University of the West

At UWest, uwest believe in educating the whole person. We were founded in 1991 as an alternative to the conventional university experience, integrating liberal arts traditions with a global perspective and drawing from Buddhist wisdom to create a community of collaboration and cooperation. Our graduates meet the challenges of an increasingly complex and globally interdependent world with creativity and compassion. 

UWest was incorporated as “Hsi Lai University” in 1990 by Venerable Master Hsing Yun, and opened its doors in spring 1991. The university is a pioneering partnership between Chinese and American Buddhists to establish an American university integrating liberal arts traditions and Buddhist wisdom.

In the summer of 1996 the university moved to the City of Rosemead, where it has become an independent institution of higher learning based on the model of a U.S. university.

The current name, University of the West, was adopted in April 2004. For the past several decades, the school has provided a World Class liberal arts curriculum while also preparing Buddhists for leadership in the West. Our Digital Sanskrit Canon Project and the Center for the Study of Minority and Small Business have also been established to further this mission.

Today, while continuing to fill a need in the Buddhist community, UWest serves students from all walks of life with its range of programs in comparative religion, chaplaincy, business, psychology, English, and liberal arts

The mission of University of the West is to provide a whole-person education in a context informed by Buddhist wisdom and values, and to facilitate cultural understanding and appreciation between East and West.

UWest:

1. Provides a whole-person education, highlighting where the intellectual, spiritual, emotional, and creative converge.
2. Offers an education as unique as you are, supplying the tools and support for our students to develop their own paths to academic success.
3. Delivers a strong liberal arts education that draws from Buddhist wisdom and strives toward a global perspective, to ensure that our graduates can compete and contribute in the modern world.
4. Embraces and celebrates diversity as a gateway to wisdom and understanding.
5. Creates an environment of compassion, encouraging our students to pursue equality and to act in service to others.
6. Presents opportunities for intellectual and cultural exchange between East and West.
7. Seeks and develops students of strong character, who are able to lead others and make decisions motivated by the common good.
8. Establishes space and guidance for students to achieve self-knowledge for a peaceful and fulfilling life.
9. Promotes spiritual knowledge, guiding students to find their purpose and meaning through “contemplative education.”
10. Believes in education as conversation, with students and faculty learning with, from, and on behalf of one another.