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Fairmont State considers its broad objective to be the education of its students as intelligent and productive persons, capable of participating in and understanding the world of the twenty-first century. Accordingly, the University seeks to provide a suitable environment for free and responsible inquiry into the nature, sources, and implications of human knowledge and culture, and it challenges students to promote their own intellectual, social, and personal development.
The University faculty serve this objective by guiding students in acquiring knowledge and by maintaining a dialogue with them. The University fully supports the ideal of a well-educated society and upholds the academic freedom of its faculty and students, confident that the best interests of the community are served when the search for truth is imaginative and vigorous.
The University follows a liberal policy of student admissions and believes that it can help highly-motivated students to overcome many challenges in their academic preparation. Because its academic standards are high, the Fairmont State degree represents a level of achievement respected throughout the nation.
The University has a traditional interest in preparing teachers for public schools in West Virginia, as well as in other states. Recognizing the importance of able teachers to a progressive society, it requires outstanding academic performance of its teacher candidates and offers them sound professional training for elementary and secondary teaching supported by a strong partnership with a network of public schools.
Drawing many students from its immediate vicinity, the University welcomes the enthusiastic support it receives from Fairmont and surrounding areas. In return, it participates actively in community projects, shares its programs and facilities with the public, and serves the community as a center of information and culture.
Specifically, the mission of Fairmont State is to provide programs needed by those in its geographic service area, to the extent permitted by its financial and human resources, and its assigned role in the state system of public higher education. This mission is accomplished by meeting these objectives:
- Offering a broad range of traditional baccalaureate degree programs in the arts and sciences, teacher education, and business administration;
- Providing opportunities for occupationallyoriented baccalaureate study through expansion of existing engineering technology programs and the development of additional career-related curricula;
- Bringing selected study opportunities into communities in the University’s service region through the use of the mass media, regional educational centers, external degree programs, and other forms of nontraditional study;
- Encouraging a broad segment of the populace, including various age groups and the economically deprived, to avail themselves of educational opportunities;
- Serving the greatest number of students by holding University costs at the lowest possible level and providing financial support to those who need it to gain equal access to higher education;
- Relating the breadth of the curriculum to the availability of appropriate employment opportunities and the needs of business, industrial and public service agencies in the University’s service area;
- Offering continuing education programs to provide career enhancement, cultural enrichment, and personal skill development;
- Providing advisory, counseling, and placement services to enable students to make satisfactory decisions about academic and personal problems and to make successful career and employment choices;
- Offering a variety of cultural, recreational, and social activities to complement academic pursuits.
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