Dear Friend,
On behalf of the faculty, staff, students, and alumni of the College of Arts and Sciences: Welcome to our website!
Since its founding in 1901, the mission of the College of Arts and Sciences has been to engage the whole person — head, heart, and hands. Grounded in a rigorous, multidisciplinary curriculum that is humanistic, Catholic, and distinctively Holy Cross, our mission in the College of Arts and Sciences is to make every student as successful as possible. Or, as Basil Moreau, CSC, the founder of the Congregation of the Holy Cross wrote in 1854, our goal as educators is “to see in all the image of God imprinted within.” That is a tall order, and so we hope that the stories shared on these pages help you become the kind of person you wish to be, the kind of person God calls you to be. As a community of scholars and teachers, musicians, scientists, and poets, we challenge our students to become lifelong learners, to raise complex and critical questions concerning the origin and nature of the universe, the existence of God and the meaning of faith, and the purposefulness and dignity of every individual human person.
And we don’t stop with questions. At the University of Portland we expect our graduates to use what they learn in their classrooms to respond effectively and compassionately to complex social, economic, and political issues; we form leaders grounded in religious and ethical discernment and who possess a deep capacity to envision a more just and humane world; and we promote the common good through a lived experience of the transformative power of human creativity and love. As you peruse these pages, I invite you to be moved by the kind of intellectual and existential experience that thousands of University of Portland alumni have also come to know: here in the College of Arts and Sciences, the world is our classroom.
Welcome to a whole new world!
Warm regards,
Dr. Michael F. Andrews
Dean, College of Arts and Sciences
McNerney-Hanson Endowed Chair in Ethics and Professor of Philosophy
