Mission

In an environment that fosters the free exchange of ideas, Lafayette College seeks to nurture the inquiring mind and to integrate intellectual, social, and personal growth. The College strives to develop students’ skills of critical thinking, verbal communication, and quantitative reasoning and their capacity for creative endeavor; it encourages students to examine the traditions of their own culture and those of others; to develop systems of values that include an understanding of personal, social, and professional responsibility; and to regard education as an indispensable, lifelong process.

Accreditation

Lafayette College is accredited by the Commission on Higher Education of the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools, 3624 Market Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104; 215.662.5606. The Commission on Higher Education is an institutional accrediting agency recognized by the United States Secretary of Education and the Council for Higher Education Accreditation.

The Chemical Engineering Program, Civil Engineering Program, Electrical and Computer Engineering Program, and Mechanical Engineering Program are accredited by the Engineering Accreditation Commission of the ABET, http://www.abet.org.

The Bachelor of Science in Computer Science degree is accredited by the Computing Accreditation Commission of the ABET, http://www.abet.org.

The Bachelor of Science program in chemistry and, under certain conditions, the Bachelor of Arts in chemistry meet the requirements of the American Chemical Society, making graduates of those programs eligible for membership in the Society immediately upon graduation.

Charter & Statutes

The Charter, an act of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania legislature, is the legal instrument by which Lafayette College was incorporated in 1826—a document that today would be called “articles of incorporation.” The Charter was amended seven times between 1832 and 1999. The Statutes are the College’s (that is, the Board of Trustees’) corporate bylaws; the Statutes have been amended 17 times since 1971, when they were completely “recodified.” These two documents have been traditionally published in a single booklet, Charter of Lafayette College and Amendments Thereto; Statutes of Lafayette College as Amended, last issued in May 2015.