Purpose Statement
Freed-Hardeman University is a private institution, associated with churches of Christ, dedicated to moral and spiritual values, academic excellence, and service in a friendly, supportive environment. The purpose of the university is to provide every student an undergraduate or graduate education permeated with these Christian values.
Aims
In accomplishing its purpose, the university pursues the following three aims.
Freed-Hardeman provides higher education with a Christian perspective:
• by recognizing the Bible as the inspired and authoritative Word of God
• by presenting Jesus, the Christ, as the model for personal behavior,
• by viewing each person as a special creation of God, possessing an everlasting soul, with ultimate accountability to God,
• by promoting racial harmony, religious unity, and respect for individual differences through Christian love and biblical teaching, and
• by offering programs, activities, and worship opportunities that strengthen the university community.
Freed-Hardeman provides educational opportunities through excellent undergraduate and graduate programs:
• by employing a qualified, caring Christian faculty,
• by teaching students to be critical thinkers who communicate effectively,
• by offering a balanced education in the liberal arts and sciences as well as specialization in a chosen discipline,
• by offering academic enrichment opportunities to strengthen individual students,
• by equipping students for advanced study and career challenges, and
• by instilling in students a lasting desire for learning.
Freed-Hardeman provides service to the individual, home, church, community, and world:
• by facilitating spiritual, intellectual, social, and physical growth,
• by recognizing the home as the basic unit of society and helping students develop skills for healthy Christian families,
• by encouraging students to love the church and preparing them for active service in a local congregation,
• by offering programs to strengthen and encourage growth of the church, and
• by teaching students to become effective citizens of the local and world communities.
Motto
“Teaching how to live and how to make a living.”
Nature of the Institution
Freed-Hardeman is primarily an undergraduate, residential institution enrolling full-time students of traditional college age who come to Henderson, Tennessee, from the southeast and from more than two-thirds of the United States and from several other countries. Alumni live in all fifty states and in more than thirty-five other countries. The university also seeks to serve commuting, part-time, and older adult students on-campus and through selected distant learning programs as resources and technology permit.
The university offers a limited number of master’s-level graduate programs as resources, needs, and interest permit, offering advanced preparation for service. Most research is focused on institutional or instructional improvement. Arts, science, and professional degrees are conferred.
The goals of the university can best be pursued when a qualified Christian faculty teach and inspire students to learn and when all instruction and activities recognize and honor biblical truth and principles. The university is governed by a self-perpetuating board of trustees who are members of churches of Christ and who hold the institution in trust for its founders, alumni, and supporters. Freed-Hardeman, its faculty, and its students receive support from alumni, churches, and other friends and provide a variety of services to businesses, churches, nonprofit organizations, and to the general public.
Freed-Hardeman seeks to provide a liberal arts education for all students primarily through its general education and general degree requirements. Courses are offered by twelve academic departments organized into six schools—Arts and Humanities, Biblical Studies, Business, Education, Sciences and Mathematics, and the Honors College.