Our Lady of the Lake University will be a leading comprehensive university known for its Catholic values, its preparation of emerging leaders in the Southwest and its expertise in Hispanic cultures. Students will want to attend OLLU because of the individual attention given by excellent, dedicated faculty and staff in an open, caring, challenging environment with a range of programs relevant to success in today’s world. OLLU’s programs will go beyond traditional education, appealing to people of all social and economic backgrounds who want to better themselves and who relish the diversity and inclusivity of the OLLU experience, as inspired by the vision of our founders, the Congregation of Divine Providence.

Statement of Purpose

Our Lady of the Lake University is an independent, Catholic, co-educational institution of higher education founded by the Congregation of Divine Providence in San Antonio, Texas.

Because it is a learning community inspired by the Catholic faith of its sponsoring religious order and informed by the strong spiritual values of the Christian academic tradition, Our Lady of the Lake University expresses its continuing religious purpose in a commitment to the complete educational development of the individual: intellectual, moral, social, and spiritual. It attempts, moreover, to create a person-centered learning environment in which both academic and co curricular programs and services provide creative alternatives responsive to the needs of individual students. In accord with the mission of the Congregation of Divine Providence, it also seeks to provide –both on campus and at selected off-campus sites – improved access to higher education for underserved groups, including women, Hispanic and other ethnic/racial minorities, person with disabilities, and adults beyond the traditional college age.

Through its strong outcomes-oriented general education curriculum, Our Lady of the Lake University introduces its undergraduate students to varied approaches to the understanding of God, human experience, and the physical universe. It also assists each undergraduate to develop competence in communication, problem-solving, social interaction, values clarification creative expression, and integration of knowledge – the skills essential for self-actualization, for lifelong learning, for the exploration of ultimate philosophical and religious questions, for ethical conduct, and for the service to society.

In addition, Our Lady of the Lake University offers a variety of areas of concentration at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, with special emphasis on those fields that prepare professionals for direct service to others in schools, agencies, and other institutions or for service to the society as a whole through the sciences, government, and business. In all academic programs, good teaching has the highest priority, but emphasis is also placed on a number of select research and community service activities, especially those under-taken as auxiliary support for instruction.

Our Lady of the Lake University welcomes into its learning community all those who can profit from its programs and services, regardless of their ages, backgrounds, or beliefs. Leadership, high motivation, intellectual curiosity, educational creativity, and humanitarian involvement may be considered as indicators of probable success, along with more ordinary academic predictors. Selected developmental programs and services are provided for promising students with special needs.

Just as the University’s student population reflects the heterogeneity of the regional community, so the University’s programs and services attempt to reflect, preserve, and enhance ecumenical and interfaith values and the rich intercultural heritage of Texas and the Southwest.

Students who participate creatively in Our Lady of the Lake University ’s person-centered community should find ample opportunity to grow in all the dimensions of their being and to learn how to make their eventual contribution to the well-being of others.

 

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