Educational Goals

Undergraduate Program Goals

In response to God’s call to Honor God and Serve Others, JBU is committed to the following three goals in its undergraduate programs:

• Intellectual Cultivation - Academic excellence by cultivating the intellectual lives of our students through the exploration of broad and specialized knowledge, integrative and applied knowledge, information literacy, effective communication, analytic inquiry, collaborative learning, and civic and global citizenship.
• Spiritual Formation - The spiritual formation of students in His image by creating an environment in which students are encouraged to become increasingly aware of God’s presence and work in their lives so that they might develop a way of life that responds to God’s calls in obedience as they commit to the pursuit of Christ‐like character.
• World Impact - Equipping students for ongoing impact in the world and communities where they live.

Institutional Learning Competencies

In order to accomplish these goals, graduates should exhibit the following Institutional Learning Competencies:

Intellectual Cultivation

• Broad Knowledge ‐ Develop and consolidate broad knowledge across multiple areas of learning and discover and explore concepts and questions that bridge multiple fields of study.
• Specialized Knowledge ‐ Develop and consolidate knowledge in a specialization or major field of study.
• Integrative and Applied Knowledge ‐ Integrate and apply knowledge to solve problems.
• Information Literacy ‐ Know how to find, organize, and evaluate information and use that information appropriately.
• Communication Skills ‐ Achieve shared understanding of meaning.
• Analytic Inquiry ‐ Address complex questions, problems, materials, and texts of all types.
• Collaborative Learning ‐ Interact with others in academic and non-academic settings in order to achieve a common goal.
• Civic and Global Citizenship ‐ Engage with, respond to, and reflect on political, social, environmental, and economic challenges at local, national, and global levels.

Spiritual Formation

• Responding to God’s Calls ‐ Be prepared to respond to the variety of ways that God calls them into relationship and obedience to him-from the first call of salvation to the variety of calls to vocation, sanctification, service and self-sacrifice.
• Committing to Christ‐Like Character ‐ Be prepared to commit to the lifelong process of submitting their character to Christ so that it increasingly reflects his image.

World Impact

• Healthy Relationships ‐ Interact and relate well with others.
• Professional Contributions ‐ Make positive contributions to their discipline.
• Community Engagement ‐ Engage others with their gifts and talents in love.

Addressing the Institutional Learning Competencies

The Core Curriculum will address the following Institutional Learning Competencies:

• ​Broad Knowledge
• Communication Skills (Written)
• Analytic Inquiry
• Civic and Global Citizenship
• Responding to God’s calls
• Committing to Christ-Like Character
• Healthy Relationships
• Community Engagement

The major programs will address the following Institutional Learning Competencies:

• Specialized Knowledge
• Integrated and Applied Knowledge
• Information Literacy
• Communication Skills (Oral)
• Collaborative Learning
• Responding to God’s Calls
• Professional Contributions