×

Our Jesuit values guide us to shape the future of health and health care

 

OUR MISSION at the Marcella Niehoff School of Nursing is to advance the science of nursing and provide a transformative education in the Jesuit Catholic tradition that prepares compassionate, innovative, diverse nurse leaders who provide care for the whole person and partner locally and globally to promote social justice and health for all. 

OUR VISION at the Marcella Niehoff School of Nursing is to be a preeminent leader in transforming the health of persons, families, communities and populations, while promoting social justice, health equity and quality care for all.

In keeping with the University's Ignatian heritage, the School of Nursing is committed to the five hallmark characteristics of a Jesuit education. These characteristics provide the foundation for our core values, helping guide and motivate our administrators, faculty, students, and graduates to think differently about their approach to health care. 

Core Values

Commitment to excellence:

Apply well-learned lessons and skills to achieve new ideas, better solutions, and vital answers.

  • Promote dialogue, critical thinking, and the discernment of meaning in the process of enhancing health of persons and communities, both locally and globally.
  • Foster an academic environment that supports and guides students in their transformation toward becoming health care leaders.

Faith in God and the religious tradition:

Promote well-formed and strongly held beliefs in one’s faith tradition to deepen others’ relationship with God.

  • Acknowledge that humans are physical, psychosocial, and spiritual beings
  • Recognize that spirituality affects health.
  • Respect that spirituality is lived out differently through diverse faiths, beliefs, and religious traditions.
  • Create a safe place to search for meaning in the process of discovery and transformation, as well as social change.
  • Respect our potential for achievement while accepting our human limitations in the pursuit of good.

Service that promotes justice:

Use learning and leadership in openhanded and generous ways to ensure freedom of inquiry, the pursuit of truth, and care for others.

  • Commit to social justice by engaging individuals, families, and communities, both locally and globally, to improve and promote health.
  • Recognize that health disparities exist; those with the greatest need and with the least access hold a higher priority for action.
  • Engage in research and application of evidence-based practice or best practices that limit health disparities.
 

Values-based leadership:

Ensure a consistent focus on personal integrity, ethical behavior in business and in all professions, and the appropriate balance between justice and fairness.

  • Foster synergistic collaborations within and between professions, disciplines, programs, and partners.
  • Respect the dignity and fundamental rights of all.
  • Embrace the tension that exists between competing priorities (e.g., mission-driven, financially-driven, Ethical & Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services) when making choices.
  • Accept responsibility to make choices and act through discernment, being wise stewards of resources.
  • Actively seek diversity in people, programs, professions, and practice to strengthen the communities of which we are a part.
  • Promote a culture of purposeful transparency.
 

Global awareness:

Demonstrate an understanding that the world’s people and societies are interrelated and interdependent.

  • Understand that individuals are intimately connected to, live within, and operate within community.
  • Recognize that communities have cultural capital with unique strengths.
  • Foster relationships and engaging in partnerships in order to promote health.
  • Embrace culture as a means to serve and to lead change toward better health.
  • Apply the lessons we learn locally to global milieus and applying lessons learned globally to local initiatives.
 

 

OUR STRATEGIC PLAN is a comprehensive set of ambitious strategies, goals, initiatives, and key performance indicators grounded in Loyola’s mission and enduring values. It builds on successes, addresses opportunities for growth, and prepares us for the future. Download the Strategic Plan 2023-2028

"Loyola Nurses understand the significant impact they have on the lives of others. Our compassion and care for the whole person grounds our practice and profession as nurses."
-Cynthia Paidipati, PhD, APRN, PMH-NP/CNS-BC (BSN '04), assistant professor and director of the Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner program