THIS rich collection of memories and reflections celebrates the pilgrimage of a remarkable British institution. It is a story of courage, sacrifice, commitment, service and compassion that eludes public reviews and assessments, corporate plans and even the very best attempts to capture it in this fine and fitting tribute. However, two key words – ‘hope’ and ‘community’ – recur throughout these pages in the testimonies of academic and administrative staff, students and graduates. It appears that the experience of this university college has become inscribed in the lives of the people associated with it.

Hope is not a Christian virtue or a quality like goodness, gentleness or mercy. It cannot be cultivated like self-discipline or patience. It has nothing to do with either nature or nurture. Hope is the Christian's philosophy of history. It can only be measured by time. To ‘have hope’ or, more correctly, to live in hope is to live in the confidence of the end result. In theological terms it means living eschatologically; in the full assurance that the end (telos) is assured and fulfilled in God. Wolfhart Pannenberg, the German theologian, would say that in Christ we have ‘proleptically’ encountered the end. To live and work anticipating that all may turn out well or that our efforts may not be futile is wishfulness, not hope. To live in hope is to let the fulfilment of the end guide and illuminate our way. Hope is the basis of this institution's confidence and commitment to ‘educate in the round’ – to entrench its foundational vision in the whole scholarly process in all its depth and breadth.

During these past few months I have become gradually educated into the culture and ethos of Liverpool Hope University College and three things have become very obvious to me. First, Liverpool Hope has one of the most lucid and succinct mission statements I have encountered anywhere. The notions of ‘vision’ and ‘mission’, which have now passed into common university parlance, were originally theological ideas. There is a clear and unambiguous synergy between this university college's mission of hope and its academic vision. During the 1990s it became fashionable to establish a mission statement to appear at the foot of letterheads. This statement was designed for marketing purposes, to make an institution stand out from the rest.