Our Mission
Allegheny’s undergraduate residential education prepares young adults for successful, meaningful lives by promoting students’ intellectual, moral, and social development and encouraging personal and civic responsibility. Allegheny’s faculty and staff combine high academic standards and a commitment to the exchange of knowledge with a supportive approach to learning. Graduates are equipped to think critically and creatively, write clearly, speak persuasively, and meet challenges in a diverse, interconnected world.
Statement of Community
Allegheny students and employees are committed to creating an inclusive, respectful and safe residential learning community that will actively confront and challenge racism, sexism, heterosexism, religious bigotry, and other forms of harassment and discrimination. We encourage individual growth by promoting a free exchange of ideas in a setting that values diversity, trust and equality. So that the right of all to participate in a shared learning experience is upheld, Allegheny affirms its commitment to the principles of freedom of speech and inquiry, while at the same time fostering responsibility and accountability in the exercise of these freedoms. This statement does not replace existing personnel policies and codes of conduct.
(Approved by faculty vote, 20 April 2007)
Allegheny’s Institutional Learning Outcomes
Allegheny exists to provide students with a liberal arts education of high standards. We expect our graduates to be capable and farsighted leaders and rational and responsible citizens equipped to meet the challenges confronting all society. We expect them to value diversity, individual integrity of thought and action, and the importance of personal rights and freedom in the context of society as a whole. We expect them to know that the same complexities that create the problems and challenges of living also give life its richness.
Allegheny believes that among all possible forms of education, liberal arts and science education best develops individual potential. It enables participants to experience and enjoy life to the fullest, enabling the mind to encompass all aspects of the world. Among other benefits, liberal arts education broadens the kinds of careers, interests, and activities that can be—and are likely to be—pursued. It develops and encourages the use of the imagination, in the creative sense and for solving problems of everyday life. It promotes understanding of others’ aspirations and feelings toward the foundation of constructive relationships.
To provide such an education, Allegheny aspires to this academic goal: to develop students’ minds and teach them how to learn on their own. While factual knowledge is important, no one can master in four years all that is needed for a lifetime. Most important is engaging students in an active learning process that entails not only comprehending facts, but also taking responsibility for their proper use.
Thus, Allegheny’s educational program is designed so that its graduates are able to:
- Think critically and creatively;
- Communicate clearly and persuasively as speakers and writers;
- Invoke multiple ways of understanding to organize and evaluate evidence, and to interpret and make sense of their experiences and the experiences of others;
- Apply their knowledge and learning to engage in informed debate and to analyze and solve problems.
(Approved by faculty vote, 22 January 2015)
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