II. Governing Ideas

FROM THE PRESIDENT

Dear Student,

Welcome to Belmont University! I am honored and grateful that you have chosen to join our campus community.

At Belmont, we want you be a Bruin for life. Whether you are in your first year on this campus or in your last semester preparing for whatever the future may hold, you are now and will always be a member of the Bruin family. You are not simply attending Belmont—you are part of this University, and we’re grateful for what you contribute to our community.

Our focus is on you. We want to help you discover your ‘North Star,’ the God-given purpose that will help you orient your life and give extraordinary meaning to what sometimes may feel like ordinary days. While you’re on this campus, we want to also cultivate an entrepreneurial mindset in you to keep you focused on a future that none of us can see or fully imagine now.

Finally, here, we know that the real value of your education comes with both the credential you receive at graduation and the kind of person you become. Whatever your program of study, we want to help you develop more than confidence in your field. We want Belmont grads to be caring, compassionate, competent people of character. This Bruin Guide helps outline our expectations toward that kind of holistic development.

Drawing inspiration from Ephesians 3:20—which reminds us that God is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or even imagine—I’d invite you to see Belmont as a place where together we can “Let Hope Abound.” As a Christ-centered institution, through all of our efforts, Belmont can and should help to reweave the social fabric, both within our campus community and through our influence on the broader world. I’m excited to be on this journey with you.

Let Hope Abound, Dr. L. Gregory Jones, President

VISION

To be a leader among teaching universities, bringing together the best of liberal arts and professional education in a Christian community of learning and service.

MISSION STATEMENT

Belmont University is a student-centered Christian community providing an academically challenging education that empowers men and women of diverse backgrounds to engage and transform the world with disciplined intelligence, compassion, courage and faith.

Belmont University is Christ-centered, student focused community, developing diverse leaders of purpose, character, wisdom and transformational mindset, eager and equipped to make the world a better place. Faculty, administration and staff commit themselves to guide and challenge students to develop their full potential in order to lead lives of meaning and purpose.

Belmont University is a Christian Community. The University faculty, administration and staff uphold Jesus as the Christ and as the measure of all things. Students encounter Christian values relevant to personal growth, service and spiritual maturity and are expected to commit themselves to high moral standards.

Belmont University is academically challenging. The University offers rigorous undergraduate and graduate programs emphasizing knowledge and discernment, intellectual discourse and debate, and humble engagement of cultural and social perspectives within a framework of ethical and moral reflection. All learning contexts stress the skills and dispositions necessary for lifelong learning and the sustaining value of higher education in each person’s professional and personal life.

Belmont University welcomes men and women from diverse backgrounds. The University upholds the dignity of all and fosters an atmosphere of respect for the civil expression of divergent perspectives that enables students to learn, live, work and socialize together.

Belmont University empowers men and women to engage and transform the world. The University prepares students to use their intellectual skills, creativity and faith to meet challenges and opportunities that face the human community.