The University provides an education that develops the student's intellectual, ethical, spiritual, and physical attributes. It prepares its students to pursue lives with meaning and purpose and to become responsible and contributing members of society. As an American university with a global perspective, Christopher Newport University enhances student awareness and appreciation of the diversity that enriches us while building a community which unites us. The University focuses on excellence in teaching and scholarship. The liberal arts provide the foundation for quality undergraduate programs in the humanities, in the natural and social sciences, and in business and the professional disciplines.
Graduate programs provide students and faculty opportunities for advanced scholarship and learning.
Graduate and undergraduate research brings students and faculty together to increase knowledge. Teaching, research, and community service benefit the constituencies of the University, the Virginia Peninsula, the Commonwealth, the nation, and the world. The graduate studies programs of Christopher Newport University offer degrees at the master's level for the educational and professional enhancement and enrichment of students and in response to the needs of the CNU community. Graduate study at CNU requires students to extend their knowledge and intellectual maturity to a level of complexity and sophistication well beyond that true of under-graduate education. Graduate students are required not only to gain an understanding of the subject matter and the nature of research in their discipline but also to engage in their own research projects.