Mission Statement
The College of New Jersey, founded in 1855 as the New Jersey State Normal School, is primarily an undergraduate and residential college with targeted graduate programs. TCNJ’s exceptional students, teacher-scholars, staff, alumni, and board members constitute a diverse community of learners, dedicated to free inquiry and open exchange, to excellence in teaching, creativity, scholarship, and citizenship, and to the transformative power of education in a highly competitive institution. The College prepares students to excel in their chosen fields and to create, preserve and transmit knowledge, arts, and wisdom. Proud of its public service mandate to educate leaders of New Jersey and the nation, the College will be a national exemplar in the education of those who seek to sustain and advance the communities in which they live.
Guiding Principles
The College of New Jersey affirms the following Core Beliefs as fundamental to its Mission:
- The College comprises a caring, friendly, and respectful community where the contributions of students, faculty, staff and alumni are valued and recognized.
- The College provides a seamless, engaging educational environment characterized by academic freedom, creative expressions, critical thinking, intellectual inquiry, and service learning.
- The College’s faculty and staff take pride in offering a personal educational experience to every undergraduate and graduate student.
- The College’s cultural, social, and intellectual life are enriched and enlivened by diversity.
- The College provides facilities, programs, services, and amenities that enhance opportunities for formal and informal interaction in a living-learning environment.
- The College promotes wellness and fosters the development of the whole person.
- The College embraces its heritage and is committed to reevaluating its mission in response to the changing needs of society.
- The College prepares its students to be successful, ethical, and visionary leaders in a multicultural, highly technological, and increasingly global world.
- The College believes that an educated individual possesses an understanding of his or her own culture, and appreciation of other cultures, and the capacity to facilitate genuine cross-cultural interaction.
- The College regards education in the service of human welfare at its chief end.