree section. Previously there was an admission test,
but now one has to appear an interview if he has the required GPA in
SSC Exam.

Extra-curriculum activities.

Notre Dame College has 19 clubs to encourage students for extracurriculum activities. These are: Debating Club, Science Club,
Adventure Club, Business Club, Chess Club, Nature Study Club,
Manobik Shongha, Degree Club, Red Crecent Club, the Rotaract
Club, Nattya Dal, Abriti Dal, Rover Dal, History Club, Environmental
Health, International Understanding and relations Club, Cultural
Club, Writers Club and English Club. After the admission, students
can become memeber of these clubs according to their interest. One
or two teachers are assigned in each club as moderator. The main
objectvies of these extra-curriculum activities are:
Intectual, social, and moral formation of the students,
To bring out the hidden telents of the sudents so that they can
be more creative.
To build communion and community among students and also
with the teachers through interaction during weekly club
activiites.
To bring awareness among students about social justice,
enviroment, current national and internation issues.
To inspire and prepare students to participate in national and
internation events and competition.

Publications
"Blue and Gold" is the year book of Notre Dame College. Notre
Dame College also publishes their tri-monthly magazine Dak Dol
"Chit Chat". There are also the separate publications of Science Club
and Debating Club. Cosmos is a great science related publication of
NDSC. Besides these, different clubs publish their wall magazine
monthly and also in different occasions.

Social Projects:
The social project in Notre Dame Campus had started back in 19 71
after the liberation war as a social response to the need of the poor,
slum dewellers and under privilized people in the newly independent
country. Up until now Notre Dame social projeect continues as a
sign of soliderity and social justice. The social project includes
Litaracy School in three shifts; about 1500 poor students get
opportunity to be educated here. There is a boys home and a

medical center where poor people come from different parts of the
country for medical assistance. College students contribute a good
amount of money for the social project. Furthermore, college
students are teachering in the night school.

Administrations
The college is managed by the Catholic fathers from the Order of the
Holy Cross in Dhaka. Since its establishment, 11 priests have served
as the principal of the college.
1. John J. Harrington, 1949-54
2. James L. Martin,1954-60
3. Theotonius Ganguly, March, 1960 - October, 1960
4. William Graham, 1960-67
5. John Vanden Bossche, 1967-69
6. Joseph Peixotto, 1969-70
7. Richard Timm, 1970-71
8. Ambrose Wheeler, 1971-76
9. Joseph Peixotto, 1976-1998
10.
Benjamin Costa, 1998- 2012
11.
Dr. Fr. Hemanto Pius Rozario, 2012Among them, Father Timm is a renowned biologist and a winner of
the 1987 Ramon Magsaysay award for International understanding.
Father Timm is also the founder moderator of Notre Dame Science
club and debating club: Both of these clubs celebrated their 50
years anniversary in 2006.
At present the following Holy Cross priests are administering and
teaching at the College.
1. Dr. Fr. Hemanto P. Rozario, CSC, Principal
2. Fr. Adam S. Pereira, CSC, Associate Vice-Principal &Director of
Counseling,
3. Fr. Sushanto Anthony Gomes, CSC, Director of Guidance
4. Fr. George Kamal Rozario, CSC, Department of English (On
study leave)
5. Fr. Shangkor L. Gomes, CSC, Department of English (On study
leave)

6. Fr. Liton Gomes, CSC, Department of Business Studies (On

study leave)
7. Fr. J.S. Peixotto, CSC, Administrative Assistant