Occidental is guided by our Institutional Goals and College-Wide Student Learning Goals.
INSTITUTIONAL GOALS
The following institutional goals serve as touchstones to ensure that we are always working in support of Occidental’s mission, our community’s needs, and our opportunity to build on existing strengths to chart an inspiring future for the college. Moreover, these institutional goals will provide the framework for institution-wide assessment that will both guide our efforts and align each area in measuring progress towards these goals.
1. Academic Excellence: Sustain and enhance academic excellence.
2. Fiscal Health: Sustain and enhance the College’s fiscal health.
3. Health, Safety, Well-being: Sustain and enhance the health, safety, and well-being of faculty, staff, and students so that all members of our community thrive.
4. Operational Excellence: Sustain and enhance operational excellence.
5. Los Angeles: Sustain and enhance our partnerships and connections with the people, communities, institutions, organizations, and industries of the greater Los Angeles area.
6. Sustainability: Prioritize sustainability and climate resilience in maintaining and developing our campus and in our approach to delivering academic and co-curricular programs.
7. Justice, Equity, Inclusion, Diversity: Sustain and enhance justice, equity, inclusion, and diversity in our community.
COLLEGE-WIDE LEARNING GOALS
The College-wide Learning Goals are rooted in the Core Program which is a common course of study that provides an intellectual foundation within the liberal arts at Occidental College. A student’s learning is expanded within their chosen academic major by developing mastery of essential content, methods, concepts and technical aspects of the goals that are relevant to the academic discipline.
1. Communication: Communication is the development and expression of ideas in writing, orally, and visually. It is clear, effective, purposeful, and appropriate to the discipline.
2. Creative Expression: Creative expression is the development, invention, interpretation, and communication of aesthetic, conceptual, or socio-political ideas and aims through artistic methods, mediums, and actions.
3. Critical Thinking: Critical thinking involves the ability to discern the context and reliability of information, holistic exploration of issues, synthesis of ideas, and linkage of theory and practice, before formulating an opinion or conclusion.
4. Quantitative Reasoning: Quantitative Reasoning is the ability to create and support arguments by analyzing numerical information, representing quantitative information in appropriate forms, completing calculations to answer meaningful questions, and making judgments based on data.
5. Scientific Methodology: The scientific method frames questions and hypotheses about the world, and tests them through prediction and reproducible observation and experimentation.
6. Experiential Learning: Experiential learning is an educational approach that engages students with opportunities to learn through experience, such as community-based learning, fieldwork, or project-based learning. Through reflection on these experiences, students deepen their understanding of course content and its applications, gain awareness of multiple methods and forms of knowledge, and may cultivate intercultural awareness or develop their own personal growth.
7. Global, Intercultural, and Socio-political Awareness: Global, Intercultural, and Socio-political awareness reflects critical understanding of how global institutions and systemic structures shape or challenge hierarchies, inequalities, and individuals’ roles within them.
8. Thoughtful Engagement with Diverse Perspectives: Thoughtful engagement with diverse perspectives involves understanding one’s own cultural patterns, comparing and contrasting them with others, and adapting empathetically and flexibly to unfamiliar perspectives. Considering historical and political contexts and related social justice issues facilitates the pursuit of becoming informed, open-minded, and responsible people who are attentive to diversity across the spectrum of differences.