Ave Maria University is a Catholic, liberal arts institution of higher learning devoted to Mary the Mother of God, inspired by St. John Paul II and St. Teresa of Calcutta, and dedicated to the formation of joyful, intentional followers of Jesus Christ through Word and Sacrament, scholarship and service.
Ave Maria University is proud of its Catholic identity. The Most Rev. Frank J. Dewane, Bishop of the Diocese of Venice in Florida, established Ave Maria University as a Catholic University according to the Code of Canon Law guidelines. The recognition of Ave Maria University as a Catholic University is granted upon the University's commitment to continue to be guided by the Catholic Church's teachings and faithfulness to the apostolic constitution Ex Corde Ecclesiae.
Ave Maria University is a vibrant university located in beautiful Southwest, Florida. It is an academic institution that pledges faithfulness to the teachings of the Catholic Church and is committed to offering one of the finest classical liberal arts curricula available and opportunities for specialized study in all of the sciences and humanities.
Ave Maria is known for its exceptional academics, faithfulness to the Catholic Church's Magisterium, dedicated faculty and caring staff, and a unique educational philosophy that strives to develop the whole person. For more on this, see the Mission Statement of Ave Maria University and a brief account of Our History.
The University's superb faculty, challenging curriculum, professional staff, and a student community where it is easy to form lasting friendships provide graduates with training that empowers them to step out into the working world as future leaders and wealth-creators, with a solid understanding of contemporary challenges, and strong confidence in their academic training and foundation.
Founded in fidelity to Christ and His Church in response to the call of Vatican II for greater lay witness in contemporary society, Ave Maria University exists to further teaching, research, and learning at the undergraduate and graduate levels in the abiding tradition of Catholic thought in both national and international settings. The University takes as its mission the sponsorship of a liberal arts education curriculum dedicated, as articulated in the apostolic constitution Ex Corde Ecclesiae, to the advancement of human culture, the promotion of dialogue between faith and reason, the formation of men and women in the intellectual and moral virtues of the Catholic faith, and to the development of professional and pre-professional programs in response to local and societal needs. As an institution committed to Catholic principles, the University recognizes the importance of creating and maintaining an environment in which faith informs the community's life and takes expression in all its programs. The University recognizes the central and indispensable role of the Ordinary of the Diocese of Venice in promoting and assisting in preserving and strengthening the University's Catholic identity.
The Honors Program brings together all of the distinctive strengths of the education offered at Ave Maria University. It allows high-achieving and highly-motivated students to experience the Core Curriculum in a more challenging, accelerated, and enriching manner, creating additional opportunities for integrated studies. The Honors Program extends beyond the classroom, the library, and the laboratory, as it fosters a genuine fellowship of Christian intellectual inquiry and conversation.
Ave Maria University began as Thomas S. Monaghan's dream to build an institution of Catholic higher education faithful to the Magisterium. It could produce the future faithful educators, leaders, and mentors that our challenged society needs. Through his initial financial donation of $250 million, in partnership with a generous donation of land from the Barron Collier Family in Southwest Florida, the dream began to take shape.
The United States leads the world in higher education, with more than 4,000 institutions of the most diverse kind—State, private, secular, and religious. In America, the Catholic Church came late to the table in establishing colleges and universities, but by 1960 there were some 230 institutions, mainly founded by religious orders. Since then, the total number has hardly changed. The growth of older Catholic colleges and universities has often been accompanied by a degree of secularization. In many of these institutions, the Catholic identity has become quite attenuated, with many (and in some cases most) of the faculty non-Catholic or hostile to the Church.
In the 40 plus years since the beginning of the Second Vatican Council, the Catholic population has increased by some 50 percent. Much of that growth has occurred outside the traditional Catholic enclaves in the northeast and midwest cities, as Catholics followed the burgeoning economies of the southeast and the west. Many suffering drastic fall-off invocations did not respond to these demographic changes with new institutions in the growing Catholic population. Indeed, the last Catholic institution inaugurated as a university was in Bridgeport, Connecticut, in 1963.
By the time Mr. Monaghan began his dream, it was evident that higher education needed a fresh, faithful voice. It can well be argued that a Catholic university is essential to the transmittal of the faith to successive generations if for no other reason. "Train up a child in the way he should go, And when he is old he will not depart from it." —Proverbs 22:5-7 The role Ave Maria University intends to fill is not merely catechesis (although that has been woefully deficient in other institutions), but rather the ongoing reflection of theologians and philosophers on the integration of the truths of the faith with the social, cultural, economic, and political developments in society.
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