Welcome to Pacific Lutheran University

PLU seeks to educate students for lives of thoughtful inquiry, service, leadership and care - for other people,
for their communities, and for the earth.

This single statement of mission captures well the identity, strengths and purpose of Pacific Lutheran University. In addition, a formal statement of mission, adopted in 1978, provides an historical perspective on the University's understanding of its core purposes:

Long committed to providing an education distinguished for quality, in the context of a heritage that is Lutheran and an environment that is ecumenically Christian, PLU continues to embrace its primary mission: the development of knowledgeable persons equipped with an understanding of the human condition, a critical awareness of humane and spiritual values, and a capacity for clear and effective self-expression.

For all who choose to seek a PLU degree, the university offers opportunity to pursue a variety of programs of academic worth and excellence. Its standards of performance demand a finely trained faculty as well as highly skilled administrative and support staff. In its institutional emphasis on scholarship, the University views the liberal arts as providing the necessary and essential foundation for the technical training and education in the professions which modern society requires.

PLU 2020 Overview

The university aims to cultivate the intellect, not for its own sake merely, but as a tool of conscience and an instrument for service. The diversity and variety of cultural programs and personal services offered by the university are intended to facilitate this positive development of the student as a whole person in order that our students might function as members of society.

In other words, PLU affirms that realization of one's highest potential as well as fulfillment of life's purpose arise in the joy of service to others. To aid its students in sharing this understanding, the university seeks to be a community in which there is a continuing and fruitful interaction between what is best in education and what is noblest in Christian edification.

This deliberate and simultaneous attention to the religious dimension of the total human experience and to the standards of scholarly objectivity, coupled with clear recognition of the integrative impulse in each, is the essence of PLU.

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