Home - ACU National (The Australian Catholic University)

Site Navigation

Our Philosophy, Values and Mission

Philosophy and Key Values

ACU National is founded on "a long history of commitment to truth, in a spirit of freedom and service ... It prizes such key values as:

  • following the way of Christ and commitment to Christian values;
  • participating in the community and mission of the Church;
  • a continuing dialogue between faith and reason - represented, for example, by the dialogue between philosophy and science;
  • respect for truth in all its forms and collaboration in seeking it through all the disciplines;
  • promotion of the common good, and the dignity of the human person;
  • collaboration of all our staff and students, whatever their beliefs, in the interests of a more decent and humane society;
  • the promotion of teaching and research in ways that most serve the mission of the University;
  • respect for academic freedom."

(Source: Professor Anthony J. Kelly, CSsR Professor of Theology, Head of Sub-Faculty of Philosophy and Theology – for more see Our Intellectual Tradition).

ACU National’s Mission

Australian Catholic University shares with universities world-wide a commitment to quality in teaching, research, and service. It aspires to be a community characterised by free inquiry and academic integrity.

The University's inspiration, within 2,000 years of Catholic intellectual tradition, summons it to attend to all that is of concern to human beings. It brings a distinctive spiritual perspective to the common tasks of higher education.

Through fostering and advancing knowledge in education, health, commerce, the humanities, the sciences and technologies, and the creative arts, Australian Catholic University seeks to make a specific contribution to its local, national and international communities.

The University explicitly engages the social, ethical and religious dimensions of the questions it faces in teaching and research, and service. In its endeavours, it is guided by a fundamental concern for justice and equity, and the dignity of all human beings.

Australian Catholic University has a primary responsibility to provide excellent higher education for its entire diversified and dispersed student body. Its ideal graduates will be highly competent in their chosen fields, ethical in their behaviour, with a developed critical habit of mind, an appreciation of the sacred in life, and a commitment to serving the common good.

(The Mission was endorsed and approved by the Senate of Australian Catholic University on 13 August 1998).

Read the University's Vision