2.4 Mission Statement

Commission Standard: The institution has a clearly defined and published mission statement specific to the institution and appropriate to an institution of higher education addressing teaching and learning and, where applicable, research, and public service.

Status: In Compliance

Rationale: Western's mission statement reflects the essential function and character of the institution:

Western Kentucky University prepares students to be productive citizens of a global society and provides service and lifelong learning opportunities for its constituents.

Our mission reflects our aspiration to prepare our students, who are largely from our immediate service region, for challenges they may face in the wider world. This mission contains implications more fully articulated in the accompanying statements of vision and purpose, both of which are published with the mission statement wherever it appears. These two statements—one aspirational in nature, while the other provides an expanded explication of the university's aims—make clear the importance of teaching, learning, research, and public service in the ongoing work of the institution.

Vision Statement

Western Kentucky University aspires to be the best comprehensive public institution in Kentucky and among the best in the nation.

Statement of Purpose

Western Kentucky University provides students with rigorous academic programs in the liberal arts and sciences and traditional and emerging programs, with emphasis at the baccalaureate level, complemented by relevant associate and graduate-level programs.

The university places a premium on teaching and learning. Its faculty engage in creative activity and diverse scholarship, including basic and applied research, designed to expand knowledge, improve instruction, increase learning, and provide optimum service to the state and nation. The University directly supports its constituents in its designated service areas of Kentucky with professional and technical expertise, cultural enrichment, and educational assistance. The University encourages applied research and public service in support of economic development, quality of life, and improvement of education at all levels, especially elementary and secondary schools. In particular, WKU faculty will contribute to the identification and solution of key social, economic, and environmental problems throughout the University's primary service area.

Maintaining a campus of distinctive history and character, Western sustains a student population of increasing quality. It fulfills its responsibility for access through its community college, extended campus programs, and distance learning.

Western's commitment is to ensure value in a holistic learning experience through high standards for student achievement and conduct, a strong faculty, technological innovation, personalized attention, broad access, and public accountability for actions and outcomes.

Western Kentucky University recognizes that its mission continues to evolve in response to regional, national, and global changes, and the need for lifelong learning.

This expanded statement reflects Western's particular responsibility to its region, but also an awareness that our region is part of a larger world and cannot be served properly without a strong commitment to teaching and learning, vital research programs, and public service, and lifelong learning.

Western's vision, mission statement, and statement of purpose are consistent with the university's role within the state system, outlined in the CPE's Strategic Plan for postsecondary education in Kentucky.

The statements appear in current university catalogs, on the university web page , and in other appropriate publications, such as Challenging the Spirit , our strategic plan for 2002-06. Western's strategic plan is revised every three years. During these updates or at other times the board of regents considers appropriate the university's mission and purpose statements are reviewed and may be revised.