As a community of learners we strive to create and sustain an environment that is value-centered, intellectually challenging, aesthetically inspiring, and culturally diverse; and we hold as central our commitment to liberal arts education and to one another.

We integrate a four-year program of general education with in-depth study in the major and a rich array of co-curricular activities in order to foster the discovery of connections among disciplines and of larger patterns of meaning. Through these experiences, we help our students explore multiple perspectives on the human condition and prepare themselves for rich personal and professional lives—for leadership, citizenship, and service in a global context.

Monmouth College was founded in 1853 by pioneering Presbyterians. As a campus community we honor that heritage and value religious diversity as we explore the spiritual dimension of human existence and the relationship between faith and knowledge.

As both observers and participants we seek to deepen our understanding and appreciation of the creative tension that exists among the principles of democracy, pluralism, equality, and freedom in our own nation and beyond.

Statement of Purposes
As an undergraduate liberal arts institution Monmouth College exists to:

1. Prepare students for rich personal and professional lives.

2. Prepare students for positions of leadership, service, and citizenship in a global context.

3. Promote awareness and exploration of the sometimes contradictory principles which exist in democracy, pluralism, equality, and freedom.

4. Create and maintain a learning environment which is value-centered, intellectually challenging, aesthetically inspiring, and culturally diverse. This includes:

a) Providing students with a four-year general education program, in-depth study in the major, and a rich array of co-curricular activities.

b) Fostering the discovery of connections among disciplines and of larger patterns of meaning.

c) Promoting an understanding of a value system that is shaped by individual and collective experiences.

5. Explore the spiritual dimension of human existence and the relationship between faith and knowledge.

6. Introduce students to multiple perspectives on the human condition and promote self-awareness of global perspectives both through the curriculum and through campus life.

7. Foster and promote intellectual inquiry and critical analysis through mentoring relationships characterized by individual attention.

8. Develop creativity and skills in written and oral communication and artistic expression.

9. Understand the methods of inquiry and expression in the arts, humanities, sciences, and social sciences.

Location of College
Monmouth College shares its name with the town that is its home, the seat of Warren County in western Illinois, a pleasant and hospitable community of 9,800 residents.

The Mississippi River, still the threshold of the American West, flows just fifteen miles from Monmouth’s campus. Chicago is 180 miles to the northeast. The Quad Cities—Moline and Rock Island in Illinois, Davenport and Bettendorf in Iowa—straddle the Mississippi forty miles due north.

Monmouth is easily accessible from Interstates 80 and 74. Commercial air service is available through Moline, Peoria, and nearby Galesburg and Burlington, Iowa.

Monmouth’s location also permits easy access to other academic communities: Western Illinois University is thirty miles south in Macomb; Augustana College is located in Rock Island; and Knox College, Monmouth’s traditional rival in athletics, is just 12 miles away in Galesburg.

The College’s History and Purpose
Founded in 1853 by pioneering Presbyterians, Monmouth College brought the blessings of civilization to the people of the rough frontier and spoke of traditional values to those who were shaping a new world. Though today our life knows different frontiers, the College still thinks of its purpose as its founders did—preserving and celebrating the traditions that have been entrusted to it while promoting discovery and investigation. Although the student body today includes many who come from far beyond western Illinois, Monmouth continues to have a strong sense of identity with its local community and with the region in which it is proudly rooted. Unusual for the time, Monmouth College was created as a coeducational institution.

Indeed, it was one of the first colleges to give women equality with men, and, not surprisingly, women’s interests have been prominent in the College’s history. Monmouth has chosen to remain the collegiate institution it was founded to be, preferring not to expand into a university. Monmouth continues to insist that its purpose is not to pursue knowledge for its own sake, in the university’s fashion, but to encourage students to seek values by bringing together knowledge and belief in a coherent whole. The College has neither graduate nor professional schools and is therefore able to focus its resources entirely on its undergraduates. In true collegiate fashion, Monmouth stresses the unity and equality of the academic disciplines that compose it. The College’s chief interest lies in providing its students a generous understanding of human experience; individual disciplines receive their sense of direction from that larger commitment rather than permitting the specific interest to become an end in itself.