In the 2002/2003 academic school year, with input from the entire university community, the Graduate
Studies Committee spent several months crafting a mission statement and
five graduate tenets to serve as guideposts for achieving the mission.
The word tenet is from the Latin root, tenere, which means to hold. A
tenet is a principle, belief, or ideal held by a person or an
organization. Individuals or organizations hold on to certain principles
or ideals because they believe them to represent what is good or true
about something. Tenets are like the world of Plato’s ideals; their
complete realization may be always beyond our grasp, but by using them
as guideposts we can strive to be the best that we can be. Relative to
graduate education at CCSU, the tenets serve as operational statements
against which we can measure our success.
The five graduate tenets are:
Community of Scholars – To facilitate active and ongoing
participation, communication, and interaction of faculty and students
around a shared commitment to the advancement of knowledge through
innovation and research.
Scholarly Inquiry – To foster a spirit of intellectual curiosity,
reflective thinking, and the application of rigor in the evolving
formulation of knowledge.
Intellectual and Personal Integrity – To live according to personal
and professional values and standards and to be cognizant of the
consequences that decisions and actions have on others and on the
environment.
Excellence – To strive for ongoing quality improvement through
careful planning, innovation, and program evaluation.
Leadership – To take initiative for shaping the direction of one’s
discipline by modeling high standards of professional behavior and
inspiring and motivating others to do the same.
One
of the primary goals of the Graduate Studies Committee is to explore
ways in which we can breathe life into the graduate tenets. We will be
discussing specific initiatives that can be implemented to help us to
keep our eye on the tenets and to ensure that they guide our daily
practice. We invite the GSA and all graduate students to join with us
in this important venture.
The Graduate School is made up of many relatively autonomous academic
departments with a host of different majors and diverse agendas. The
five graduate tenets will serve as the unifying link that connects all
faculty and students with a common sense of purpose. By vigilantly
following the tenets we can be sure that we will continue to build a
strong and vibrant graduate community.
