Mission and Vision Statements
Mission of the University of West Georgia
Revised January 16, 2007
The University of West Georgia seeks to achieve preeminence in providing educational excellence in a personal environment through an intellectually stimulating and supportive community for its students, faculty, and staff.
Purpose
The University, a charter member of the University System of Georgia, is a comprehensive, residential institution providing selectively focused undergraduate and graduate public higher education primarily to the people of West Georgia. The University is also committed to regional outreach through a collaborative network of external degree centers, course offerings at off-campus sites, and an extensive program of continuing education for personal and professional development. Opportunities for intellectual and personal development are provided through quality teaching, scholarly inquiry, creative endeavor, and service for the public good.
Essential Activities
West Georgia educates students in a range of disciplinary, interdisciplinary, and professional programs at the baccalaureate level. It also offers a significant number of graduate programs at the master’s and educational specialist’s levels. The University has a commitment to education at the doctoral level in the field of education as well as other selected areas. In addition to being accredited as an institute of higher education, the University maintains national accreditation or recognition in most undergraduate and graduate fields of specialization.
The University of West Georgia pursues its purpose through the following activities:
• Instruction in general education and the promotion of life-long learning that together lay the foundations of what is essential to being an educated person.
• Faculty-directed student research and professional activities that complement classroom learning through learning by doing and reflection on doing.
• Faculty research, scholarship, and creative endeavors that promote knowledge, enhance professional development, contribute to quality instruction, and provide for significant student involvement and field-based experience.
• Educational opportunities such as the Honors College and, for extraordinary high school-aged students, the Advanced Academy of Georgia that serve the needs of exceptionally prepared students.
• Systematic investigation of teaching and student learning that fosters innovation in teacher, professional, and pre-professional preparation.
• The use and exploration of existing and emerging technologies that improve opportunities for faculty and student learning.
• A broad range of public service activities and proactive partnerships that: promote more effective utilization of human and natural resources; contribute to economic, social and technical development; and enhance the quality of life within the University’s scope of influence.
• Student services, including outstanding first-year experiences, which increase opportunities for academic success and personal development and enhance the climate of campus life.
Values
The University of West Georgia values the following:
• High-quality general education, undergraduate and graduate programs, that:
1) Are grounded in a strong liberal arts curriculum;
2) Impart broad knowledge and foster critical understanding needed for intellectual
growth, personal and social responsibility, cultural and global literacy and lifelong
learning;
3) Emphasize disciplinary rigor;
4) Foster the development of effectiveness in communication, critical and independent
thinking, problem solving, and the use of information resources and technology; and
5) Create a learning community dedicated to instructional excellence where close
student-faculty interaction enhances both teaching and learning for a diverse and
academically well-prepared student body.
• Cultivation of a personal environment.
• Affirmation of the equal dignity of each person by valuing cultural, ethnic, racial, and gender diversity in students, faculty, and staff.
• Practices that embody the ideals of an open democratic society and that cultivate an environment of collegiality.
These commitments culminate in educational experiences that foster the development of thoughtful and productive leaders and citizens who make a positive impact throughout an increasingly global society.
Vision Statement for the University of West Georgia
Year 2000 and Beyond
The University of West Georgia will be a leader within the University System of Georgia in providing educational excellence in a personal environment.
The University of West Georgia will seek to create for students from various backgrounds every possible avenue to intellectual achievement, personal development, and leadership potential without compromising academic excellence. The University will maintain close contact with all people of the region, be responsive to their needs while raising their aspirations, and generating a more highly-educated populace. The University of West Georgia will be recognized for excellence in teaching and learning, research, and public service in undergraduate, graduate, and continuing education. The University will be recognized as being fundamental to the educational, social, cultural, technological, and economic advancement of the region and state.
Specifically, the University of West Georgia will be characterized by:
• Educational Excellence evidenced by outstanding educational experiences, national and regional recognition of selected programs, faculty who excel in their disciplines, superior staff support, and an increasingly capable student body. At West Georgia, teaching, research, and service will be intricately intertwined and supportive of each other.
• A Safe, Supportive Community committed to enhancing learning, through close contacts between students and faculty, small classes taught by senior faculty wherever possible, and through dedicated staff who help provide a vibrant campus life.
• An Outstanding, Diverse Faculty and Staff who demonstrate effective communication and teaching skills; utilize new technologies and innovative strategies to enhance student learning; and exhibit the highest standards of intellectual achievement, research, and continuing growth.
• Educational Opportunities for a Wide Range of Academically-Prepared Students that include a strong academic knowledge base for the development of leadership skills and life long learning.
The University of West Georgia will help ensure its students' future success by developing the ability of individuals to access, interpret, analyze using current technology, and make use of, relevant facts, information, and knowledge to think critically, solve problems, work with, and communicate effectively with others.
West Georgia will develop the whole individual so that as alumni they will continue to be contributing members of their families, institutions, communities, state, nation and world.
• Educational Opportunities for Exceptional Students: West Georgia's will build a reputation for having an honors college with a distinctive liberal arts curriculum and additional peaks of excellence in selected undergraduate and graduate majors and professional programs, with student involvement in faculty research, and themes that run across the curriculum, such as communication, leadership development, interdisciplinary studies, critical thinking, and problem solving.
• A Region-Wide Learning Community that Engages and Inspires Traditional and Non-Traditional Students to become educated persons with global and multi-cultural perspectives, and advanced technological knowledge. The University will help develop both ethical principles and intellectual flexibility for the future, and will celebrate and energize the human spirit through respecting and supporting individual differences in learning styles, identities, and personal/professional goals.
• Pro-active Partnerships with Public and Private Schools and Other Educational Institutions, Business, Industry, Government, and Cultural and Social Organizations in order to analyze, synthesize, evaluate, predict, and respond to changing state and regional needs, to support Georgia's educational, economic, and cultural development, and to ensure graduates' readiness for the present and future.
• A Unified, Clearly Focused, University with each part contributing to and understanding how every other part contributes to the mission of the University and to the larger society.