Mission
The Strategic Plan adopted
by the Board of Trustees in May of 1998 affirms the mission statement
approved in 1994. That statement
declares Trinity to be "an independent, primarily undergraduate,
co-educational university in the tradition of the liberal arts and
sciences, related by historic ties and covenant to the Presbyterian
Church, U.S.A." Implicit in the mission is the important role of
selected professional programs and "the University's commitment to
being a residential campus and to leadership development." The section
of the Strategic Plan describing "Institutional Mission" concludes
by asserting, "The University is challenged by the opportunity to
be a national leader among liberal arts colleges and universities."
Vision
In the late
1970's the vision for Trinity University was transformational: to
make a good university into an excellent university by enhancing
student quality through the use of generous merit based aid and by
changing a medium sized institution with a wide, heterogeneous array
of graduate and undergraduate programs into a smaller institution
with a curriculum more tightly focused on undergraduate education
in the traditions of the liberal arts and sciences with a small number
of high quality professional programs.
The vision for
Trinity University at the beginning of the twenty-first century
must also be transformational: to make an excellent university
an outstanding university and take it into the front ranks of America's
finest smaller colleges and universities, less by changing in kind
than by accelerating changes in degree, less by changing what Trinity
is than by concentrating intently on how well it fulfills
its mission. Put another way, Trinity University must build aggressively
on its considerable accomplishments so that it is, and is perceived
to be, the qualitative peer of the best of our nation's smaller private
colleges and universities, not by attempting to be just like them,
but by being their equal in stature and educational quality.
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