Vision & Values
At Denison University, the life of the mind merges with a life of action. In small classes, students learn directly from—and collaborate with—a dynamic and involved faculty. In their daily pursuits, they put that knowledge into motion, applying their liberal arts foundation locally and globally in service, commerce, and innovation. And so, as prepared and energized graduates, they become thought and action leaders in all walks of life. At the core of this experience is a set of rock-solid ideals: integrity, reason, scholarship, community, diversity, intellect, dignity, respect.
Read on for what matters most at Denison University:
Mission Statement
Our purpose is to inspire and educate our students to become autonomous thinkers, discerning moral agents and active citizens of a democratic society. Through an emphasis on active learning, we engage students in the liberal arts, which fosters self-determination and demonstrates the transformative power of education. We envision our students' lives as based upon rational choice, a firm belief in human dignity and compassion unlimited by cultural, racial, sexual, religious or economic barriers, and directed toward an engagement with the central issues of our time.
Guiding Principles
Our curriculum balances breadth with depth, building academic specialization upon a liberal arts foundation in the arts, the sciences, the social sciences and the humanities. Responsive to new ways of learning, we continue to develop interdisciplinary integration of the many forms of knowledge. While our students pursue specialized learning in their chosen majors, they also develop the framework for an integrated intellectual life, spiritually and morally informed.
Our faculty is committed to undergraduate education. As teacher-scholar-advisors, their principal responsibility is effective teaching informed by the best scholarship. Faculty members place a priority on close interaction with students, interactive learning, and partnerships with students in original research. Our low student/faculty ratio allows for close supervision of independent research and collaborative work in small groups and classes.
We seek to ensure an ever-broader range of racial, ethnic, international and socioeconomic backgrounds in a student body of about 2,000 students. We offer different kinds of financial aid to meet the different needs of our students.
The focus of student life at Denison is a concern for the whole person. The University provides a living-learning environment sensitive to individual needs yet grounded in a concern for community, in which the principles of human dignity and ethical integrity are paramount. Students engage in a wide range of co-curricular activities that address the multidimensional character of their intellectual and personal journey.
Denison is a community in which individuals respect one another and their environment. Each member of the community possesses a full range of rights and responsibilities. Foremost among these is a commitment to treat each other and the environment with mutual respect, tolerance, and civility.
Our Core Values
Denison University is a community where individuals respect one another and their environment.
Each of us possesses a full range of rights and responsibilities and foremost among these is a commitment to treat each other and our environment with unconditional respect. With mutual consideration and trust, our community will thrive as a place of liberal learning and humane life.
- As a university, we value learning and scholarly work.
- As a community, we share common purposes, governance, bonds, and traditions.
- We treat each other with respect. Civility is a cornerstone of our community.
- We value our campus and respect our environment.
- We respect individuality. We celebrate diversity as a strength from which we grow and learn from one another.
- All interactions, academic and social, are characterized by integrity.
- We take responsibility for acting in accordance with our community's standards and rules and for reporting violations of those standards and rules.
More Possibilities than You Can Imagine
Scholarship—or what some call learning—at Denison isn’t just lectures, books, and research papers. Here, the life of the mind is reflective, but it’s also active and interactive. It’s discussion. It’s collaboration with other students and professors on original research, writing, and art. It’s the exploration of perspectives and ideas. It’s the development and defense and application of your own new ideas. It is, simply put, an experience that transforms lives.
The breadth and depth of Denison’s liberal arts curriculum lays a solid foundation for what we call “co-curricular learning”—a concept that spans a host of programs and organizations. They provide the settings for students to apply their knowledge, to experiment with new skills, and to pursue their passions.
Explore these pages to learn more about experiential learning at Denison:
- Summer Scholars Research Program
- John W. Alford Center for Service Learning
- Off-Campus Study
- First-Year Program
- Gillpatrick Center for Student Research and Fellowships
- Richard G. Lugar Program in Politics & Public Service
- Internship Program
- Organizational Studies
- Religious and Spiritual Life
- Student Organizations
It's a Denison Thing
When students, faculty, and staff join the Denison University community, they subscribe to a long-standing set of values, known as the Campus Compact, which includes scholarly work, shared purpose, civility, respect for each other and our environment, and individuality. And they are all founded on integrity.
This unifying tradition was formalized in 2004, when Denison students initiated a multi-year process of research, planning, and collaboration that led to the Code of Academic Integrity. The faculty and student governments formally adopted the code in 2009.
Visit Integrity at Denison for the Code of Academic Integrity and more on the college's commitment to integrity.
There Is No “Typical” Denison Student
They’re not all crunchy or preppy or edgy or geeky or Greeky or jocks—they’re not all anything, except that they’re all individuals, and they’re all learning from each other. They have some things in common, and they have a lot that’s unique to their own life experiences. Sometimes they overlap; other times they blaze their own trails. It’s a community of difference—and that makes all the difference.
Where did you come from? What do you like? What's the one thing you wish you could tell the whole world? At Denison, we celebrate your perspective on life—it’s something you have that no one else does.
Fostering a diverse community is central to Denison’s mission as a liberal arts college. Engagement with—and challenge from—multiple, differing perspectives are incubators of critical thinking and social responsibility.
Diversity plays a particularly important role at Denison—where classes are small, where a fully residential campus places students constantly together in living as well as learning, and where a multiplicity of campus-based opportunities in student organizational life, athletics and recreation, and social service allow students to share personal growth experiences.
At Denison, diversity of background and experience is shared first-hand.
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Go Green, Big Red
A Denison education is for a life—not just for a living. And part of that is the college’s commitment to nurturing ecological sustainability both on campus and in the world beyond.
Active leaders among Denison’s students, administrators, faculty, staff and alumni work every day to challenge traditional ideas and look for new solutions.
This isn’t a trend, and it’s not new—it’s a way of thinking that has a long history at Denison, and it’s a way of life that puts us on the path toward continued achievement. It’s an active commitment to nurturing sustainability as we go.
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