Characteristics of Jesuit Education

• Seeks the fullest possible development of each person.
• Fosters a religious consciousness that permeates the entire program.
• Focuses on preparation for life.
• Promotes dialogue between faith and culture.
• Centers on the person rather than on the material.
• Emphasizes active involvement on the part of the learner.
• Promotes a life-long openness to growth.
• Is rooted in value formation and the ability to form sound evaluative procedures.
• Encourages a realistic knowledge, acceptance, and love of the self.
• Provides a realistic understanding of the world.
• Proposes Christ as the model for human living.
• Provides an atmosphere of pastoral concern.
• Celebrates faith in personal and community prayer, worship, and service.
• Aims at forming a commitment to an active life.
• Proclaims a faith that seeks justice.
• Seeks to form men and women for others.
• Manifests a preferential option for the poor.
• Serves as an apostolic instrument in the mission of the Church.
• Seeks to build active commitment to the work of the Church.
• Pursues academic excellence.
• Operates in such a way as to give witness to excellence.
• Stresses Jesuit-lay collaboration.
• Relies on and seeks to strengthen a genuine spirit of community among all constituents of the school.
• Is structured in ways that promote the sense of community.
• Is willing to adapt approaches to better meet its purposes.
• Exists as a system of schools sharing a common vision and common goals.
• Is committed to the ongoing process of professional enrichment and formation.

(These characteristics are drawn from the 1986 Jesuit document, Go Forth and Teach: The Characteristics of Jesuit Education.)