Vision

Florida Gulf Coast University will achieve national prominence in undergraduate education with expanding recognition for graduate programs.

Approved by the FGCU Board of Trustees January 19, 2010.

Mission

Established on the verge of the 21st century, Florida Gulf Coast University infuses the strengths of the traditional public university with innovation and learning-centered spirit, its chief aim being to fulfill the academic, cultural, social, and career expectations of its constituents.

Outstanding faculty uphold challenging academic standards and balance research, scholarly activities, and service expectations with their central responsibilities of teaching and mentoring. Working together, faculty and staff of the University transform students’ lives and the southwest Florida region.

Florida Gulf Coast University continuously pursues academic excellence, practices and promotes environmental sustainability, embraces diversity, nurtures community partnerships, values public service, encourages civic responsibility, cultivates habits of lifelong learning, and keeps the advancement of knowledge and pursuit of truth as noble ideals at the heart of the university’s purpose.

Approved by the FGCU Board of Trustees January 19, 2010.

Guiding Principles

The founding of Florida Gulf Coast University at the advent of a new century is a signal event. It comes at a moment in history when the conditions that formed and sustained American higher education are fundamentally changing, and at a time when rapid shifts wrought by technology and social complexities are altering the very nature of work, knowledge, and human relationships. As a public institution, Florida Gulf Coast University eagerly accepts the leadership opportunity and obligation to adapt to these changes and to meet the educational needs of Southwest Florida. To do so, it will collaborate with its various constituencies, listen to the calls for change, build on the intellectual heritage of the past, plan its evolution systematically for the twenty-first century, and be guided by the following principles:

Diversity

Diversity is a source of renewal and vitality. The University is committed to developing capacities for living together in a democracy whose hallmark is individual, social, cultural, and intellectual diversity. It fosters a climate and models a condition of openness in which students, faculty, and staff engage multiplicity and difference with tolerance and equity.

Informed and engaged citizens are essential to the creation of a civil and sustainable society. The University values the development of the responsible self grounded in honesty, courage, and compassion, and committed to advancing democratic ideals. Through service learning requirements, the University engages students in community involvement with time for formal reflection on their experiences. Integral to the University's philosophy is instilling in students an environmental consciousness that balances their economic and social aspirations with the imperative for ecological sustainability.

Service to Southwest Florida, including access to the University, is a public trust. The University is committed to forging partnerships and being responsive to its region. It strives to make available its knowledge resources, services, and educational offerings at times, places, in forms and by methods that will meet the needs of all its constituents. Access means not only admittance to buildings and programs, but also entrance into the spirit of intellectual and cultural community that the University creates and nourishes.

Technology is a fundamental tool in achieving educational quality, efficiency, and distribution. The University employs information technology in creative, experimental, and practical ways for delivery of instruction, for administrative and information management, and for student access and support. It promotes and provides distance and time free learning. It requires and cultivates technological literacy in its students and employees.

Connected knowing and collaborative learning are basic to being well educated. The University structures interdisciplinary learning experiences throughout the curriculum to endow students with the ability to think in whole systems and to understand the interrelatedness of knowledge across disciplines. Emphasis is placed on the development of teamwork skills through collaborative opportunities. Overall, the University practices the art of collective learning and collaboration in governance, operations, and planning.