Magdalen College

Mission

Magdalen College was established to answer the call of the Second Vatican Council for the training of young people as lay apostles through a full, integrated, and Catholic education and formation. On a small campus in Bedford, New Hampshire in 1973, three laymen took this teaching as their charge and founded a lay-governed and lay-administered Catholic institution of higher learning. The founders endowed the College with its mission of teaching young men and women to seek intellectual, moral, social, and spiritual excellence. In June 1978, the State of New Hampshire Legislature empowered the College to confer the Bachelor of Arts Degree, and in April of 1983, the Associate of Arts Degree. In October 1983, the College was empowered by Vatican Rescript to award an Apostolic Catechetical Diploma. On July 22, 1991, the feast of St. Mary Magdalen, a newly built campus in Warner, New Hampshire was blessed and dedicated by the late Most Reverend Leo E. O'Neil, Bishop of Manchester, New Hampshire. As a Catholic institution of higher learning, the College is truly born "from the heart of the Church" (Ex Corde Ecclesiae) and begins the third Christian millennium eager to serve young people with joy and hope. In his encyclical Fides et Ratio, Pope John Paul II calls for the renewal of philosophy and of faith. In doing so, the Holy Father is implicitly calling for a renewal of liberal education. Magdalen College answers this call. Magdalen College leads young people to set forth on the life-long pursuit of universal truth, to grow in their baptismal faith, to develop a moral character through the practice of virtue, to understand and deepen their union with the Church, and to live the special vocation of the laity. Liberal education is a journey toward truth. Magdalen College embraces the search for truth through open inquiry, trusting dialogue, and sincere friendshistudents seek to acquire universal principles that enable them to understand themselves and the world. Wonder and habits of contemplation are essential to this quest. Young people naturally seek a common life of trusting dialogue and sincere friendship with others, seeking together the meaning of life through faith, reason, experience, and belief. Through a common life, students learn concretely how to live a Christian life. This experience is unique in the world today. Magdalen College, in assisting each student on this journey, is helping a new generation of Catholic young people know their nature as integrated human beings, their place in the world, and their relationship with God so that they can live life well.