Mission Statement
The mission of Hiram College is to foster intellectual excellence and social responsibility, enabling our students to thrive in their chosen careers, flourish in life, and face the urgent challenges of the times.
Vision Statement
Hiram’s students will be among those called to address the urgent problems facing our era. Answering this call will require timeless intellectual capacities for critical thinking, imaginative problem-solving, and reflective decision-making. Cultivating these skills in the foundational knowledge of humanity, nature, and their relationships, has been the essential core of the liberal arts tradition since its beginning in antiquity.
Hiram College commits to continuing the rich legacy of liberal learning for students, developing the knowledge, skills, and habits of mind acknowledged for over two millennia as both valuable in their own right and conducive to success in any endeavor. Throughout its rigorous core curriculum and specialized academic programs, Hiram College will emphasize the ability to think critically and communicate effectively, to engage in disciplined inquiry and autonomous learning, and to recognize the essential connectedness of all knowledge.
Liberal education has been traditionally concerned not only with developing the intellect, but also with educating the whole person. To this end, Hiram College attends to the emotional and ethical lives of our students throughout both the curricular and co-curricular life of the campus, promoting respect for diversity, understanding of cultural difference, ethical reflection, and the ideal of engaged citizenship.
We believe in addition that learning by doing and knowing through experience are critically important preparation for the complex challenges that our students will confront in their lives and careers. Hiram College therefore commits to providing students not only with rigorous and relevant preparation in their chosen areas of major study, but also with opportunities to prepare themselves to meet the challenges of their future careers through experiential learning, application of their new skills and knowledge to real problems, and attentive mentoring during the transition into their careers by both faculty and staff.
Because success will require rigorous preparation and superior effort, Hiram College expects the same of itself. Because our world sorely needs tolerance, civility, understanding and respect for diversity, Hiram must insist upon the same. Because solutions to the problems of our times can only be achieved through innovation, creativity, and boldness of vision, the College will continue to encourage and practice these, as it has since its founding in 1850.
Statement of Core Values
The preceding statement of Hiram's mission and vision are based on its historical statement of core values. They set forth what we believe and define how we should conduct our affairs. At the heart of these values is the student.
Community
- We are a community that fosters mentoring relationships and shared responsibility for learning.
- We are committed to the well-being of each member of the community.
- We value the distinctive contributions of every person in the learning environment.
Learning
- We believe in the interrelationship of knowledge exemplified in the liberal arts.
- We demonstrate unwavering commitment to the pursuit of learning and quality scholarship.
- We value superior teaching and comprehensive mentoring.
- We are committed to supporting the continuous personal and professional growth of community members.
- We foster an environment that encourages open inquiry.
Responsibility
- We recognize that the well-being and governance of the community are a shared responsibility among community members.
- We believe that community members are accountable for their actions and should be held to high standards.
- We embrace our responsibility to the larger community beyond the boundaries of Hiram College and encourage learning through service.
- We respect the dignity of each individual.
Diversity
- We are an inclusive community that welcomes people of diverse backgrounds, beliefs, and points of view.
- We recognize the value of diversity in our educational program.
- We seek to foster a supportive environment in which community members will be challenged to explore knowledge, values, and ethics from varied perspectives.
- We celebrate freedom of thought and freedom of choice.
Innovation
- We honor our tradition in the liberal arts and its profound relevance to society.
- We are eager to explore new issues and practices and integrate them into our academic vision.
- We encourage individual initiative, creativity, and talent.
Hiram College Learning Outcomes
The faculty members of Hiram College have defined and adopted the following four essential learning outcomes to undergird the curriculum: written communication, oral communication, critical thinking, and information literacy. The definitions follow:
Written Communication*
Written communication is the development and expression of ideas in writing. Written communication involves learning to work in many genres and styles. It can involve working with many different writing technologies, and mixing texts, data, and images. Written communication abilities develop through iterative experiences across the curriculum.
Oral Communication*
Oral communication is a prepared, purposeful presentation designed to increase knowledge, to foster understanding, or to promote change in the listeners’ attitudes, values, beliefs, or behaviors.
Critical Thinking*
Critical thinking is a habit of mind characterized by the comprehensive exploration of issues, ideas, artifacts, and events before accepting or formulating an opinion or conclusion.
Information Literacy*
The ability to know when there is a need for information, to be able to identify, locate, evaluate, and effectively and responsibly use and share that information for the problem at hand. —Adopted from the National Forum on Information Literacy
The student affairs staff members have adopted five learning outcomes to guide their work with students outside the classroom. The areas of student life include athletics; academic development; campus involvement; campus safety; career development; citizenship education; community service; diversity and inclusion; emerging scholars; health, counseling and disability services; religious life; residential education and commuter services; and events and conferencing. The outcomes include:
Civic Engagement*
Civic engagement is "working to make a difference in the civic life of our communities and developing the combination of knowledge, skills, values and motivation to make that difference. It means promoting the quality of life in a community, through both political and non-political processes." (Excerpted from Civic Responsibility and Higher Education, edited by Thomas Ehrlich, published by Oryx Press, 2000, Preface, page vi.) In addition, civic engagement encompasses actions wherein individuals participate in activities of personal and public concern that are both individually life enriching and socially beneficial to the community.
Problem Solving*
Problem solving is the process of designing, evaluating and implementing a strategy to answer an open-ended question or achieve a desired goal.
Teamwork*
Teamwork is behaviors under the control of individual team members (effort they put into team tasks, their manner of interacting with others on team, and the quantity and quality of contributions they make to team discussions).
Leadership
Leadership is a personal journey resulting in understanding and skill sets that students need to positively and ethically influence and mobilize others.
Health & Wellness
Health and wellness integrates the physical, spiritual, emotional, intellectual and social well-being of students to help them live, learn, and work effectively, living life with vitality and meaning so they may reach their goals as students and as citizens of Hiram and beyond.
*AAC&U Essential Learning Outcome and Related Value Rubric