Ohio University Strategic Planning Process – Draft Document
Vision, Mission, and Guiding Principles

The Vision of a University

Vision Statement

Ohio University will be a nationally prominent university known for its unique ability to engage both undergraduate and graduate students in distinctive and interdisciplinary research activities that best serve the educational, societal, and economic needs of the region, state, nation and world. The university will be a learning-centered, globally aware community with an extensive network of supportive partnerships and a diverse community of students, faculty, and staff.

Mission Statement

Ohio University is a national, public, comprehensive university that emphasizes a high-quality, learning-centered educational experience by combining undergraduate, graduate, and professional programs in a residential setting on its Athens campus, providing broad access and outreach through its regional campuses, and conducting high quality research across many disciplines. This combination fosters a diverse academic community that serves the economic and cultural needs of the region and benefits the state, nation and world by generating new knowledge and educating future citizens and leaders.

The strategic planning process has defined the three component statements as follows:

Vision: A mental image of what Ohio University wishes to be in the future, ten years from now - an envisioned future, an aspiration

Mission: Description of what the organization is and why it exists

Core Values /Guiding Principles: The essential and enduring convictions/principles that guide all operations, relationships and decisions (not to be compromised for financial or short-term expediency)

As Ohio University acts to achieve its vision, a set of fundamental principles guide our decisions:

1. Strong undergraduate programs, with a liberal arts core, are a vital and necessary foundation.
   
   
2. Strong graduate and professional programs are necessary to achieve our educational and research mission.
   
   
3. All forms of research, scholarship, and creative activity are vital to the intellectual life of the university and their integration into both the graduate and undergraduate curricula is a key component of student success.
   
   
4. Learning at the university is enhanced by creating a community of students, faculty, and staff who come from diverse backgrounds. That community benefits from our commitment to international education and the inclusion of global perspectives into our curricula.
   
   
5. Advising, mentoring, personal interaction, and active engagement among faculty, staff, students, and alumni greatly enhance the educational experience.
   
   
6. Learning is derived from the totality of the college experience, including activities both inside and outside the classroom.
   
   
7. Shared governance - the inclusion of input from all constituent groups - is central to our decision-making processes.
   
   
8. Our continuing success requires the making of judgments about and selective investment in initiatives that will advance our mission.
   
   
9. Accountability is essential to effective management and requires commitments to assessment, planning, decision making, and continual improvement.

To support our educational mission in achieving the goals outlined above, we require a well-maintained infrastructure of people and facilities. Our administrative and support services exist to serve the academic mission and should be effective, efficient, and continually improving. A sense of community and an appealing environment provide a special place in which to learn, live, and work. All individuals in the university community are valued; their skills and knowledge should be cultivated, their work supported, and their leadership skills developed. Interactions amongst all individuals in the university community should be built on standards of civility, integrity, caring, and collaboration. Our commitment to the region is expressed in a stewardship of shared resources, access to programs and services, and our contribution to economic development.

Visit the Provost's Office Web site to read the Vision Ohio documents in their entirety.