Our Aims and Traditions

Though often mistakenly connected with the French explorer, the name of the University commemorates the 17th-century French educator and founder of the Christian Brothers, John Baptist de La Salle. The traditions of this saintly, innovative educator have been continued by the Brothers, a non-clerical order of religious who have been teaching in the United States since 1845. Under the auspices of the Brothers, the University strives to continue such Lasallian traditions as devotion to excellence in teaching, concern for ultimate values and for the individual values of its students.

In the light of these traditions, La Salle offers students an education founded on the idea that people's intellectual and spiritual development go hand in hand, complementing and fulfilling one another. The basic purpose of the University is a free search for truth and the development of materials and skills necessary for the search; its religious concern is an extension of that purpose. In a company of mature teachers and scholars, the University urges students to confront the ultimate questions of human experience: who they are; where their destiny lies; how they are to reach it.

La Salle is committed to a liberal education of both general and specialized studies. It wants its students to liberate themselves from narrow interests and prejudices and to learn to observe reality with precision, judge events and opinions critically, think logically, communicate effectively, and sharpen aesthetic perception. The curriculum involves a body of knowledge about the universe; about people their nature, behavior, and values; about God. It also provides an opportunity to gain specialized knowledge in one field of learning as a preparation for graduate study or entry into professional life. Beyond this breadth and depth of knowledge, the University encourages its students to seek wisdom; that is, to grasp those basic principles which can give order to particular facts.

Although undergraduate education remains its primary purpose, La Salle also offers Master's programs in selected areas of specialization. For the most part, these programs focus on professional goals through advanced study and through application of theoretical knowledge in the fields represented.

As a private Catholic university, La Salle pursues these aims in a religiously diverse community of teachers and students interested in studying secular subjects in their autonomy, undertaking religious studies in a systematic and critical way, and investigating what interrelations these subjects may have. The community also engages in programs in which the students' personal, social, and religious values may take root and in which the students may grow in mature attitudes and behavior in all human relationships. The ultimate hope of the University is that its graduates will be ready for informed service and progressive leadership in their communities and will be able to fulfill the immediate and final goals of their lives.