Santa Clara University

UNIVERSITY VISION, MISSION, AND FUNDAMENTAL VALUES

Santa Clara University has adopted three directional statements to describe the kind of university that it aspires to become (Strategic Vision), its core purpose and the constituencies it serves (University Mission), and the beliefs that guide its actions (Fundamental Values).

Strategic Vision

Santa Clara University will excel in educating men and women to be leaders of competence, conscience, and compassion. By combining teaching and scholarship of high quality, an integrated education in the Jesuit tradition, and a commitment to students as persons, we will prepare them for professional excellence, responsible citizenship, and service to society, especially on behalf of those in greatest need.

University Mission

Santa Clara University is a Catholic and Jesuit institution that makes student learning its central focus, promotes faculty and staff learning in its various forms, and exhibits organizational learning as it deals with the challenges facing it.

Student learning takes place at the undergraduate and graduate level in an educational environment that integrates rigorous inquiry and scholarship, creative imagination, reflective engagement with society, and a commitment to fashioning a more humane and just world.

As an academic community, we expand the boundaries of knowledge and insight through teaching, research, artistic expression, and other forms of scholarship. It is primarily through discovering, communicating, and applying knowledge that we exercise our institutional responsibility as a voice of reason and conscience in society.

We offer challenging academic programs and demonstrate a commitment to the development of:

• Undergraduate students who seek an education with a strong humanistic orientation in a primarily residential setting
• Graduate students, many of them working professionals in Silicon Valley, who seek advanced degree programs that prepare them to make significant contributions to their fields

In addition to these core programs, we also provide a variety of continuing education and professional development opportunities for non-matriculated students.

Fundamental Values

We hold ourselves responsible for living out these core values, which are critical for carrying out our mission in pursuit of our vision:

Academic Quality. We seek an uncompromising standard of excellence in teaching, learning, and scholarship. All three elements are essential to academic quality at Santa Clara. We prize original scholarship for its own sake and for the contribution it makes to teaching and to the betterment of society. Our commitment to academic freedom is unwavering.

Integrated Learning. While valuing the integrity of established disciplines, we endeavor to integrate different forms of knowledge, to educate the whole person, and to foster moral and spiritual development. By promoting learning in everything we do, we foster a lifelong passion for learning.

Commitment to Students. As teachers and scholars, mentors and facilitators, we nurture and challenge students as we help them become independent learners and responsible leaders in society.

Service to Others. We promote throughout the University a culture of service—service not only to those who study and work at Santa Clara but also to society in general and to its most disadvantaged members.

Community and Diversity. We cherish our diverse community and the roots that must sustain it: shared values amidst diversity, close personal relationships, effective communication, respect for others, and an engaged concern for the common good of the campus, the local community, and the global society.

Jesuit Distinctiveness. We preserve and renew the Jesuit tradition that incorporates all of these core values. Our tradition is an expression of Christian humanism in which faith and reason together animate the most fundamental human quest: the pursuit of truth and goodness. This pursuit challenges us to counter inhumanity with humanity, to act ethically, and to promote justice with faith. We also take part in the broader Catholic tradition to which Jesuits have made a major contribution.