Participatory Planning

The mission is clearly stated and constitutes an appropriate focus for University activities. It reflects and helps us focus on our priorities. The vision is clear, current, and well organized through its six themes. Our mission, vision, and institutional goals were developed and refined, in a spirit of collegiality and shared governance, through the participation and support of many members of the University community. These statements are consistent with one another and clearly state our top priorities.

Outstanding Academic Programs

Our academic programs promote intellectual development and prepare students to engage in productive and contributive lives. Surveys of students and alumni strongly support the quality of our academic programs and demonstrate students' satisfaction with the education that they have received and its contribution to their professional lives.

All Millersville students-whether in a liberal arts or a pre-professional major-must complete a liberal-arts-based General Education curriculum that constitutes nearly half of their degree requirements. The curriculum that emphasizes the acquisition and refinement of writing, communication, and critical thinking skills while providing a background in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. Our commitment to a strong liberal arts education is demonstrated by the many years we have devoted to rigorously studying, reviewing, and modifying the General Education curriculum. The curriculum is dynamic and supports and informs the entire academic life of the University. The evidence we are compiling of its strength and quality is helping to demonstrate that we provide "an exemplary liberal arts-based education."

Our broad range of well-enrolled programs spans the arts, humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, and professions, as is fitting for a comprehensive university serving the diverse community of southeastern Pennsylvania. Millersville has an unusually large number of majors in a broad variety of particularly challenging programs. We have more majors in biology, mathematics, and the physical sciences than any other State System university, and we have more majors in computer science, industrial technology, and foreign languages than any other State System university save one.

Millersville's vitality is demonstrated in our many innovative programs. The Adult & Continuing Education program and new interdisciplinary minors are examples of our attempts to meet our students' diverse and changing needs. We have added curricular options and enhancements to many major programs, which demonstrate our responsiveness to a changing world.

Many of our academic programs require or encourage internships, cooperative education experiences, field practica, service learning projects, and research activities in which students apply their learning to pragmatic challenges, often with the collaborative advisement of both faculty and established professionals.

Millersville assesses the quality of its academic programs through several means, including academic outcomes assessment initiatives and, for a number of programs, specialized accreditation. These efforts ensure that our academic programs indeed remain "meritorious": central to our mission, relevant to the needs and demands of our students, consistent with disciplinary criteria of excellence, and appropriately productive and cost effective. Our range of academic outcomes assessment activities helps demonstrate the quality of our "comprehensive array of meritorious baccalaureate and selected graduate programs."

A Superior Faculty

Our faculty are well credentialed, experienced teachers dedicated to providing quality instruction. They receive high praise from students and alumni for teaching excellence. We clearly and consistently reaffirm teaching excellence through our Collective Bargaining Agreement with the faculty, faculty recruitment criteria, tenure and promotion practices and policies, and faculty development programs. Good teaching, as evidenced by peer and student evaluations, is the first and foremost requirement for tenure, promotion, and successful five-year reviews of post-tenure faculty, and finalists for permanent faculty positions must demonstrate their teaching ability.

Our faculty are committed to professional development and scholarship, and they serve both the University and our community. They are supported by policies that facilitate their success, and their work is recognized with good salaries and benefits and collegial working conditions. Faculty members have extensive opportunities to participate-and the rate of participation is high-in professional development activities, including many focused on teaching. Support for scholarly activities and professional development is increasing; the new Center for Academic Excellence is a notable example.

A Dedication to Serving Students

Millersville offers students a broad array of diverse cultural, intellectual, social, wellness, and recreational programs that attract thousands of students, appeal to diverse populations and successfully integrate academics. Many of these opportunities are open to residents of our region. The formation of the Student Alcohol Abuse Task Force demonstrates our commitment to encouraging healthy student behaviors and holds promise for increasing their involvement in University activities.

Investment in Technology

Annual spending for all computing personnel, hardware, and software exceeds five percent of the University's E&G budget, a benchmark suggested as realistic and supportive. Faculty, administrators, most staff members, and all students in the residence halls have the opportunity for desktop access to information technologies. The new McCollough Communication Complex and Science & Technology Building integrate technology into classrooms, laboratories and studios. The Keystone Library Network has expanded access to library resources, and the new Virtual University has enabled us to expand access to our educational opportunities through distance education courses.

A Commitment to Diversity

The University climate is generally regarded as inclusive and supportive of those of diverse backgrounds and lifestyles. Through our efforts to offer a rich and diverse curriculum and to serve as a model of a pluralistic community, we "prepare students to live in an increasingly diverse, multicultural, and technologically complex society." Our diverse faculty, staff and student body are catalyzing breadth and variety in curricular content, teaching pedagogy, cultural events, and social experiences.

Many students express satisfaction with Millersville's climate for diversity and inclusiveness. The status of underrepresented and protected groups at Millersville has improved during the 1990s. The needs of a diverse community are being addressed through extensive diversity/inclusiveness training of over 500 members of the University community; a broad, viable force of organizations, programs and speakers that foster a climate promoting and celebrating diversity; and ongoing assessments of the community's perceptions of issues germane to equity, fairness, and inclusiveness.

In enrollment of students of color, Millersville has ranked third among State System universities for each of the past four years, after Cheyney, an historically African-American university, and West Chester, located close to Philadelphia. Our six-year graduation rate for students of color has been highest in the System for the past two years (47% and 48%) and has shown the greatest four-year improvement.

Millersville's 1998-1999 percentage of faculty who were of color was 14%, second highest in the State System after Cheyney, and our percentage of staff who were of color was 19%, third highest in the System. These figures are important evidence of our commitment to providing a comfortable environment to students of color and a multicultural environment for all our students.

Service to the Regional Community

A broad selection of programs, activities, and services makes us "an intellectual and cultural resource to the regional community." Every year we offer a wide variety of educational and cultural activities to numerous constituencies. Our community service programs give area residents opportunities to advance themselves intellectually and to expose themselves to new ideas. Our expanding involvement in the business and public sector is occasioning new partnerships and collaborations for the good of our students and the community. Many of our long-term community service programs have shown positive results and appear successful in achieving their missions. There is evidence that many of our pre-college programs successfully help prepare students for college.

A Spirit of Collegiality

Governance at Millersville is conducted in an atmosphere of mutual respect and trust. There are many opportunities for faculty and, to some extent, for staff and students to provide input in the decision-making process. The recently completed capital campaign, the capital facilities master planning process, and the self-study process all reaffirmed that the Millersville University community works together cooperatively and efficiently in a spirit of shared governance. Millersville's participative style of management and governance has enabled us to make decisions that are rational and fiscally responsible, thereby ensuring stability and direction for the entire community. We are particularly fortunate to have the involvement and support of the members of our Council of Trustees.

A deep sense of pride in and commitment to Millersville University pervades the institution. This has been recognized and commented upon by consultants and other visitors to the campus.