Welcome to Holy Names University

President Rosemarie Nassif, SSND, PhD

I am very excited and enthusiastic in welcoming you to Holy Names University - where our mission is to liberate minds and transform lives. You are now a part of a very elite and powerful academic community. You are a member of the Holy Names University academy - a community of scholars, writers, artists, scientists who advance learning for the transformation of the world.

You come to a liberal arts institution to make the room of your mind an interesting place to live for the rest of your life. You come to a Catholic university to grow in knowledge and also to grow within, in your inner spirit, to use all that you learn and all that you encounter for your own self reflection and self examination in order to make better choices for yourself and others. You come to a small university because it's important to be connected, to know you are part of something bigger. You want to be taken seriously and to influence your surroundings. Here you will learn your voice by exercising it and influencing others. Our students tell me that they are more than students here. They leave their footprints on this place.

This unique academy has three commandments:

1. Love the journey, not the destination.
   What does this mean at Holy Names University ? You are not here to get a degree. You are here for an education. If all you get is a degree, you have wasted your time and effort and a lot of money - yours or your parents' or the government's. A degree has a price tag. An education is priceless. A degree may help you get your first job. However, research indicates that graduates today will change careers on the average of five times in their lifetimes. An education makes you successful for life and will be of value to you throughout any career change. When you graduate, there will be thousands of people out there with your same degree, but there will only be one you. Make every class, every assignment, every encounter with a classmate, a faculty member - make every opportunity count. Look around you. The differences here are powerful and amazing. Get to know people who are different than you. A truly educated person has the freedom and the desire to engage with differences. You do not know the truth about something unless you know how someone thinks who is different than you. Expand and deepen all that you know and all that you are. If you major in business, study philosophy and ethics. If you major in biology, study music. This is perhaps the boldest adventure of your life. Love the journey, not the destination. When you graduate I will be very proud that you earned your degree, but I will congratulate you for all that you have become on the journey. Love the journey.
2. Learn your passion.
   You will study English, business, biology, art. However, you're here to learn your passion. Love what you do and do what you love. This is your time to intellectually explore various disciplines and to test them with your gut. Does this turn me on? I grew up always wanting to teach, but I loved several areas: Music, English, Math, Science and Languages, especially French. I eventually earned a PhD in chemistry and learned that my teaching passion is science, although I do continue to dabble in the other disciplines for pleasure. If you're not doing what you love and loving what you do, nothing you accomplish will make a difference —for you or for others.
3. Make Mistakes.
   This commandment can easily be misinterpreted. However, if you're not making mistakes, you're not pushing yourself deep enough and far enough. You're not thinking big enough. Education means stretching your boundaries. Testing the reality around you and testing yourself. This is your time to challenge and push yourself to the utmost. You don't just have permission to explore; you have the duty to explore. There is a corollary to this commandment. Learn from your mistakes. Making mistakes is ultimately stupid, if you don't learn from them. We can learn much more from our mistakes than we can from our successes. This requires acknowledging them and owning them at the deepest part of our being. It also means being willing to ask for forgiveness. The most important lesson you will learn throughout your education is the ability to learn from your mistakes. At this 2004 Olympics we all saw how Paul Hamm, the gymnast, learned from his mistake. After dramatically falling in his second routine, he came back to win the gold.

These three commandments are a formula for never settling for just being good enough. This is a time in our nation, in our world and in your life when good is not enough. Here at Holy Names University we will not let you be satisfied with good, because you have great within you. We are honored to have you among us and welcome you to this sacred academy.

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