|
Dear Graduate Student:
Welcome to Chapman University! Whether you are enrolling for the first time or returning to continue your graduate studies here, you will find in this catalog a great deal of valuable information to help guide your academic journey. Here at Chapman, your path through graduate school will be a challenging yet satisfying one. The preparation you will receive will involve some of the most difficult work you will ever accomplish. This rigorous intellectual training will equip you to understand and persuasively articulate your academic worldview and apply it both to your chosen career path and to your life. Chapman’s emphasis on academic excellence will prepare you to be a lifelong learner.
You are here to pursue the academic program of your choice and to earn a graduate degree that will you both professionally and personally. With that in mind, I also invite you to be aware that the experiences you will have at Chapman go far beyond the classroom, laboratory and library. Ours is a campus community where knowledge grows through interdisciplinary programs beyond your chosen field. It often requires the distillation of time to fully understand the interconnectedness of various disciplines, and to appreciate the way a liberal education will open your mind and lead you to ask the right questions, to think a problem through and to reach informed and meaningful conclusions.
Our goal at Chapman is to prepare you for a career and ultimately, your life. Toward that end, a Chapman education has always been about more than academics. We educate the whole person through a focus on what we call the “Four Pillars”: the intellectual, physical, social and spiritual dimensions of life.
You will see representations of these four pillars around the campus - for instance, on the front of Memorial Hall and surrounding the main entrance to our Leatherby Libraries. The most visual symbolization of the four pillars is the Marion Halfacre Fountain, the dramatic focal point of Fahmy Attallah Piazza. Each pillar of the Marion Halfacre Fountain is inscribed with the words of Fahmy Attallah - poet, psychologist and friend of Chapman - from his book Beauty of Being. I hope you will make a point of reading his verses during your time at Chapman.
On behalf of the entire Chapman University faculty, please accept our best wishes. I look forward to meeting you on campus and sharing in your continued growth and professional development.
Daniele C. Struppa
President
|