Strategic Vision, University Mission, and Fundamental Values
Approved by the Board of Trustees, May 10 1996.
Strategic Vision
By combining teaching and scholarship of high quality, integrated education in the Jesuit tradition, and a commitment to students as persons, Santa Clara University will excel in educating men and women of competence, conscience, and compassion; gain increased national recognition; and achieve greater success in attracting the students, faculty, staff, and resources we seek.
University Mission
Santa Clara University, 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
The University seeks 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, closer personal relationships, effective communication, respect for others, and a concern for the common good.
Jesuit Traditions
We preserve and renew the Jesuit tradition, an expression of Christian humanism in which faith and reason together animate the most fundamental human quest-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.