Eastern University

Eastern is a Christian University of the arts and sciences dedicated through teaching and learning, scholarship, spiritual formation, student development and community service to the preparation of undergraduate, graduate, and theological students for lives of faith, leadership and service. The "Eastern Student Experience" guided by that mission grows out of the University's commitment to interpretation and formation. This intellectually curious and socially active community views and interprets the world through lenses ground from faith, reason and justice. Every course syllabus integrates those three elements in the learning experience. Student formation employs the same three integrated elements in preparing graduates for influential and ethical lives. Eastern is one of only a handful of universities in the world that incorporate all three in constructing a path to knowledge.

The unique value of a theory of knowledge and student development that is based on the synthesis of faith, reason and justice is evidenced clearly by Eastern students' activism. The SPEAK organization has recently moderated summer reconciliation talks between Catholic and Protestant students in Northern Ireland and between Latino youth gangs in Philadelphia. They also led an effort on campus that persuaded administration to make Eastern one of only eight campuses nationally to convert to 100% use of wind generated electricity. Another organization, Youth Against Complacency and Homelessness Today (YACHT Club), partners with Eastern alumni in the operation of two centers in Philadelphia that provide shelter, tutoring and temporary work for homeless families. A third group, Students In Free Enterprise (SIFE), teaches market economics and provides academic tutoring to high school students in two of Philadelphia's most economically challenged and violent neighborhoods. Students from Eastern's Templeton Honors College tutor elementary and middle school students from those same neighborhoods in science and mathematics. Graduate students in economic development work with World Vision and Habitat for Humanity in the third world, where Eastern graduates have helped generate more than 1 million new jobs over the last two decades. The Seminary's Sider Center for Ministry and Public Policy engages students for church-based community development activities in Camden, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C.

Eastern operates Esperanza College, a bi-lingual junior college in north Philadelphia. After visiting that campus, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation invited Eastern to develop an Early College High School (ECHS) in the city. The ECHS model could prove to be a major breakthrough in urban teaching and learning. The research that Eastern faculty will generate from that work will be part of a comparatively large body of scholarship published by the university's teacher-scholar-activists. Eastern students have many opportunities to assist that research.

Classes and justice activities combine with spiritual formation activities to develop students who love God and neighbor with heart, hands and mind. Along the way, Eastern students also have a great deal of fun. Ultimately, however, the university's unique mission is fulfilled when graduates influence the course of events in their communities and beyond after leaving Eastern.