COMMUNITY AT CHAMINADE UNIVERSITY
Our Mission
Chaminade University offers its students an education in a collaborative learning environment that prepares them for life, service and successful careers. Guided by its Catholic, Marianist and liberal arts educational traditions, Chaminade encourages the development of moral character, personal competencies, and a commitment to build a just and peaceful society. The university offers both the civic and church communities of the Pacific region its academic and intellectual resources in the pursuit of common aims.
Statement of Core Commitments
From our Mission flow the following Core Commitments that both amplify and specify the Mission. We understand our Core Commitments as guiding both the service we offer and the formation of our education community.
Commitments to Service
To offer quality academic programs, both those leading to a degree and those focused on continuing education, in a manner responsive to the needs of our students and communities;
To graduate students who are recognized for their liberal arts learning, preparation for professional careers and further education, facility in the use of information and communication technologies, interest in lifelong learning, appreciation of diversity, sense of ethical responsibility, and commitment to leadership through service to affect positively individual lives and the common good as engaged global citizens;
To exhibit a strong social consciousness that expressly permeates all curricula;
To be a community that looks beyond itself and engages in public service that enriches the life of the wider community;
To engage in partnerships with the Hawaii community, our Pacific Island neighbors, the Church and those with whom we share Marianist sponsorship; and
To explore critically the intersections of faith and culture, and consistent with our identity, engage our students in this dialogue and participate in the processes of public learning and policy formulation and the building of a more just and peaceful society.
Commitments to the Character of Our Educational Community
To be a unified educational community where members are committed to both our common mission and their self-development;
To be a faculty and staff with a primary focus on student learning and the development of the whole person;
To hold an extensive view of hospitality, meaning cordiality to the idea and talents of others; to listen with an open mind that enhances our integrity and reasserts our humanity;
To nurture a culture that honors and promotes open inquiry, reflection, and critical dialogue with peers on and beyond the campus and the dissemination of our scholarship;
To be a scholarly community that explores and encourages connections between disciplines and provides the various experiences necessary to make those connections—this implies intense, dedicated collaboration among colleagues and students;
To foster an excellent multicultural learning environment drawing on our unique Pacific Island location;
To conduct ourselves with personal integrity, perhaps the most powerful educational tool we possess; to serve as mentors and role models, interacting with students in the manner we seek to have them work with others; and
To be a community that stays the course through the difficult periods; to have the patience, self-discipline and sacrifice necessary to build a strong community; and to look within ourselves for the resolve to work through difficulties.
Marianist Spirituality and Education
The Characteristics of Marianist Universities are a concise statement of ways Marianist universities, including Chaminade University of Honolulu, distinguish the education they provide. The Characteristics of Marianist University are:
Educate for Formation in Faith
Educate in Family Spirit
Provide an Integral, Quality Education
Educate for Service, Justice, Peace and the Integrity of Creation
Educate for Adaptation and Change
The Characteristics of Marianist Universities flow from Marianist spirituality as envisioned by Blessed William Joseph Chaminade, the Founder of the Society of Mary. Education in the Marianist tradition is inspired by this spirituality through three dimensions: a deep Marian faith, forged in communities, with a mission to manifest the ‘Good News’ of Jesus Christ.
Marian Faith. Father Chaminade pointed to Mary as being the “first disciple”. She said “yes” to being the mother of Jesus, the Son of God. She was aware of Jesus special place in our salvation history before any other person. Her yes to cooperating in God’s mission to save his people inspires us to conceive ways of using our faith and our intellect to make the world more just and peaceful.
Working in community. Father Chaminade knew that transforming the social order required the action not just of individuals but of people working together with a common mission like the early Christians, who prayed, evangelized, and broke bread together.
A common mission. Marianist communities of faith aim at rebuilding the Church and society with religious and lay people, men and women, and wealthy and poor who come together with Mary as their inspiration.
(Adapted from “The Gift of a Marianist Education”, Marianist Province of the United States.)