About Us
Our Mission
The mission of University of the West is to provide a whole-person education in a context informed by Buddhist wisdom and values, and to facilitate cultural understanding and appreciation between East and West.
UWest:
- Provides a whole-person education, highlighting where the intellectual, spiritual, emotional, and creative converge.
- Offers an education as unique as you are, supplying the tools and support for our students to develop their own paths to academic success.
- Delivers a strong liberal arts education that draws from Buddhist wisdom and strives toward a global perspective, to ensure that our graduates can compete and contribute in the modern world.
- Embraces and celebrates diversity as a gateway to wisdom and understanding.
- Creates an environment of compassion, encouraging our students to pursue equality and to act in service to others.
- Presents opportunities for intellectual and cultural exchange between East and West.
- Seeks and develops students of strong character, who are able to lead others and make decisions motivated by the common good.
- Establishes space and guidance for students to achieve self-knowledge for a peaceful and fulfilling life.
- Promotes spiritual knowledge, guiding students to find their purpose and meaning through “contemplative education.”
- Believes in education as conversation, with students and faculty learning with, from, and on behalf of one another.