Along with the rest of northern Indiana, the campus of the University of Notre Dame is just beginning to turn green, with grass fully that color, and bushes and trees budding. We began our walk on campus on Saturday afternoon as one does, at a large parking lot. But the lot had good placement, not far from St. Mary’s Lake.

A nearby lake is St. Joseph’s. You’d think there would be a Baby Jesus Pond somewhere, but I don’t see it on the map.

Next to the basilica is Norte Dame’s magnificent Main Building. Serving as the administrative center for the school, the structure dates from 1879, replacing a building that burned down early that same year, and was designed Willoughby Edbrooke. Its gold-leaf dome was added a few years later, complete with a massive gilded statue of Mary atop it.

The interior looks pretty spiffy. Unfortunately, it was closed for an event. So we headed south along the well-manicured lawns of Notre Dame, eventually reaching the Eck Visitor Center and the Hammes Bookstore, which would be more accurately called the Hammes ND-Themed Clothing Store.

Jesus faces the Main Building.

This isn’t the Touchdown Jesus Notre Dame is known for, however. That, alas, we didn’t see (or First Down Moses, either).

Further down the lawns is the founder and first president of Norte Dame in bronze, created by Italian sculptor Ernesto Biondi and unveiled in 1906.

Namely, the Very Rev. Edward (Édouard) F. Sorin (1814-93), who also had time to found St. Edward’s University in Austin and have a mighty oak named for him. The plinth is inscribed with Latin, lauding Sorin.

South along the lawns is a raft of collegiate buildings with collegiate names: Sorin Hall, Lafortune Student Center, Hayes-Healy Hall, Walsh Hall and the Norte Dame law school. Formally, it’s the Eck Hall of Law. I was impressed by how new the building looked, despite its traditional stylings. It is fairly new: 2008, a design by Cardosi Kiper.

A lot of the buildings looked newish, which tells me that Notre Dame has the dosh in our time — or can source it from donors like Mr. Eck — for capital projects. As indeed it does: the university’s endowment is about $12.3 billion, putting it at number 8 on this U.S. News & World Report list.

That kind of money also buys some nice details, or at least it should.

Further on, the “bookstore” didn’t let you forget where you were.

Finally, I don’t want to forget Chaplain William Corby, who rates a statue not far from the basilica and Main Building.

A plaque near the bronze says: The first bronze sculpture of Chaplain William Corby by Samuel Murray was dedicated on the Gettysburg battlefield by Civil War veterans of the five regiments of the Union Army’s Irish Brigade. His statue is on the same boulder of Cemetery Ridge where he stood to give the soldiers General Absolution on July 2, 1863, the second day of the three-day battle

Minutes later the Irish Brigade went into action at Little Round Top and the Wheatfield. The Brigade lost 27 killed, 109 wounded, and 62 missing. Gettysburg’s individual statues are of generals, except President Lincoln, Chaplain Corby, and a civilian.

This duplicate statue was dedicated here in 1911. Father Corby was president of Notre Dame twice: 1866-72, 1877-82. He planned the Grotto, finished in 1896, and died in 1897.