University of Notre Dame Pension Plan

Timothy Dolezal was appointed Vice President and Chief Investment Officer effective July 1, 2024, after serving previously as a managing director in the investment office. He succeeded Mike Donovan, who held the CIO role for four years. Before Donovan, Scott C. Malpass led the office from 1989 to 2020. Sean Mulvehill serves as Investment Director for multi-strategy allocations.

The pension and endowment assets are managed by a single investment office under the CIO. This shared structure gives the pension plan access to the same alternatives program — private equity, venture capital, hedge funds, and real assets — as the university's much larger endowment pool. The arrangement shapes the pension portfolio's asset allocation, which carries a higher weighting to illiquid private investments than a standalone corporate plan would typically hold.

The UND Employees' Pension Plan, a defined-benefit plan fully funded by the university, was closed to new entrants in December 2017. Existing participants retain their accrued benefits. The university serves as trustee for the remaining defined-benefit obligations.

Notre Dame offers a 403(b) Retirement Plan with both voluntary and mandatory contribution components. After one year of service, the university contributes 10% of an employee's salary and the employee contributes 5%, resulting in a combined 15% annual contribution rate. This defined-contribution structure now serves as the primary retirement vehicle for employees hired after the pension freeze.

The plan holds several direct real estate assets, including the Railway Exchange Building at 224 South Michigan Avenue in Chicago, the McCourtney Research Complex on the Notre Dame campus, and the BlackFriars property in Sydney, Australia. These properties sit alongside a diversified pool of externally managed real asset funds.

Mike Donovan served as CIO from 2020 until his retirement in 2024, overseeing the investment office through the post-pandemic period. Before Donovan, Scott C. Malpass ran the office for 31 years — from 1989 to 2020 — building Notre Dame's endowment into one of the largest in American higher education. Malpass now serves on the boards of The Vanguard Group and TIFF.

Yes. Notre Dame is listed as a founding member of the Institutional Investor Founding Member Group, an LP-focused professional network. This engagement reflects the office's posture as an active participant in the institutional limited partner community, likely providing access to co-investment opportunities and manager due-diligence sharing among peer allocators.