E komo mai! Welcome to Chaminade University!
Chaminade University’s namesake, Father William Joseph Chaminade (1761-1850), was the founder of the Society of Mary and a social reformer who saw education as a way of transforming society for the better. In 1883, the Marianist community established an academy for boys, the Saint Louis School which continues to thrive today, sharing a campus with Chaminade. Chaminade became a four-year college in 1957, then added graduate programs in the 1970s. Chaminade College was formally renamed Chaminade University of Honolulu in 1977.
Today, Chaminade has approximately 2,400 undergraduate, graduate and online students; five academic divisions; 23 undergraduate and eight graduate majors; and a number of certificates and not-for-credit professional development programs and seminars. It continues to offer a robust slate of programs to members of the military on bases island-wide, and also has a wide array of degree programs that are partially or wholly online. In addition, Chaminade is home to 10 NCAA Division II athletic teams.
As the only Catholic University in Hawaii, and one of three Marianist higher-education institutions in the US, Chaminade is guided by the understanding that both reason and faith are essential conditions in the pursuit of truth. Chaminade aspires to be a center for education, scholarship, and service that directly link to the pursuit of social justice. In Ex Corde Ecclesiae, Pope John Paul II exhorts Catholic universities to link their endeavors to a higher meaning, elevating us above the status of a degree-granting graduate production facility. It tells us that a Chaminade education needs to be more than job training, guiding us to provide integrated learning experiences for the whole person, thereby highlighting the value of a liberal arts education. The priorities of Catholic social teaching and of our community, as well as our location, are strikingly resonant. Health, sustainability, prosperity and social justice are the central tenets within Catholic social teaching. These same tenets are also the most pressing issues for Hawai‘i and the Pacific region. Our signature programs, across the University and our General Education core at Chaminade, are organized around these themes. This resonance of programming with the primary concerns of our community is an untapped avenue for promoting Chaminade as Hawaii’s leading, community-first university, producing graduates who are at the forefront of creating a healthy, sustainable, just and prosperous future for our state and world.