EMU Mission, Vision, Values

What does the Lord require of you, but to do justice, love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God? — Micah 6:8

Mission

EMU prepares students to serve and lead in a global context.

Our community of learning integrates Christian faith, academic rigor, artistic creation and reflective practice informed by the liberal arts, interdisciplinary engagement, and cross-cultural encounter. 

Vision

We will open new pathways of access and achievement for all students who aspire to grow as unifying leaders equipped with intercultural competence, oriented toward peace and justice, and rooted in an active faith modeled on the life and teachings of Jesus. 

Values

EMU’s mission and vision are grounded in the enduring biblical values of Christian discipleship, community, service, and peace.

These values are embodied throughout the university in our distinctive commitment to peacebuilding, social justice, cross-cultural engagement, and sustainability. Rooted in the Anabaptist tradition, we follow Jesus’ call to bear witness to truth, serve with compassion, and walk boldly in the way of nonviolence and peace.

Eastern Mennonite University, founded in 1917, is an educational institution of Mennonite Church USA, serving students of diverse religious and cultural backgrounds. EMU confers undergraduate, graduate, and seminary degrees in the liberal arts, applied sciences, and professions.

EMU’s mission, vision and values are the foundation of EMU’s strategic plan.

Fundamentally, EMU is committed to — and delivers — a rigorous academic program that is affordable and that prepares graduates to succeed in their careers and further academic pursuits.

Our educational mission and vision are grounded in the enduring biblical values of community, service to others, sustainability, peacemaking and discipleship. We educate undergraduate, graduate, and seminary students to serve and lead in a global context for the common good.

Community

Community is a word you’ll hear a lot at EMU. It’s about caring for each other, close at home and far away. It’s about accountability to one another, building together — with shared values — the kind of campus community we want. It means that when one person hurts, we all hurt. We surround each other with prayer and tangible support in times of need.

Community is also broadly defined to included our world community. At EMU you, you will hear more about our world community than particular allegiance to one country. That understanding is shaped profoundly by cross-cultural study, which EMU has required for more than 30 years. Many students study abroad for a full semester, while others study in various cultures in the US, including Washington, DC, and places such as the Navajo Nation in the southwest.

More About our Intercultural Program

Service to Others

During their college years students serve others through local organizations such as Big Brothers, Big Sisters, join annual events such as Harrisonburg’s Blacks Run (stream) Clean Up day, volunteer at the Virginia Mennonite Relief Sale, and take part in spring break service trips.

Graduates take the commitment to serve others into careers in education, social services, health care, ministry, business leadership, and many other fields. Outside of their paid professions, our graduates volunteer in their churches, mosques and local communities. Many graduates complete terms of service with international and local non-profits or non-governmental organizations, such as Mennonite Central Committee.

Sustainability and Stewardship

This sustainability timeline shows how EMU was committed to creation care long before “green” became trendy. Our sustainability efforts include earth care, as well as big picture thinking about what makes a sustainable community. Some of the campus sustainability features include:

• energy efficient buildings
• a solar array on the Hartzler Library roof
• campus gardens that provide produce for the dining hall and students
• integration of sustainability concepts into classroom assignments and discussion

Learn More About Sustainability

Peacemaking 

The Anabaptist-Mennonite Christian tradition on which EMU was founded is respected worldwide for bringing people together to solve conflicts with words, rather than weapons. Peacemaking, conflict transformation, and restorative justice are guiding principles inside the classroom, in student life and across the campus community. Our Center for Justice and Peacebuilding is known worldwide for its academic excellence and practitioner-based programming. Undergraduate peacebuilding and development students may move right into a graduate degree at the Center, and benefit from frequent interaction with its students and professors.

Learn More About Peacebuilding

Discipleship

Respect for people of all faith traditions is central at EMU while we are clearly grounded as a Christian university in the Anabaptist tradition. Opportunities for Christian discipleship and faith formation are woven into the curriculum, campus activities and student life. We journey together toward deepening our values and faith formation. Graduates report that their faith was nurtured in courses and through personal engagement with faculty, staff and other students during their college experience.

Learn More About Faith Formation on Campus

Learn More

EMU is a Christian university, rooted in the Anabaptist-Mennonite tradition. About a third of undergraduate students come from a Mennonite or Anabaptist background; a much smaller percentage of graduate students have connections to Mennonite congregations. All faith traditions are welcome!

