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Mission, Vision, and Values

Our Mission

The mission of Texas Christian University, a private comprehensive university, is to educate individuals to think and act as ethical leaders and responsible citizens in the global community through research and creative activities, scholarship, service, and programs of teaching and learning offered through the doctoral level.

Our Vision

To be a world-class, values-centered university.

Our Core Values

TCU Values:

  • Academic and personal achievement.

  • Intellectual inquiry and the creation of knowledge.

  • Artistic and creative expression.

  • A heritage of service in pursuit of the greater good.

  • Personal freedom and integrity.

  • The dignity of and respect for the individual.

  • Active appreciation for the array of human experience and the potential of every human being.

Heritage, Philosophy and Goals

Founded in 1873, TCU has grown from a small school on the cattle frontier to a major center of independent higher education in a dynamic city. As agents of change, TCU’s faculty, staff, students and Trustees are united in striving for the constant improvement of the University.

A community dedicated to learning, the University affirms its commitment to rationality, objectivity, diversity, freedom of inquiry, creativity and civility. TCU is committed as well to the preservation, appraisal and transmission of knowledge and wisdom and to the discovery of ideas and knowledge by which the understanding of truth may be extended or corrected.

An independent and self-governing institution, TCU attests that a representative democracy provides the context within which free inquiry may best be protected and encouraged; and the University acknowledges that independent higher education can thrive only in an economic system that prompts and rewards individual initiative. TCU has a historical and intentional connection with a religious body, the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), that embraces pluralism, rejects sectarian narrowness, encourages a reasoned faith and affirms the rights of informed individual conscience in religious preference. The University welcomes students, faculty and staff of all religious faiths and takes pride in the diversity of its academic community.

Much of the knowledge students seek is related to specific career goals. The University, however, regards as essential the advancement and communication of general knowledge, which enables students to understand the past, comprehend the natural and social order, search for the good and the beautiful, and integrate knowledge into significant wholes.

Education fosters the capacity for rational decision-making, creative thinking and expression, and responsible living. Although knowledge may be treated as ethically neutral, the University believes that questions of value are vital and exploration of the moral and religious dimensions of human existence is basic to the love of wisdom. People are at the center of the educational endeavor. Affirming the incalculable worth of each individual, TCU seeks to be a caring community, encouraging close working relationships among all members of the University, and challenges students, faculty and staff to high achievement. In such a setting, the enhancement of mental, physical and spiritual gifts contributes to the integration of the self and the enrichment of the community and humankind.

The University intends to maintain only undergraduate and graduate programs that aim toward excellence, the well-being of students and the wholeness of the University. There must be compatibility among the values and daily practices of the University and its units.

Among TCU’s many goals are to:

  • Conduct curricular and co-curricular activities designed to fulfill the mission and vision of the University.

  • Foster undergraduate and graduate studies of excellent quality.

  • Provide faculty and staff of high qualification and dedication.

  • Expect and encourage superior teaching and fruitful creativity and research.

  • Preserve and contribute to knowledge by aiding in its organization, storage, retrieval and dispersal, and to use appropriate technology to this end.

  • Employ admission, advising and retention policies that enable qualified and dedicated students to successfully pursue their collegiate work.

  • Provide a variety of support services that enhance the educational experience.

  • Promote the development of mature individuals who respect others; cherish a free and just society; and are prepared to act as responsible citizens; literate, broadly informed, self-educating, appreciative of the arts and the fruitful uses of leisure, and capable of both entering and changing careers.

  • Support co-curricular as well as curricular opportunities for an informed understanding of religious tradition.

  • Contribute to the quality of life, work and leisure of citizens in the surrounding metropolitan area through regular instructional programs; continuing education; cultural and intellectual events; and research; and through participation of faculty and staff in civic, religious and other affairs.

  • Earn growing support from those who share the conviction that strong, independent institutions of higher learning are crucial to the continuation of a free society.