Mission Statement
The College of Wooster is a community of Independent Minds, Working Together to prepare students to become leaders of character and influence in an interdependent global community. We engage motivated students in a rigorous and dynamic liberal education. Mentored by a faculty nationally recognized for excellence in teaching, Wooster graduates are creative and independent thinkers with exceptional abilities to ask important questions, research complex issues, solve problems, and communicate new knowledge and insight.
Vision Statement
Our collective endeavor is to prosper as a distinguished independent liberal arts college, to thrive as a vigorous intellectual community, and to create a reputation that reflects our achievements. We seek to be leaders in liberal learning, building on our tradition of graduating independent thinkers who are well prepared to seek solutions to significant problems, to create and communicate new knowledge and insight, and to make significant contributions to our complex and interdependent world.
Core Values
These are the values that govern our shared pursuits, the ideas that we hold true:
- Education in the Liberal Arts Tradition
- A Focus on Research and Collaboration
- A Community of Learners
- Independence of Thought
- Social and Intellectual Responsibility
- Diversity and Inclusivity
By putting those values into action, the College helps students develop a very specific set of personal and intellectual capacities by the time they graduate.
Independent Thinking, through the ability to:
- Engage in critical and creative thinking
- Devise, formulate, research, and bring to fruition a complex and creative project
- Embody the intellectual curiosity, passion, and self-confidence necessary for life-long learning
- Appreciate and critique ideas, values, and beliefs including their own
Integrative and Collaborative Inquiry, through the ability to:
- Synthesize knowledge from multiple disciplines
- Actively integrate theory and practice
- Engage in effective intellectual collaboration
Dynamic Understanding of the Liberal Arts, through the ability to:
- Understand disciplinary knowledge in arts, humanities, social sciences, mathematics, and physical and natural sciences
- Evaluate evidence using methodologies from multiple disciplines
- Demonstrate quantitative, textual, visual, and digital literacy
- Employ deep knowledge, insight, and judgment to solve real world problems
Effective Communication, through the ability to:
- Exhibit skill in oral, written, and digital communication
- Engage in effective discourse through active listening, questioning, and reasoning
Global Engagement, through the ability to:
- Understand the histories, causes, and implications of environmental and global processes
- Engage with the global community through knowledge of a second language and culture
- Display self-reflective awareness of their roles in diverse local and global communities
Justice and Civic/Social Responsibility, through the ability to:
- Understand and respect the diversity and complexity of human identities, including but not limited to race, class, gender, sexuality, ability, culture, and religion
- Actively promote equity and inclusion
- Demonstrate ethical judgment and work towards a just society
- Exhibit a commitment to community, civic engagement, and serving others