Emory University School of Medicine

Mission Statement

UNIVERSITY MISSION STATEMENT

Emory University's mission lies in two essential, interwoven purposes: through teaching, to help men and women fully develop their intellectual, aesthetic, and moral capacities; and, through the quest for new knowledge and public service, to improve human well-being. These purposes rest upon the premises that education is the most powerful social force of our time for enabling and ennobling the individual, and that the privilege of education entails an obligation to use knowledge for the common good.

To support this mission, Emory sustains and nurtures the full range of scholarship, from undergraduate to advanced graduate and professional instruction, and from basic research to its application in public service. While Emory is thus a comprehensive university, its academic scope is limited to those fields in which, by virtue of history, location, or other circumstance, the university can excel and has a special responsibility. Thus, Emory's academic programs focus principally on the arts and sciences, business, law, theology, and the health professions. This constellation of disciplines is unified by their dependency upon liberal learning; by cooperative interdisciplinary programs; and by the common goal of excellence in teaching, research, and service. Understanding its mission to have life and meaning only as it is embodied in a community of scholars, Emory strives to bring together outstanding faculty and students in a nurturing and challenging environment. To that end, the Emory community is open to all who meet its high standards of scholarship, intelligence, and integrity. Moreover, diversity of ethnic, cultural, socioeconomic, religious, national, and international background and experience of its faculty, students, and staff adds greatly to the intellectual ferment and is actively sought.

Emory aspires to create a climate in which equality of all persons and openness to critical consideration of all ideas are encouraged and sustained. Notwithstanding the asymmetries inherent in the relationships between student and teacher, between employee and supervisor, and among basic research, teaching, and professional practice, Emory intends that each person and each level of scholarly activity be valued on its own merits; that ways of knowing and of challenging established knowledge be valued equally with knowledge itself; and that the whole fabric of scholarship and community be regarded as greater than the sum of individual parts.

Beyond the demand that teaching, learning, research, and service be measured by high standards of integrity and excellence, the university aims to imbue scholarship at Emory with certain special qualities, including:

• a commitment to humane teaching and mentorship and collegial interaction among faculty, students, and staff;

• permeable disciplinary boundaries that encourage integrative teaching, research, and scholarship;

• a commitment to use knowledge to improve human well-being; and

• a global perspective on the human condition.

Emory University was founded by the Methodist Episcopal Church, and it continues a cherished affiliation with the United Methodist Church. While its programs are today entirely nonsectarian (except for the School of Theology), Emory has derived from this heritage the conviction that education is a strong moral force in society and the lives of its individual members. It is that conviction, above all others, that guides Emory University today.

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