• We educate on behalf of justice and are willing to take socially responsible actions against injustice (e.g., issues of discrimination against women and racial discrimination).
• We ground our action on behalf of justice in the spiritual practice of reflection-action-reflection.
• We infuse classroom experience with global perspectives and integrate classroom learning with civic and cultural interactions.
• We live and act with reverence for the earth and the environment.
• We commit ourselves to create just systems and relationships within our learning community.
• We make conscious the effect our decisions and actions will have on the lives of the poor by making choices which are rooted in the gospel.
• We foster responsible global citizenship and to that end we commit ourselves to the practice of dialogue, nonviolence and conflict resolution.
   

  4. We commit ourselves to community service

• We integrate service-learning (community-based learning) into the academic curriculum and co-curricular activities.
• We ground our service in the spiritual practice of reflection-action-reflection, and we incorporate this process into our service-learning commitments.
   

  5. We embrace the gift of diversity

• We welcome to our community people of diverse cultures, ethnicity, race, socio-economic circumstances, gender, age, sexual orientation and faith traditions.
• We develop educational programs which expand our knowledge and understanding of the diversity in our world community and which celebrate the richness of that heritage.
• We initiate strategies and support services which respect individual learning styles and which build the self-esteem of each student.
   

  6. We create community among those with whom we work and with those we serve

• We remember and honor the legacy of friendship between the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur co-foundresses Julie Billiart and Francoise Blin de Bourdon, and we foster a spirit of friendship as foundational to our learning community relationships.
• We value and implement community-building activities, both social and spiritual, between and among all members of our learning community.
• We design and foster collaborative processes wherever possible; we ground decision-making in active participation and the principle of subsidiarity.
• We create interactive and collaborative educational experiences.
• We create an atmosphere of open and direct communication.
   

  7. We develop holistic learning communities which educate for life

• We design and implement academically excellent educational experiences.
• We create curricular/co-curricular interactions that facilitate student-centered learning/teaching environments.
• We actively support the intellectual, emotional, spiritual, psychological and social growth of the members of our learning community.
• We provide an environment and appropriate training for leadership development.
• We foster educational activities that develop self-directed learners capable of self-evaluation, critical thinking and creative responses to life situations.
• We work with and within a risk-taking and flexible organization which exhibits compassionate and socially responsible actions in response to issues of justice, bases its curriculum on cross-cultural perspectives and understandings and respects and explores the unique and complementary roles and gifts of women and men in society.