Mission, Vision, and Lived Values

From our founding as Beaver College in 1853 to the present day, Arcadia University continues a remarkable journey as a leading institution in study abroad amid a rapidly changing competitive environment of higher education. View our milestones.

Our Mission

Arcadia University provides a distinctively global, integrative, and personal learning experience for intellectually curious undergraduate and graduate students in preparation for a life of scholarship, service, and professional contribution.

Our Vision, Our Dream, Our Passion

Arcadia University’s pioneering, global, integrated, liberal arts, and professional learning experience cultivates leaders who are intellectually fearless and uniquely prepared for life and work. Our highly regarded, values-based learning community reflects the world in which we want to live.

Our Lived Values​

• Adaptability: We prepare community members with the nimbleness both to address the multifaceted challenges of civic life and to pursue new strategies in a dynamic world.
• Excellence: We challenge ourselves to perform at and provide high standards in education, experience, and opportunity. Academic excellence is evidenced in the rigor and vigor of our programs and also in the qualities of our alumni.
• Fearlessness: We facilitate a boundless learning environment across disciplines that integrate diverse perspectives into new knowledge and novel solutions to complex problems.
• Integrity: We are honest and ethical in our actions, individually and collectively as an institution. Our integrative experiences, grounded in the liberal arts and sciences, cultivate intellectual and social responsibility.
• Intellectual Freedom: We encourage freedom of thought and expression irrespective of ideological perspectives throughout our community of learners.
• Justice: We bring our individual and collective resources to bear to seek positive transformation in our community and the world. We are always on guard against injustice and its causes.
• Respect: Embracing our diversity creates a rich and welcoming atmosphere where the difference in culture, perspective, and belief enriches academic discourse and campus life and creates a sense of belonging for all community members.
• Responsibility: We are committed stewards of Arcadia, and we will ensure that decisions are made in accordance with institutional mission, goals, and guidelines.