Marquette University is a Catholic, Jesuit university dedicated to serving God by serving our students and contributing to the advancement of knowledge. Our mission, therefore, is the search for truth, the discovery and sharing of knowledge, the fostering of personal and professional excellence, the promotion of a life of faith, and the development of leadership expressed in service to others. All this we pursue for the greater glory of God and the common benefit of the human community.
Statement on Human Dignity and Diversity
Our students, whether traditional or non-traditional, undergraduate, graduate or professional, come to Marquette University to share our commitment to the pursuit of excellence in all things as a lifelong endeavor. They come to join a community whose members — faculty, staff, students, trustees, alumni and friends alike — believe that education must encompass the whole person: spiritual and moral as well as intellectual, the heart as well as the mind. And they come seeking the educational, professional and cultural advantages of a university located in the heart of the city. We, in turn, take seriously our responsibility to foster and support excellence in teaching and research, to keep a Marquette education accessible to a diverse population of students, and to offer personal attention and care to each member of the Marquette community.
As a Catholic university, we are committed to the unfettered pursuit of truth under the mutually illuminating powers of human intelligence and Christian faith. Our Catholic identity is expressed in our choices of curricula, our sponsorship of programs and activities devoted to the cultivation of our religious character, our ecumenical outlook, and our support of Catholic beliefs and values. Precisely because Catholicism at its best seeks to be inclusive, we are open to all who share our mission and seek the truth about God and the world, and we are firmly committed to academic freedom as the necessary precondition for that search. We welcome and benefit enormously from the diversity of seekers within our ranks, even as we freely choose and celebrate our own Catholic identity.
As a Jesuit university, Marquette embodies the intellectual and religious traditions of the Society of Jesus. Through an academically rigorous, values-centered curriculum, our students receive a firm grounding in the liberal arts, preparation for work in a world of increasing complexity and diversity, and formation for life as ethical and informed leaders in their religious, cultural, professional and civic communities. They work with and learn from faculty who are true teacher-scholars, whose research not only advances the sum of human knowledge, but also informs their teaching, and whose commitment to students is fundamental to their intellectual and professional lives.