Duda Center for Preservation, Resilience, and Sustainability

Dear Friends,

The Michael Christopher Duda Center for Preservation, Resilience, and Sustainability was established in 2021 to offer the School of Architecture at the University of Notre Dame new and expanded opportunities to advance its mission, especially in the protection and conservation of “our common home,” as Pope Francis wrote in Laudato Si’.

University of Notre Dame Trustee Fritz Duda and his wife, Mary Lee, together with the family’s foundation made a $30 million gift to the University’s School of Architecture to establish a center dedicated to historic preservation and named in memory of the couple’s late son, a Notre Dame architecture alumnus who dedicated his too-brief career to historic preservation in Texas.

Housed in the School of Architecture, the Center serves as a hub for campus-wide work related to its objectives. The gift enables the School to expand its leading-edge curriculum in traditional architecture and urbanism, support hiring new faculty, sponsor national and international conferences, and provide financial assistance to graduate students enrolled in the Master of Science in Historic Preservation degree program. The Center will be an essential resource for teaching and research in the emerging field of historic preservation, community resilience, and environmental sustainability.

In all of these ways, and possibly in others yet to be discovered, the Duda Center is a vital resource for the School in furthering its mission within the University and the world. We are proud to share opportunities to learn through the Center with the learning community on ThinkND.

Best wishes from campus,

Steven Semes

Director, Michael Christopher Duda Center for Preservation, Resilience, and Sustainability

Professor, Rome Global Gateway

University of Notre Dame