It is one of the oldest and most traditional Colombian universities, directed by the Society of Jesus, with its main facilities in Bogotá and a second campus in Cali.

[1] The Bogotá campus has 18 schools comprising 61 departments and 242 academic programs catering to areas of knowledge, giving the university its multidisciplinary nature.

[4] The College of the Society of Jesus was established in Santafé de Bogotá in 1604 as part of the San Bartolome School and Cloister.

[citation needed] The university's main campus has a total area of 445 acres (180ha) and approximately 202,988 spared meters of construction.

This campus borders important city landmarks such as the Parque Nacional Enrique Olaya Herrera to the south, the emblematic Carrera Séptima (seventh street) on the west end, the Eastern Hills (Bogotá) and the traditional Chapinero Block to the north.

It also has 5 cafeterias, a bookstore, parking lots, a center for the Colombian Stock Market, and a Subsidiary of the Fox School of Business from Temple University.

[11] Departments are academic units aimed at developing an area of knowledge through research, teaching, and the implementation of services such as continuing education, counseling, and advisory activities.

It has seven document and resource centers in the following fields of knowledge: bio-ethics, political science, architecture, psychology, law, insurance, social communication, and clinical epidemiology.

The system has about 90 subscriptions to databases and has access to complete text contents for online consultation of journals, books, thesis and dissertation papers, and digital format slides.

The campus includes Alfonso Borrero Cabal auditorium; Central Library, one of the most complete in the Colombian Southwest; Loyola Sports Center; the office of entrepreneurship "Campus Nova", which fosters entrepreneurial talent within the university; and the Javeriano Writing Center, highly regarded for helping students develop writing skills.

The university has 35 research groups attached to the government Administrative Department of Science, Technology and Innovation; and a station, Javeriana Stereo FM 107.5 with a wide audience in the Colombian Southwest.

The Cali branch of the Faculty of Health Sciences inaugurated the Moot Hospital which has high-tech teams and a superior infrastructure for student interns.

In March 2012, the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana Cali received the Institutional Accreditation of High Quality from the Ministry of Education for eight years, placing it among the more competitive private universities in the country.