What is your Alma Mater's Motto?

[Josquius]

Gratiae veritas naturae

[The Larch]

The one I got my degree form doesn't have a motto (strange, since it's actually quite old, founded in the late XVth century). The one I started my studies at does have one, "Innovadora, pública e de calidade", which sounds more like a corporate motto than an educational one.

[grumbler]

Some of these replies beg an interesting (to me) question:  do all of the colleges and universities you have graduated from count as alma maters in modern parlance?

I had always been told that one has a single alma mater (one's undergraduate university or college) and that graduate schools were not alma maters.  The fact that many people here are responding with multiple mottoes implies that either my understanding has been incorrect all this time, or that the meaning of alma mater has shifted to include graduate schools.

Thoughts?

[Gups]

Ora et labora from my school. I had to look it up, even though I'd seen it so many hundreds of times. A surprisingly monkish motto given that the school was founded in 1576.

[Oexmelin]

Yes, the alma mater was supposed to be the undergraduate institution, which was understood to have nourished you the most. I am guessing the increasing number of postgraduate degrees may have shifted the understanding to all schools one has graduated from. As for this thread, I am guessing people simply wanted to expand the pool of answers in order to compare a variety of mottos. 

[Agelastus]

"Sancte et Sapienter"

Translation being "With Holiness and Wisdom".

[Josquius]

Yes, the alma mater was supposed to be the undergraduate institution, which was understood to have nourished you the most. I am guessing the increasing number of postgraduate degrees may have shifted the understanding to all schools one has graduated from. As for this thread, I am guessing people simply wanted to expand the pool of answers in order to compare a variety of mottos. 

I learned a hell of a lot more in my masters than my bachelors.

[celedhring]

The Alma Mater has certainly a more expansive meaning in Spanish. For example in Spanish the term "matriculación" (to enrol in a learning institution) is derived from Mater.

The idea is any place that "feeds" you with knowledge is potentially an Alma Mater. If it has been reserved for your university is because it's seen as the place that has affected you the most, and postgrad is a relatively new phenomenon (as in nowadays people attend grad school way more often than previously).

In my case, certainly, Columbia has meant more to me than my Barcelona undergrad school (which has such a lame motto than I won't even share it).

[Brazen]

School: "Qui patitur vincit" (Who endures wins)
University: "‎Altiora Petamus" (Let us seek higher things)

Oops, I accidentally summoned my Patronus.

[Syt]

School: "Qui patitur vincit" (Who endures wins)

Rough neighborhood, eh?

[Brazen]

School: "Qui patitur vincit" (Who endures wins)

Rough neighborhood, eh?

Actually, yes. It was a grammar school. The other schools used to beat the crap out of us.

[celedhring]

My high school's motto was "We learn from you", which I always thought wasn't the best possible choice 

[Scipio]

Ole Miss's actual motto is Pro scientia et sapientia

[grumbler]

Ole Miss's actual motto is Pro scientia et sapientia

"Towards evolving intelligence?"

[Malthus]

U of T's is "velut arbor aevo," Latin for "as a tree through the ages."