The University Mission Statement
The purpose of Franciscan University is to further the higher education of men and women through programs of liberal, professional, and pre-professional studies leading to the conferral of the baccalaureate and master degrees in the arts and sciences. It is the further purpose of the University, publicly identified as a Catholic and a Franciscan institution, to promote the moral, spiritual, and religious values of its students. The University is guided by the example and teaching of St. Francis of Assisi. To accomplish this mission, the University embraces the following general policies:
- Intellectual and Faith Community. The specific vocation of a student is intellectual development. This is what distinguishes a student from those in other walks of life. A Christian student is one who concentrates on intellectual development through studies while integrating faith and learning in and out of the classroom. Therefore, at this University there is no artificial separation of the intellectual and the faith life, though grading in courses will be based solely on academic performance.
- Evangelization. The University has established a policy to promote, through academic and co-curricular programs, the ongoing and deepening of life in the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Church. The University is to be “a living institutional witness to Christ and his message…education (is) offered in a faith-context that forms men and women capable of rational and critical judgment and conscious of the transcendent dignity of the human person,” as well as “professional training that incorporates ethical values and a sense of service to individuals and to society.” Therefore, those optional programs, events, and activities that foster such spiritual enhancement are given special consideration and those programs, events, and activities that contradict and undermine evangelization are excluded.
- Dynamic Orthodoxy. The University has embraced this concept as a policy standard for its life, thereby striving to promote and maintain a balanced commitment to truth and life in its faith community. The Way, the Truth, and the Life are fundamental concepts and guidelines for evaluating University priorities, staffing, and budgets and are understood as explicating dynamic orthodoxy. A way of life is promoted based on Christian truths as they are understood in light of sacred Scripture and the magisterium of the Catholic Church while always allowing for the development of the Church’s understanding of revelation. These truths are lived out through the power and the gifts of the Holy Spirit emanating from the personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Therefore, “let there be unity in what is necessary, freedom in what is unsettled, and charity in any case.”
- Christian Maturity. The University recognizes that its ultimate purpose is to graduate men and women who are able to take a mature, responsible approach to life. Therefore, the University commits itself to giving priority to that approach in evangelization and dynamic orthodoxy as well as in its rules and policies for student conduct that best foster individual ownership of Christian values including growth in love and an increase in the exercise of self-responsibility. Each person is ultimately responsible for his or her own development and is treated with dignity and worth in light of an ongoing personal developmental process.
- Good Stewardship. The University recognizes that its greatest resources are its people and pledges to treat each person with dignity and respect. The University also recognizes that its revenues come from student tuition, with government support when appropriate, and the free-will giving of benefactors, and that all of these resources ultimately come from God’s providence. Therefore, the University commits itself to careful and prudent expenditure of these resources. It will not deliberately incur any debt unless there is a reasoned belief that the means to pay the debt will be forthcoming in the proximate future.
Finally, the University commits itself to this mission believing that it is promoting a normal, mature, Franciscan, Catholic, Christian way of life for its students. It believes that its norms for both academic and co-curricular development are rooted in long and proven tradition and are as relevant today as they were in times past. The University commits itself to ongoing prayer so that it may be humble before the face of God and receptive to those graces and blessings it needs to serve this mission. (See full text online at www.franciscan.edu.)