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Theme for the Year
Why a Women's College?
“Mount Mary College exhibits a consciousness of its foundational purpose and values that is rarely found today.”
Mount Mary College Mission, Vision and Values
Mount Mary College is Wisconsin’s first four-year college for women. Located in a park-like setting on Milwaukee’s west side, the college is a well known landmark. Its resources are enjoyed by its students and the community. More than 10,000 women have graduated from Mount Mary, enriching their communities through their families, jobs, churches, and neighborhoods in the Milwaukee area and beyond.
Mission
Mount Mary College, an urban Catholic college for women sponsored by the School Sisters of Notre Dame, provides an environment for the development of the whole person. The College encourages leadership, integrity, and a deep sense of social justice arising from a sensitivity to moral values and Christian principles. Mount Mary commits itself to excellence in teaching and learning with an emphasis on thinking critically. The baccalaureate curriculum integrates the liberal arts with career preparation for women of diverse ages and personal circumstances; the programs at the graduate level provide opportunities for both men and women to enhance their professional excellence.
Vision
Mount Mary College is recognized as a diverse learning community that works in partnership with local, national and global organizations to educate women to transform the world.
Values
Mount Mary College, a Catholic, women's college, provides education to transform the world through developing competence, community, compassion and commitment. Find out more.
Catholic Identity at Mount Mary College
Mount Mary College, a Catholic college for women, is committed to educating persons in order to transform the world. Transformation takes place only when the life of the mind is integrated with habits of the heart and right living—with virtus and scientia, as the seal of the School Sisters of Notre Dame, founders of the College, proclaims. Thus, true to its Catholic identity, Mount Mary is a campus where faith (the deepest habit of the heart) and reason (the life of the mind) are intrinsically related.
The undergraduate curriculum is based on four beliefs that emerge from our Catholic character. One of these beliefs states that the community of scholars provides an environment where the two dynamisms toward knowing—faith and reason—meet and draw the whole person toward the search for truth and meaning. Reason, the human drive to know, stretches one toward ultimate meaning. Faith, grounded in the ultimacy of God, urges one toward understanding. The Catholic intellectual tradition, therefore, must be brought into conversation with other significant intellectual and religious traditions in order to thrive in the ongoing search for truth. Inspired by a common dedication to the truth, "the community is animated by a spirit of freedom and charity; it is characterized by mutual respect, sincere dialogue, and protection of the rights of individuals" [John Paul II, Ex Corde Ecclesiae]. It is the Holy Spirit who guides authentic dialogue toward ever more comprehensive understanding.
Another belief grounding the curriculum is that the human person is not simply a collection of biological and behavioral responses, but is a being fundamentally oriented toward the transcendent, that is, toward God. Through the person and mission of Jesus Christ, we receive insight into who the human person is and who we are destined to become. At Mount Mary, the core of the core curriculum is a course titled Search for Meaning. It considers philosophical and theological perspectives on the fundamental questions of life and is required of every undergraduate student.
A third belief centers on the integrity and leadership for social justice that the mission of the College proclaims. In their stretching beyond present bounds, human beings of every age have struggled to challenge attitudes of futility, frustration and skepticism. It is essential that educators guide students in the formulation of a strong value system and offer tools for the continual re-evaluation and fine-tuning of values worthy of the transformation of the human person, who in turn, will help to transform society. Catholic social teaching informs the value system of Mount Mary and is threaded throughout the curriculum, through lecture series, and through programs for students and employees.
The final belief addresses the campus environment conducive to the development of the whole person. Human beings have both a sacred and a social dimension. We believe that persons realize their dignity, their rights, and their responsibilities in relation with others, in community. There are opportunities for Mass, prayer services, and retreats throughout the academic year. Community-building exercises and events promote unity within our richly diverse campus community. The four particular values which focus the mission and frame the leadership model, guiding our students toward their full development, are competence, community, compassion, and commitment.
An appreciation for education in the Catholic tradition at Mount Mary College is part of the legacy of the School Sisters of Notre Dame. We are inspired by their vision which states: "Education means enabling persons to reach the fullness of their potential as individuals created in God's image and assisting them to direct their gifts toward building the earth" [Constitution of the School Sisters of Notre Dame]