Mennonites and EMU

A History of EMU

Beginning in 1917 as a small Bible academy of the Mennonite Church on the outskirts of town where the church’s young people would be protected from the larger society, EMU has transformed to a thriving university that prepares students for professions that serve the community and the world.

Service

In addition to excellent academic preparation for careers in fields such as nursing, education, visual and communication arts and engineering, EMU has been committed throughout its history to preparing students for service.

For example, during World War II many EMU students served in Civilian Public Service in mental health institutions, ultimately transforming the mental health care system in the United States.

Today nearly 20,000 EMU graduates serving around the world as scientists, health care professionals, church and community leaders, business owners, peacebuilders, educators and more!

Social Justice

One way EMU students develop a worldview, appreciation for varied viewpoints and critical thinking skills is through our intercultural program. The program was one of of the first of its kind, focusing on immersion in another culture, while traveling and studying with a group, mentored by faculty members with experience in the region. Cross-cultural study — around the world and in various U.S. cultures — has been a graduation requirement for all students for more than three decades. More than 75% of faculty have lived and worked internationally, bring that experience to their classrooms and conversations.

EMU was the first college in Virginia to admit African-American students. The first African-American student graduated from EMU in 1954, the same year Brown v. Board of Education was decided. Virginia public schools would not integrate for four more years.

Read our Land Acknowledgement.

Christian Discipleship

Christian discipleship and faith formation — alongside academic excellence — have always been key to EMU’s mission. Community worship and Bible and theology courses have been a part of the educational experience from the beginning.

Student-led worship services such as Celebration have been around since the late 70s. Students are involved in faith and spiritual life on campus in as student chaplains, leaders of Fellowship of Christian Athletes activities, and initiating their own support and accountability systems with faculty, staff and peers.

In 1965 a graduate theological school had evolved and Eastern Mennonite Seminary was launched. The seminary serves students from varied denominational backgrounds including Mennonite, United Methodist and and others. The programs walk with students as they discern their call to ministry. The seminary offers an intensive, well-rounded program of biblical, theological, historical and practical studies.

Peacemaking

The Anabaptist-Mennonite Christian tradition emphasizes peacemaking and resolving conflicts with words rather than weapons. Practical training in conflict transformation and the field of restorative justice are core to EMU. EMU’s Center for Justice and Peacebuilding (CJP) was launched in the early 1980s. CJP is a graduate and training program of EMU offering master’s degrees in conflict transformation and restorative justice, training in trauma resilience, and a Summer Peacebuilding Institute. 2011 Nobel Peace Laureate Leymah Gbowee’07 received training in trauma healing from Lutheran church workers trained by CJP Professor Barry Hart. Gbowee went on to rehabilitate child soldiers.

Today undergraduate and graduate students experience this emphasis on peacebuilding through coursework and student life practices.

EMU alumni all over the globe work passionately to transform organizations and create people-to-people connections in their workplaces and in their own businesses, churches, communities, families and workplaces. Many work with organizations such as World Vision, Amnesty International, Oxfam, Mennonite Central Committee, and Heifer Project International.

An academic timeline

Over the years our school has grown from a small Bible academy into a fully accredited university with over 1,800 students in more than 35 undergraduate programs, seminary and more than a dozen graduate programs.

• From 1917 to 1982 the academy included what is now Eastern Mennonite School, K-12. Today, whether you’re at our beautiful campus in Harrisonburg, VA, at our thriving site in Lancaster, PA, or part of an online program, you’ll notice the focus on hospitality and community that is so important to EMU.
• In 1947 EMU’s first four-year degree program was approved by the state of Virginia. Regional accreditation by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools followed in 1959.
• In 1965 Eastern Mennonite Seminary added advanced theological study and ministerial training to the list of offerings available at EMU.
• The first graduate program (other than seminary) – counseling – began in 1993. It was followed by two others in the next two years – conflict transformation and education.
• In August 1994 our name changed from “college and seminary” to “university.”
• An adult degree completion program was established in 1994 and by 2010 nearly one third of graduates were adult students completing their degrees.
• A distinctive MBA program began in the fall of 1999, and the late 2000s began offering tracks focused on nonprofit entrepreneurial management and general stewardship.
• In 2010, EMU first offered a masters in nursing leadership and management.