Hallmarks

Hallmarks of a Notre Dame de Namur Learning Community

Hallmark 1: We Proclaim By Our Lives Even More Than By Our Words That God Is

Good

• We believe, even in the midst of today's reality, that God is good, and we stand firm in

our commitment to honor that goodness in ourselves, in others, and in our world.

• We value life as an on-going spiritual journey of deepening relationships with self,

others, and God.

• We make relevant to the life of our contemporary learning community the Sisters of

Notre Dame de Namur history and the spirit of St. Julie Billiart. We seek to live this

heritage by allowing it to influence our actions in today's world.

• We create decisions and policies that reflect the mission and values of the Sisters of

Notre Dame de Namur and that are sensitive to the various stakeholders.

• We make decisions respecting and informed by the gospel values of our Catholic

tradition and teachings.

Hallmark 2: We Honor The Dignity And Sacredness Of Each Person

• We develop and appreciate relationships that respect individual differences (also see

Hallmark 5).

• We create environments that encourage the development of the whole person.

• We dedicate time, space, and personnel in support of the individual's

spiritual/personal journey.

Hallmark 3: We Educate For And Act On Behalf Of Justice And Peace In The

World

• 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-actionreflection.

• 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.

Hallmark 4: We Commit Ourselves To Community Service

• We integrate service-learning (community based learning) into the academic

curriculum and co-curricular activities.

• We create partnerships with community agencies that facilitate service-learning

processes.

• We ground our service in the spiritual practice of reflection-action-reflection, and we

incorporate this process into our service-learning commitments.

Hallmark 5: We Embrace The Gift Of Diversity

• We welcome to our community people of diverse cultures, ethnicity, race, socioeconomic

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.

Hallmark 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 Françoise 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 decisionmaking

in active participation and the principle of subsidiarity.

• We create interactive and collaborative educational experiences.

• We create an atmosphere of open and direct communication.

Hallmark 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;

- respects and explores the unique and complementary roles and gifts of

women and men in society.