Gustavus Adolphus College

The purpose of a Gustavus education is to help its students attain their full potential as persons, to develop in them a capacity and passion for lifelong learning, and to prepare them for fulfilling lives of leadership and service in society.” - T lives of leadership and service in society.” - The Gustavus Mission Statement “Gustavus equips students to lead purposeful lives and to act on the great challenges of our time through an innovative liberal arts education of recognized excellence.” - The Gustavus Acts Vision Statement Gustavus Adolphus College is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission (HLC), the Commission on Accreditation of Athletic Training Education (CAATE), and the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education (CCNE). Our campus is energized by the power of progress. We are moving forward together. New scholarships, top-notch faculty, and a growing endowment all support our belief that critical thinking and world perspective are essential skills. Gustavus is committed to meeting the financial need of all admitted students and to providing world-class, state-of-the-art resources and facilities. As a Gustie you don’t get to pick and choose which core value you’d like to follow. Instead, you are challenged to manifest them all in your daily life. EXCELLENCE is connected to COMMUNITY is connected to JUSTICE is connected to SERVICE is connected to FAITH. Everything is connected to learning and academics. The core values ebb and flow through your years at Gustavus, and that combined experience results in how you’ve made your life count as a unique and exceptional singular Gustie. Gustavus Adolphus College is a church-related, residential liberal arts college firmly rooted in its Swedish and Lutheran heritage. The College offers students of high aspiration and promise a liberal arts education of recognized excellence provided by faculty who embody the highest standards of teaching and scholarship. The Gustavus curriculum is designed to bring students to mastery of a particular area of study within a general framework that is both interdisciplinary and international in perspective. The College strives to balance educational tradition with innovation and to foster the development of values as an integral part of intellectual growth. It seeks to promote the open exchange of ideas and the independent pursuit of learning. The College aspires to be a community of persons from diverse backgrounds who respect and affirm the dignity of all people. It is a community where a mature understanding of the Christian faith and lives of service are nurtured and students are encouraged to work toward a just and peaceful world. The purpose of a Gustavus education is to help its students attain their full potential as persons, to develop in them a capacity and passion for lifelong learning, and to prepare them for fulfilling lives of leadership and service in society. Gustavus equips students to lead purposeful lives and to act on the great challenges of our time through an innovative liberal arts education of recognized excellence. Implicit in this statement of institutional purpose and goals are certain institutional values that guide the Gustavus community. These values are rooted in our distinctive heritage and help to define our community. They also help us to focus on appropriate objectives for our college, guide the selection of priorities among those objectives, and help to shape the strategies we will pursue in the face of various challenges and opportunities. excellence fall 2011Excellence First among the College’s shared values is a commitment to high quality and excellence in all that we do. Commitment to excellence calls on all of us to achieve to the very best of our capabilities and exceed our own expectations. Our distinctive heritage demands nothing less than excellence. community fall 2011Community Gustavus has always prized community. Civility, mutual respect, cooperation, shared governance, and a pervasive sense of concern for every member of the Gustavus community are hallmarks of the College. Freedom to express a broad range of ideas is central to our sense of community. justice fall 2011Justice Our Swedish and Lutheran heritage lead us to hold up justice as a primary institutional value. We strive to be a just community in all of our actions and to educate our students for morally responsible lives. “Education for the common good” is our objective, and integrity must be one of our defining characteristics. service fall 2011Service The College highly values service as an objective of life and education. We embrace the notion that authentic leadership expresses itself in service – the classical ideal of a truly liberating education. Education frees us to serve God and humanity to the best of our abilities. faith fall 2011Faith Conviction that religious faith enriches and completes learning is the foundation of community, ethics, and service. We are compelled to excel in a divinely ordered world. Without expecting conformity, we encourage an honest exploration of religious faith and seek to foster a mature understanding of the Christian faith. While there are undoubtedly additional values that distinguish Gustavus from other institutions and that guide and define us, these five values are certainly pervasive within and foundational for the College community. Land Acknowledgment Gustavus Adolphus College is located on the ancestral homelands of the Dakota people, whose spiritual traditions include the belief that this land, along with the creatures and people living on it, are their relatives. The Minnesota River and its watershed are sacred places; these waters and lands are interconnected with Dakota culture, language, creation stories, songs, and ceremonies. As a college, we seek to honor Indigenous people and communities by telling the truth about the history of our presence on this site. Over time and through sustained dialog, we are building relationships and taking deliberate steps toward co-creating a better future for all. The Indigenous History of Saint Peter Saint Peter is situated at the confluence of the tallgrass prairie, big woods, and Minnesota River. Archaeological finds show that this area has been populated by Indigenous people for well over 9,000 years. When Minnesota became a territory in 1849, white traders pressured the Dakota people to open land to white settlers. In 1851, the Sisseton and Wahpeton bands of the Dakota signed a contract with U.S. Government