At the heart of the University’s mission is the articulation, promotion and transmission of knowledge framed by the Catholic Intellectual and Spiritual Traditions. This mission takes shape first in the interactions between faculty and student. Transformational relationships produce people with confidence, clarity of direction and a heightened sense of purpose.

Through teaching, scholarship and service, this special relationship Niagara University prepares its students for positions of responsibility in the professions and in the broader society. In programs of study at the baccalaureate and graduate levels, Niagara seeks to develop within its students a passion for learning.

Maintaining a distinctive identity and mission is an essential task for every Catholic institution. The basic components of the Catholic university were articulated by Pope John Paul II in the 1990 document, Ex Corde Ecclesiae (From the Heart of the Church). The following excerpt from this document (ECE) clarify the nature of a Catholic institution of higher education.

“Every Catholic university, as a university, is an academic community which, in a rigorous and critical fashion, assists in the protection and advancement of human dignity and of a cultural heritage through research, teaching and various services offered to the local, national and international communities. It possesses that institutional autonomy necessary to perform its functions effectively and guarantees its members academic freedom, so long as the rights of the individual person and of the community are preserved within the confines of the truth and the common good.”