Loyola Marymount University Bulletin 2011-2012 > The University > University Mission Statement

University Mission Statement

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Introduction

Loyola Marymount University offers rigorous undergraduate, graduate, and professional programs to academically ambitious students committed to lives of meaning and purpose. We benefit from our location in Los Angeles, a dynamic city that brings into sharp focus the issues of our time and provides an ideal context for study, research, creative work, and active engagement. By intention and philosophy, we invite men and women diverse in talents, interests, and cultural backgrounds to enrich our educational community and advance our mission:

The encouragement of learning
The education of the whole person
The service of faith and the promotion of justice

The University is institutionally committed to Roman Catholicism and takes its fundamental inspiration from the combined heritage of the Jesuits, the Marymount Sisters, and the Sisters of St. Joseph of Orange. This Catholic identity and religious heritage distinguish LMU from other universities and provide touchstones for understanding our threefold mission.

The Encouragement of Learning

At LMU, the encouragement of learning takes place in the context of an intellectual tradition that:

Insists on critical thinking and the development of imagination and artistic expression
Takes philosophical and theological disciplines seriously
Engages in ethical discourse and embraces the search for values
Respects the integrity of the individual while at the same time pursuing the common good
Views the world as sacramental and seeks to find God in all things
Encourages an integration of knowledge in which "faith and reason bear witness to the unity of all truth" (Ex Corde Ecclesiae, 1990, #17)

As a foundation for inquiry and learning, we strive to create an intercultural community and to promote ecumenical and inter-religious dialogue. This means that at LMU the encouragement of learning is a radical commitment to free and honest inquiry—but always with reverence before the mystery of the universe and openness to transcendent reality.

The Education of the Whole Person

With roots in the spiritual humanism of the earliest Jesuit colleges, LMU’s pedagogical tradition has an abiding concern for the education of the whole person. Today we understand this as a simultaneous process of information, formation, and transformation. The education of the whole person thus includes these points:

It encourages personal integration of the student’s thinking, feeling, choosing, evolving self. It does this by fostering not only academic and professional development but also physical, social, psychological, moral, cultural, and religious/spiritual growth.
It promotes formation of character and values, meaning and purpose. As students learn to "read" what is going on in their own lives and in the larger world, they are encouraged to grow in the skills of personal and social literacy needed for responsible citizenship.
It seeks to develop men and women for others. LMU encourages students, faculty, and staff to identify with those living on the margins of society so that the intellectual inquiry and moral reflection endemic to university life will lead to meaningful work for transformative social change.

The Service of Faith and the Promotion of Justice

We take seriously both parts of this phrase. The service of faith encompasses all those ways in which the University engages its Catholic intellectual, cultural, and religious heritage. These ways include specific courses and academic programs as well as opportunities for worship, faith formation, and spiritual development.

The service of faith also honors the reality of religious pluralism on our campus and embraces inter-faith dialogue in formal and informal contexts. The desired outcome of such encounters moves us beyond tolerance to mutual respect and understanding, deepens appreciation of one’s own faith, and creates opportunities for engaging others who share a longing for meaningful lives.

Finally, at LMU we insist that the service of faith is incomplete without the promotion of justice. Together with the University’s sponsoring religious orders and the post-Vatican II Church, we believe that participating in the struggle for justice in ways appropriate to our academic community is a requirement—not simply an option—of biblical faith. In this struggle LMU makes common cause with all who share a commitment to local and global justice, whether they are motivated by faith or other noble ideals.