Asbury’s Vision and Purpose

Who We Are

Asbury University is a distinguished liberal arts institution solidly anchored to its founding purpose, historic mission and theological tenets. Yet, the 1890 vision for the University is a prism that produces multifaceted opportunities for a future as full of possibilities as the past.

What We Are About

Asbury University is recognized as a premier Christian University in the liberal and applied arts that prepares young men and women to engage postmodern society with a Christian world view in the Wesleyan Holiness tradition as servant leaders. Asbury seeks to enable students to acquire skills and attitudes that promote the holistic integration of faith, learning and living in a Christ-centered transformative community based on Biblical principles.

Integration of Faith and Learning

An Asbury education integrates academic excellence and spiritual vitality within the context of our historical, founding purposes and faith commitment. The University seeks to equip students to be tomorrow’s leaders through strong relevant academic programs grounded in the best of Western thought with academic and professional excellence. Asbury’s goal is to empower students to influence our global society in their professions, families and the church through their keen minds, servant lives and grounded faith.

Affirmations from the Board of Trustees

The Board affirms Asbury’s original vision for academic excellence and its commitment to scriptural holiness. To that end, the Board affirms the role of dedicated and outstanding faculty members who both teach and model excellence and holy living. The Board recommends encouraging and supporting faculty development programs and rewarding excellence in teaching, research and service. The Board affirms the tradition of appointing university personnel –– trustees, president, officers, faculty, and staff –– who embrace, strengthen and winsomely communicate the institution’s vision and mission.

The Board affirms the priority of strengthening residential, traditional liberal arts education while embracing, as appropriate and feasible, graduate, non-traditional and cyber-learning programs that will broaden the University’s mission and constituencies, as well as incorporate cutting-edge technologies and prepare students to compete in a world that increasingly is technology driven.

The Board affirms a campus environment for students that teaches personal discipline and helps them to internalize Biblical values and live with holiness and integrity. The Board affirms the balance of accountability and compassionate care that is necessary for authentic community life and productive futures for its students. Further, the Board affirms a welcoming campus environment for a student body and faculty that reflects America’s ethnic diversity.

The Board affirms the centrality of mandatory Chapel services that promote scriptural holiness, discipleship and spiritual vitality through messages and modeling from a variety of speakers and denominational traditions while upholding the tradition of powerful music, profound worship and life-changing spiritual revival in Hughes Auditorium. The Board affirms the contemporary contextualization of unchanging Biblical principles through which the divine purposes of God can be fulfilled in the lives of today’s students.

The Board affirms its responsibility to appropriately and meaningfully involve the primary constituencies in processes that will enhance, guide, and underwrite the mission of the University. The Board affirms its commitment to fiscal responsibility and financial stability as good stewards of resources entrusted to the University through gifts and tuition. The Board affirms its responsibility for fundraising which will provide for program excellence, endowment, new construction and renovation of the campus.