Vision, Mission and Values

Coastal Carolina University’s mission was significantly revised in 2007 with the input of students, faculty, staff, alumni and board members. It served Coastal Carolina University effectively until the institution sought to capitalize on the exceptional skills, national and international reputation, and dedicated regional focus of its marine science program to advance the institution’s first doctoral program and to enable educational specialist degree programs to develop. As such, the mission statement was revised in 2014 to accommodate a minor change in wording but expansion of the focus of the institution as a whole to offer doctoral programs in selective fields. It was approved by the Coastal Carolina University Board of Trustees on July 19, 2014, and by the South Carolina Commission on Higher Education on February 5, 2015. As a testament to its durability and fit among institutional stakeholders, the rest of the mission statement remained as it had been developed in 2007. The current Coastal Carolina University mission statement appears below and, for the purpose of the strategic planning process for 2016-2021, was deemed to continue to remain appropriate for guiding the institution for the next five years:


Coastal Carolina University is a public comprehensive liberal arts institution that seeks to develop students who are both knowledgeable in their chosen fields and prepared to be productive, responsible, healthy citizens with a global perspective. To deliver on this commitment, Coastal Carolina recruits highly qualified and motivated students, faculty, and staff from the region, state, nation, and world to create a diverse and dynamic student-centered learning environment.

Because Coastal Carolina embraces the teacher-scholar model, it places primary emphasis on high quality teaching and engaged learning, and it supports faculty research, creative activities, and expert collaboration in the community, state, nation and world. This focus enables faculty and staff to mentor students in collaborative research, creative opportunities, and internships. To nurture this active learning community, Coastal Carolina maintains a broad range of contemporary technologies, programming, support services, and innovative course offerings and delivery methods. The result is alumni who are well prepared for professional careers or graduate programs in their chosen fields and who continue to be connected to Coastal Carolina.

Inspired by its founding in 1954 to serve the educational needs of the region, Coastal Carolina has a tradition of a strong liberal arts core. As such, Coastal Carolina commits its resources to building undergraduate and graduate degree programs of national and/or regional significance in the arts and sciences, business, humanities, education, and health and human services. Coastal Carolina fully embraces its leadership role as a regional center of economic and intellectual resources, lifelong learning, cultural and recreational opportunities, and athletic programs.

As Coastal Carolina executes this mission, it recognizes its responsibility to be a role model to the community and to the professions by assuring fair and honest treatment of people with whom it interacts and sustainable stewardship of resources entrusted to it, adopting the highest standards of integrity and accountability, and in committing itself to excellence through continuous assessment and improvement.

While Coastal Carolina University has made much progress in the last eight years, there is still action to be taken to reach its vision:

To become the public comprehensive university of choice in South Carolina.

As a student-centered learning community in which students, faculty and staff embrace education as a lifelong commitment that supports both the development of knowledge in specific fields and the dedication to learning that empowers productive, responsible, healthy citizens with a global perspective, Coastal Carolina University embraces the following values:

Truth

CCU values truth and the freedom to express the truth, in keeping with the motto Ex libertate veritas - "From freedom, truth."

Respect

CCU appreciates diversity and values civility and fairness toward individuals, cultures, ideas and resources.

Integrity

CCU values a commitment to the highest ethical standards.

Excellence

CCU values distinction in all its endeavors.

 

 

This mission and these values were the cornerstone of all work to develop the key institutional strategies in the strategic planning process.