The mission of the Bridgewater State University Student Affairs Division is to promote student learning.

The division accomplishes this mission by promoting and sustaining a campus environment that fosters growth and discovery, stimulates the learning process for students, and provides opportunities to integrate in class and out of class experiences. Student Affairs departments contribute to this mission by providing intentionally designed programs and services through which students can achieve specific learning outcomes that are consistent with the Bridgewater State University mission, strategic plan, and Core Curriculum, and are suggested by the American College Personnel Association and National Association of Student Personnel Administrators 2004 publication "Learning Reconsidered."

Learning goals are broad, general statements which provide focus for the development of more specific learning outcomes (Bresciani, 2004). The Division of Student Affairs has identified six student learning goals which support the mission of the division and university and guide the programs and services designed and implemented by its departments. These learning goals are described below with examples intended to provide a clearer understanding of each goal. The examples provided are not intended to be comprehensive, but rather to offer illustrations from which specific outcomes can be constructed for the various departmental programs and services.
 

This refers to the ability to communicate and interact with others effectively in person, in print and via electronic means. This also refers to the ability to build and sustain healthy and meaningful relationships with others. Effective communication and interpersonal skills include the ability to

This refers to developing the capacity and skills to effectively manage one's personal, academic and vocational affairs. Practical competence skills include the ability to

This refers to developing an understanding of leadership principles and group dynamics; the ability to mobilize and collaborate with others around shared interests; and to create and sustain productive, collaborative working relationships with others. Leadership skills include the ability to

This refers to the capacity to define, understand, and develop the many dimensions of oneself (i.e. emotional, psychological, spiritual, physical, sexual, social, racial, and ethnic self). A coherent and integrated personal identity involves the ability to

This refers to an understanding of one's relationship to his/her community, both locally and globally, and to an appreciation of one's ability to advance the greater good through community engagement and a commitment to service and social justice. Civic responsibility involves the ability to

This refers to being sensitive to, acknowledging and respecting the difference between oneself and others (e.g., gender expression and identity, race, ethnicity, age, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, disability, language, and socio-economic status). An understanding and appreciation of human differences involves the ability to

These six student-learning goals describe what we hope our students will learn as a consequence of the rich and varied co-curricular experiences at BSU and the work of the Division of Student Affairs. By describing the desired goals, we can better design the learning environments that will produce specific outcomes relevant to these goals.

By focusing our efforts on core experiences that foster desired learning outcomes, we make our work with students more productive, effective, and connected to the goals of life-long learning. We can then evaluate the programs and services that we provide from the vantage point of their expected contributions to one or more of these goals and their success in producing the desired learning outcomes in the students who participate in these experiences.