Viterbo Mission:
Our mission defines our past, present, and future.
Our mission and values are at the center of everything we do—the light that illuminates where we have been as well as where we are called to go. Viterbo’s values guide not only what we do, but how we do it.
Continued reinvestment in our mission is essential to our continued ability to teach and share these all-important values.
Investments in Viterbo’s mission will strengthen every aspect of the Viterbo community. Because of donor investments, the next generation will be equipped with the practical education and the Catholic Franciscan values needed to serve others at their highest and best capacity.
impact pillar 4
Viterbo Mission
Goal: $5 million
Equips the next generation with the practical education and Catholic Franciscan values needed to serve others at their highest and best capacity.
- Sr. Thea Bowman Center
- Service Trips and Retreats
- Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Social Justice (DEISJ)
- Franciscan Intellectual Tradition (FIT) Fellowship
Sr. Thea Bowman Center
The Sr. Thea Bowman Center celebrates the life and legacy of Sr. Thea, the first Black member of the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration, a Viterbo alumna and faculty member, and a current candidate for sainthood. To truly understand Sr. Thea’s work, Viterbo students must first understand her life—the challenges and the triumphs—and then contemplate how they can follow her lead.
Investments in the Sr. Thea Bowman Center will advance programs to help students and individuals contemplate issues of identity, belonging, equality, and faith by putting lessons learned into practice.
Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Social Justice
For a university community to thrive, it must welcome and include people across the expanse of human identities, experiences, and ideas. At Viterbo, that means creating the mechanisms and moments that allow all students, faculty, and staff to thrive—while eliminating barriers that might unjustly hinder their journeys. We are committed, in all that we do, to values of diversity, equity, inclusion, and social justice (DEISJ).
Investments in DEISJ initiatives will support staffing, programs, immersive learning experiences, and curricula that center these values at the heart of the Viterbo education.
Service Trips and Experiences
At Viterbo University, we live our values in everything we do. That means service is more than an academic discourse—it’s an action, a lived practice that we return to time and again. Hands-on service activities foster the common good in meaningful ways while illuminating values of community, servant leadership, and collaboration. Mission courses, immersion trips, and Service Saturdays are evidence of Viterbo students putting our values into action.
Investments in service-related experiences will help more Viterbo students connect their values-driven education with real-world scenarios.
Franciscan Intellectual Tradition Fellowships
The Franciscan Intellectual Tradition (FIT) is grounded in the charism of St. Francis and St. Clare of Assisi—informed by both their writings as well as their lives of remarkable service and selflessness. Viterbo University envisions the creation of a FIT Fellowship program to provide faculty with the resources needed to support curriculum development across all academic programs and disciplines.
Gifts toward the new FIT Fellowships will provide financial support for faculty to apply the values and practices of FIT into their courses, create a cohort of FIT Fellows on Viterbo’s campus, and financial aid to students pursuing FIT activities.
“Sr. Thea didn’t know what to expect when she came to Viterbo, but it was her personal mission to make a difference in the lives of everyone she met. We can all learn from her example and do our part to make Viterbo, and the world, a little better. I think we’re all a little better because of Viterbo. Let’s say thank you.”
“We believe that for a university community to thrive, it must welcome and include people across the expanse of human identities, experiences, and ideas. These diverse backgrounds and perspectives foster critical thinking and analysis skills that Viterbo students and alumni will take with them into the world.”
“Mission trips are rooted in Viterbo’s Franciscan principles of building relationships with others. When we meet a stranger, we are made whole. The students who go on mission trips come back transformed. They discover themselves while discovering others. Whatever their major, their world is bigger. They have context. And empathy.”
“In 2020, I went on a mission trip to the U.S./Mexico border. It was promoted as a cultural immersion. But it was more than that. I learned about immigration policies, what immigrants go through to cross the border, and why they risk everything to do it. The trip showed me that changing my major from musical theater to theology was the right choice, and I started saying yes to everything.”
