At Santa Clara University, we instill fundamental leadership skills, ethics, and values in each student who receives our revered diploma. Values that lead to the ultimate goal to protect individual freedoms and advance social justice. Upholding these virtues hinges on our University’s sustained commitment to mold leaders of resolute moral integrity.

Leon Panetta ’60, J.D. ’63, H ’88, H ’13, P ’96, Chair, Panetta Institute for Public Policy; Former CIA Director; Secretary of Defense; White House Chief of Staff; and Member of the House of Representatives: “We are living in a time in which the core values the University represents are being tested. The values of truth. Respect for one another. Preserving human dignity. And the responsibility to do good and to help others. This is all being tested now.

“Too often we move to move. Not often enough do we move forward. I think that is what the University offers: a foundation that enables the ability to advance progress while elevating human dignity. “Santa Clara University instills in its students a values system that advocates that no matter what we create or how fast we move, we must keep an eye on the basic values of decency and respect. We must recognize the importance of improving the lives of those around us before our own.

“We exist in the heart of Silicon Valley innovation. And so long as we innovate with the heart, we innovate with a mission.”