MISSION STATEMENT
Atlantic Union College is a Christian liberal arts
college in the Seventh-day Adventist tradition. As a diverse
learning community, its mission is to develop the whole person
by inspiring faith in a loving Creator God and encouraging a
passion for knowledge, truth, and service to humanity.
OBJECTIVES AND PHILOSOPHY
Atlantic Union College, a Seventh-day Adventist institution,
exists to serve a wide range of needs. Its original purpose
is still its primary purpose: to help young people of the Atlantic
Union Conference prepare for fruitful lives within the Church
and in the wider society around it by providing them with an
education in a Christian setting. The College also serves educational
needs of adults who cannot study in conventional programs and
offers programs designed for students ranging from preparatory
students to retired adults. The College views itself as a resource
center for learning that is genuinely life-long. It is committed
to the belief that each person has the capacity to learn and
to change, no matter what the age or background of the individual.
As an academic institution in a region rich in cultural resources, the College seeks to establish a campus environment in which the liberal arts can flourish. As a part of the world of higher education, the institution has a responsibility to contribute through scholarship to the advancement of learning and to a critical and creative response to events; and it has a responsibility to address through community service the needs of the society in which it exists. The College attempts to establish a caring and responsive community within which the multi-racial and multi-national group of students, faculty and staff can live, study and work together, and within which social as well as intellectual development can take place.
As a liberal arts institution offering some professional and pre-professional programs, the College aims to offer to all its students, whatever their age, background, religion, race, nationality, or sex, an academic environment in which attitudes, values, and goals can be examined in the light of expanded knowledge and understanding. The emphasis on the campus is on a personal relationship between faculty and students. Working together, faculty and students create an atmosphere within which a community of scholars may discover, organize, and disseminate knowledge and apply value judgments to human thought and activity. By encouraging students to work while they learn, the College is committed to the concept that work is the active expression of knowledge. By establishing a campus in which study and work occur within the framework of Christian faith, the College is committed to the belief that knowledge and action can best be turned into creative power in society when individuals see their entire lives as gifts of service to a loving Creator.
In accordance with its mission and philosophy Atlantic Union College has specific objectives. It aims to prepare men and women who will have the following abilities:
- To think logically, to make and articulate judgments, discriminate among judgments, and be willing to act upon judgments.
- To think creatively and with an educated imagination.
- To live with and respond to other human beings with compassion and to be able to think deeply about the human condition, the nature of God, and people's relationships with God and with each other.
- To affirm the importance of the Christian way of life as revealed in Scripture.
- To appreciate the Adventist heritage.
- To understand their own culture and other cultures, past and present, and their patterns of thought, linguistic structures, and aesthetic principle while also learning to be aware of the needs of the community and to be involved in its life.
- To understand the implications of the science of the age and to have a working knowledge of the physical and psychological principles affecting human health and behavior.
- To think about changing conditions and to be able to cope with them.
- To develop skills enabling the individual to continue learning after formal learning has ended: mathematical and verbal skills, the ability to research, to interpret statistical information, and to understand the systems and terminology of the major areas of knowledge.
- To gain advanced knowledge of a particular field of study, this would prepare recipients of baccalaureate degrees to pursue further study in graduate or professional schools.