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president's message
St. Mary’s University College is a Catholic, post-secondary, student-focused Liberal Arts and Sciences teaching and research institution. It offers a variety of degrees including a young but extremely successful Bachelor of Education program. St. Mary’s Mission Statement promises to prepare students “to become compassionate, thoughtful and resourceful members of society.” It achieves this goal by following an important Vision Statement to be “a beacon of learning, civility, and hope, inspiring students to lead with integrity and to meet the future with confidence, intellectual activity, moral conviction, and a passion for social justice and the common good.”
All of these noble virtues and fine sentiments have a long legacy from antiquity to the Renaissance through to today. The Liberal Arts model of an education is deeply connected to Catholic thought and teaching, and it articulates an idea of learning that focuses on the whole person. In other words, our mission is to help shape young men and women of strong moral character, whose skills and competencies are honed in a rigorous inter-disciplinary context, and who are mature both intellectually and spiritually.
The Liberal Arts model reflects the importance of breadth of knowledge, experience and understanding. It is not enough for a St. Mary’s graduate to be a specialist in a narrow, even if riveting, area of expertise. Rather, we feel it is crucial that our students live the human experience, and we feel that this is best achieved within a framework of learning that demonstrates how broad areas of knowledge, specific skills of literacy, numeracy and reasoning, and crucial ethical and moral values, come together to form the “whole” person.
If it is true that in today’s world individuals will move through many careers in a lifetime, it is essential that our graduates have the specific as well as the broader skills that will facilitate that journey.
As St. Mary’s moves towards its second 25-year anniversary — moving from Jubilee to Golden Anniversary — we invite you to take this journey with us. We hope that your adventure will be an amazing one, and that you will remain connected to St. Mary’s for a lifetime.
I look forward to meeting you and personally welcoming you to St. Mary’s.
Dr. Gerry Turcotte, President