READ | TEACHING @| BACKGROUND OF OHIO STATE
history | today | mission | culture
UNIVERSITY VISION & MISSION STATEMENT
The University's mission is to achieve international distinction in education, scholarship, and public service. As the state's leading comprehensive teaching and research university, Ohio State combines a responsibility for the advancement and dissemination of knowledge with a land-grant heritage of public service. Ohio State recently developed two major strategic initiatives to move the university toward academic excellence. These initiatives are the Academic Plan and the Diversity Action Plan.
Academic Plan
Ohio State's core purpose is "to advance the well-being of the people of Ohio and the global community through the creation and dissemination of knowledge," with the overarching goal that the university be "among the world's truly great universities." The university's vision includes the following core values:
- Pursue knowledge for its own sake.
- Ignite in our students a lifelong love of learning.
- Produce discoveries that make the world a better place.
- Celebrate and learn from our diversity.
- Open the world to our students.
These values are directly relevant to you in your role as an instructor. As a teacher, you have many opportunities to "open the world to your students," and instill in them a love of learning that will last beyond your class.
In order to guide Ohio State toward meeting its overarching goal of becoming a world-class university, an Academic Plan was endorsed in 2001 by the Board of Trustees. Most initiatives identified in it are expected to be realized within its ten-year time frame. In preparing the academic plan, the university has focused on becoming a national leader in the quality of its academic programs, being universally acclaimed for the quality of learning experience it offers its students, creating an environment that values and is enriched by diversity, and addressing our society's most compelling needs. These elements are reflected in the six strategies that follow.
1. Build a world-class faculty.
2. Develop academic programs that define Ohio State as the nation's leading public land-grant university.
3. Improve the quality of the teaching and learning environment.
4. Enhance and better serve the student body.
5. Create a more diverse university community.
6. Help build Ohio's future.
More details about these strategies, including the university's plans for achieving these goals and past yearly updates, are online.
Academic departments, colleges, and academic and non-academic support units plan their activities with these strategies in mind. You the instructor are a significant contributor to the success of this plan. Your dedication to teaching and a willingness to teach well will improve the quality of the teaching and learning environment, which in turn serves the student body. You not only help build Ohio's future, but the future of the world by teaching your students, and learning from them.
Diversity Action Plan
The main goal of the Diversity Action Plan is for the university to be a national model for diversity and become one of the most welcoming campuses in the country. Created in 2000, the plan's objectives are as follows:
- Create a supportive environment that is welcoming for all.
- Recruit and retain greater numbers of women and minorities into faculty, staff, and administrative positions (including deans, chairs, and vice presidents).
- Recruit, retain, and graduate greater numbers of minority students.
- Provide incentives to academic and academic support units for developing models of excellence for increasing diversity.
- Collect and organize data to create databases in order to systematically and effectively assess progress and align/realign programs to achieve diversity goals.
- Assign accountability to achieve progress envisioned in this plan.
Read the complete plan in detail at Ohio State's Diversity Site, with links to annual diversity data, official reports on Ohio State diversity issues, and other informative resources.
Instructors at Ohio State should expect to encounter a diverse undergraduate student body. The more an instructor understands that student population, the better he or she will be able to respond in an appropriate manner in teaching a diverse student population.
 back |
