Introduction

Mission: The mission of the Community Service Center at Gustavus Adolphus College is to maintain excellence in service and leadership by enhancing students’ critical understanding of issues of public concern, supporting their academic and civic development, and fostering a life-long commitment to citizenship, public contribution, and capacity in local communities. The Center develops and maintains strong campus/community relationships based on a spirit of reciprocity through partnership.  In addition, the Center provides leadership in facilitating best practices around community-based service-learning, the practice of life-long service, and contribution to the development of critically self-reflective individuals.

 

Vision: The Community Service Center of Gustavus Adolphus College will fulfill its mission with a commitment to professionalism, high standards of excellence in servant leadership, and the stewardship of community-based learning that is inclusive, critically-reflective and reciprocal for all involved.  The Center aspires to be a driving force in promoting and maintaining high standards of excellence through the provision of resources and support directed through learning partnerships with faculty, students, and diverse community members who function as both integrated and self-mentoring communities in theory, pedagogy and practice.   The Center looks to nourish these diverse learning partnerships through a robust administrative infrastructure dedicated to supporting Gustavus Adolphus College as a premiere center of knowledge in civic leadership and development.

 

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.

~From the Gustavus Mission Statement

 

Two of the Five Core Values of Gustavus are:

Community

Gustavus has always prized community and has been marked by a pervasive sense of concern for every member of the College community. Civility, mutual respect, cooperation, shared governance, and caring have long been hallmarks of the College. Freedom to express a broad range of ideas is central to our sense of community, and resolution of conflicts in the broader society has long been a fundamental concern for us.

Service

The College highly values service as an objective of life and of education. We embrace the biblical notion that true leadership expresses itself in service to others, and affirm the classical ideal of a liberating education, an education that frees one to serve God and humanity to the best of one's ability.