Seaver Mission: Our Students

Seaver College is committed to the concept that the total development of the student is the heart of the educational enterprise. The student body of Seaver College consists primarily of full-time residential students. A description of the Seaver student must include both those qualities that initially won admission to a selective program and those that the student and society at large should expect the college to add or to enhance during the period of matriculation.

All incoming students should share the following characteristics:

1. An outstanding record of academic performance and service activities that indicates emerging maturity and promise of continuing growth.
2. Strong moral character evidenced by past actions, such as explicit examples of mature ethical and moral decision-making, responsible and productive behavior, exhibition of a spirit of servant hood, and commitment to volunteer participation in institutions such as church, school, and nonprofit public service agencies and projects.
3. An inquisitive mind and a willingness to learn.
4. Creativity and special talents, especially the capacity for leadership – professional, personal, and social.

Exposure to intellectual, social, and cultural diversity is also essential in the liberating process of education. The student body of Seaver should therefore include persons of differing economic and social status; geographical origins, both foreign and domestic; and racial and cultural heritage.

The Seaver student body should represent a diversity of religious heritages, Christian and non-Christian, while at the same time reflecting the University's Christian character and its relationship with Churches of Christ.

The Seaver curriculum emphasizes both breadth (through general education) and depth (through a concentration in one discipline). All graduating students should share the following characteristics:

The ability to continue the quest for knowledge and insight and to adapt to constant changes spurred on by the excitement of discovery and aided by an understanding of the nature and techniques of intellectual research.

The ability to think clearly, logically, independently, and critically – to synthesize and integrate knowledge, not simply to accumulate it.

The ability to communicate and to understand the communication of others: to read, to listen, to speak, and to write effectively.

A broad cultural perspective, defined by an exposure sufficiently broad to ensure familiarity with the history, literature, philosophy, and achievements of Western culture, as well as a sense of the global interaction between Western and non-Western civilization. This would naturally include a developed aesthetic sense capable of appreciating the arts, a grasp of the basic process of scientific discovery, and knowledge of the present state of human understanding of the physical and social world.

Moral integrity and a sense of personal values, seen as a capacity and willingness to make value judgments based on a serious consideration of Christian ethics. While students may or may not accept these views as their own, they will be encouraged to consider seriously the question of Christian values in making life decisions.

An enhanced potential for service in a chosen profession, in public life, and in the support of cultural life of a chosen community. Seaver students will be leaders – leaders, however, of a special kind, exercising leadership for the common good rather than for mere personal or material gain.