representatives that promised education, goods, cash, and a reservation in exchange for the land. Two weeks later, two more bands of the Dakota signed an identical treaty in Mendota. In total, 24 million acres were ceded to the U.S. Government. However, before the Senate would ratify the treaties, they removed the provision for a reservation. The U.S. Government also kept over 80% of the money promised to the Dakota and left the Dakota people starving. This conflict was the primary cause of the Dakota War of 1862, a bloody conflict that decimated the Dakota population and forced them out of the area. This war ended with the largest mass execution in American history. On December 26, 1862, 38 Dakota men were hanged in Mankato. Over 150 years later, in 2019, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz extended a formal apology to the Dakota people. At Gustavus, the President’s Council on Indigenous Relations (PCIR) works to educate students within the Gustavus community about Indigenous issues that affect the college. Acknowledging that the college is in Dakota territory; getting the community involved by learning more about Indigenous ways of life, values, and traditions; and reading a land acknowledgment before on-campus events demonstrate that Gustavus holds itself accountable for the past and is actively working to improve its relationship with the Indigenous community. Traverse de Sioux Treaty Center gives visitors the chance to learn about the deeply complex historical significance of the site. Gustavus Adolphus College Swedish Heritage and Connections In 1862 Swedish Lutheran immigrants in Minnesota started the school that would, in 1876, be named Gustavus Adolphus College. Gustavus continues to embrace the values shared by its visionary founders in their commitment to educate students for community benefit and personal development. Much has changed in Sweden and at Gustavus since 1862. Many new areas of shared interest, rich relationships, and deep connections have been and continue to be developed between Gustavus and organizations and people in Scandinavia. These provide meaningful opportunities for learning that greatly enhance the Gustavus experience for current students of all faiths, academic interests, and backgrounds. Gustavus inspires and enables students to prepare for life and work in an ever more complex and interdependent world. In doing so, Gustavus celebrates its Swedish immigrant heritage and draws inspiration from contemporary Sweden's emphasis on environmental stewardship, individual self-reliance, artistic, scientific and technological innovation, and humane and egalitarian public policies. Three Crowns LogoGustavus Crowns The use of the three crowns started at Gustavus in the 1950s in conjunction with the College’s link to the Bernadotte Foundation of Sweden. The three crowns is the national emblem of Sweden, yet that history has long been debated. Some say the three crowns represent the “Swedes, Goths and Wends” kingdoms in Sweden. Some say that it represents the Kalmar Union of Sweden, Denmark and Norway. Others say it represents Magnus Eriksson’s (early 1300s) three kingdoms, Sweden, Norway and Scandia. Though we may never know its exact origin, we do know that the three crowns is a symbol of our heritage. In 2008 a redesigned Gustavus logo added a "G" to the three crowns to make a more distinct version for the College. Faith and Learning Learning rooted in the tradition and values of Lutheran higher education. At Gustavus, we believe that learning happens in community with others. Because of our conviction that faith enriches and completes learning, Gustavus works to foster collaboration between religious and other departments and promote opportunities for dialogue between diverse beliefs. Gustavus is Lutheran, not sectarian; it favors the Lutheran tradition and Lutheran values, including religious services, but does not seek religious uniformity (all members of the campus community are invited to worship services and other religious observances, but participation is entirely voluntary) and has as its goal combining a mature understanding of faith with intellectual rigor to the benefit of society, believing faith and education inform each other. Gustavus and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) - "The 500-year-old Lutheran intellectual tradition lives on in ELCA higher education. The colleges and universities of the ELCA offer both undergraduate and graduate education in the best of liberal arts, pre-professional and professional education. Our schools are dedicated to the freedom of inquiry and the development the whole person. At ELCA colleges and universities, students are educated for a sense of calling or vocation, opening the path toward a meaningful life of contribution to the common good through whatever career they choose." ELCA Colleges and Universities For more information about the common calling of ELCA colleges and universities, please read the joint statement by the Network of ELCA Colleges and Universities: Rooted_and_Open. Many private colleges identify themselves as church-affiliated or church-related, but the extent and meaning of affiliation or relatedness varies greatly among institutions. The following statements seek to explain how Gustavus Adolphus College interprets and exemplifies its Lutheran tradition, church-relatedness, and values. The Lutheran tradition Insists upon freedom of inquiry and criticism in the pursuit of knowledge and truth; Values intellectual rigor and cautions against both premature judgments and overreaching conclusions; Prefers paradoxes to dogmatism or ideological "certainties"; Supports interfaith understanding and welcomes those of other denominations and religions as partners in the search for wisdom; Views justice informed by compassion as the goal of all political and social structures; Encourages a sense of vocation- discerning one’s responsibility to benefit the larger community in every area of one’s life; Seeks to understand the nature and vital importance of community community that is constituted by quality relationships with each other, with the natural world, and with God; Supports music and the arts as integral to what it means to be human; Regards the purpose of education to be human freedom: freedom from ignorance, prejudice, and coercion, and freedom for service and leadership within the larger community; Takes human limitations seriously and therefore regards a deliberative community and ongoing dialog as essential for education; ...view more