Every university is a community of scholars engaged in the pursuit of truth.
It seeks in particular those truths which liberate human beings by helping them to know themselves and the world around them, and by enabling them to order their own lives so as to achieve their proper ends. It seeks to promote respect for the worth and dignity of every individual. It seeks to develop along with specific skills, creativity, the capacity for critical thought, and the ability and desire to learn throughout life. The university within western civilization has a special commitment to seek and to study the truths of that civilization by examining its values and its institutions, by weighing them against those of other traditions, and by transmitting the best that has been thought and said and done. It is the critic as well as the repository of cultural heritage.