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What’s the Use of a Mission Statement?
It can help get folks on your campus talking to each other, for one thing.
By Jack Meacham
Some are an elegant sentence; some contain many rambling paragraphs. Some have endured unchanged since a college’s founding; others have been frequently revised. Some are publicly available in student catalogs and on campus Web sites; others can’t be found. But just about every college or university has one: mission statements are declarations of a campus’s rationale and purpose; its responsibilities toward students and the community; and its vision of student, faculty, and institutional excellence.
Sometimes termed statements of goals and objectives or statements of purpose, mission statements can provide guidance on the issues of concern on a particular campus, from allocating resources and planning for the future to holding administrators accountable or building the skills essential for citizenship in a democracy and the global economy. College mission statements can be effective tools for addressing problems, moving conversations among faculty and administrators forward, and crafting long-term, sustainable solutions.
When financial resources are plentiful, opportunities may arise for expanding academic programs or developing new programs. For example, the addition of tens of faculty and hundreds of students in music or nursing or engineering might bring breadth and energy to a campus. But what might be the impact on other programs and the character and identity of the institution? A campus conversation that begins with the mission statement can help to answer this question.
When resources become scarce, difficult choices must be made. A college might have to decide whether to curtail faculty hiring in disciplines with low student enrollments or to initiate across the board cuts. Again, a conversation grounded in the campus’s mission statement might help bring about consensus. The time to begin such a conversation is not, however, when a financial crisis is imminent. It is far better instead to have occasional discussions in which senior faculty interpret the mission statement for faculty and administrators new to campus. These senior faculty members can describe the circumstances under which the statement was first drafted and approved and say whether and why it has been revised; they can also explain how the mission statement embodies the campus’s unique heritage, traditions, and values, and how it guides the campus’s academic programs. At the same time, faculty and administrators can consider whether the mission statement is sufficiently robust to provide guidance should a financial emergency arise.
On some campuses, the faculty have contributed to lengthy five-year planning documents only to see their efforts tossed aside in a year or two when a new president or dean arrives and charges yet another task force with setting new directions for the years ahead. Administrators and faculty could be spared from this repetitive effort by turning to the campus’s mission statement. An effective mission statement ensures stability and continuity across changes in administration. Administrators bring different perspectives, leadership styles, and ideas about how to get things done. In contrast, the mission statement provides the overarching consensus, deeply rooted in an institution’s history and identity, about what needs to get done.
On some campuses, there are calls for increased accountability of administrators. Have the administrators been wise and fair in allocating resources to maintain and strengthen the campus’s academic programs? Who chooses the standards by which to evaluate an administrator? No one could reasonably object to being held accountable and evaluated against the criteria of the campus’s mission statement.
Student Learning Goals
The heart of most campus conversations is the curriculum. With this in mind, and with help from two students, I surveyed the mission statements of more than three hundred colleges and universities identified by the Princeton Review as the best in the United States. We developed a coding scheme to summarize the student learning goals identified in these mission statements. Most colleges set forth from one to seven student learning goals; the average is about five.
We found that the most common goal named in mission statements is for students to experience and acquire a liberal education. Duke University’s mission, for example, “is to provide a superior liberal education to undergraduate students, attending not only to their intellectual growth but also to their development as adults committed to high ethical standards and full participation as leaders in their communities.”
The second most common goal is that graduates will contribute to their communities. Hendrix College, for example, “prepares its graduates for lives of service and fulfillment in their communities and the world,” according to its mission statement; similarly, the University of Vermont seeks “to prepare students to lead productive, responsible, creative lives and to create, interpret, and share knowledge, applying it for the benefit of Vermont and society as a whole.”
A third goal is for students to develop social responsibility. At the State University of New York College at Geneseo, according to that institution’s mission statement, “the entire community works together to develop socially responsible citizens.” At Oberlin College, “the aims are to expand [students’] social awareness, social responsibility, and capacity for moral judgment so as to prepare them for intelligent and useful response to the present and future demands of society.”
Another common goal is for graduates to be engaged, responsible citizens in a democratic society. Ohio Wesleyan University’s mission statement, for example, highlights the intention “to develop in students understanding of themselves, appreciation of others, and willingness to meet the responsibilities of citizenship in a free society.”
Concerns about Bias
Some in the national media have raised the question whether faculty are bringing ideological and political biases to their teaching. Many faculty, however, are charged by their campus mission statements—as illustrated above—with engaging their students with issues of equity in American society, human rights and social justice, and responsible citizenship, as well as with how political processes work, both ideally and in practice, in our democracy and globally. Pointing to such student learning goals in mission statements can focus and ground campus conversations and be an important part of the response to concerns about ideological bias. Resolutions passed by faculty and student governance bodies in support of academic freedom and the rights of faculty can sometimes appear ad hoc and self-serving. When such resolutions make direct reference to a mission statement, they remind the broader community that faculty teaching is well-grounded in the college’s purposes, history, and traditions.
Two student learning goals commonly identified in mission statements may be particularly helpful to faculty. First, many mission statements call for students to acquire an appreciation of the diversity of backgrounds and experiences of Americans. Expectations that students will develop “understanding of and respect for cultural differences necessary for an enlightened and educated citizenry” (as the University of Georgia’s mission states) or “understanding and appreciation not only of their own culture but of the cultures of others as well” (as Miami University’s mission states) are common. Second, many mission statements call on faculty and students to build communities that acknowledge and respect difference. This goal is often expressed in language affirming “the diversity of our university community” and acknowledging “our global, pluralistic society” (Clarkson University) or expressing commitment “to creating a learning community in which people from diverse backgrounds and cultures are valued for the breadth of their perspectives and are encouraged in their intellectual pursuits” (Sonoma State University).
Declarations such as these can provide support for faculty who, responding to advances in disciplinary scholarship, would like to incorporate issues of multiculturalism and diversity into their teaching. Some junior faculty may be anxious about incorporating such content before securing tenure. They can, however, guide the campus conversation by listing relevant student goals from the campus’s mission statement on their course syllabi. These syllabi can then be distributed to colleagues and discussed with students, making the point that what is being taught flows from the campus’s statement of values, goals, and aspirations. The next step for any faculty or students who are still concerned about course topics is to take up the matter with trustees, the campus president, and others who have endorsed the campus mission statement, and not with individual faculty members. In sum, mission statements can be an important tool in defense of academic freedom and the rights of faculty.
Assessing the Curriculum
A broad-ranging and stimulating campus conversation can begin by using the mission statement as a diagnostic tool to assess the campus’s curriculum. For example, does the mission statement envision that all of the college’s graduates will have the knowledge and skills commonly regarded as essential for educated citizens in a democracy and in the global economy? Few of the mission statements that we surveyed identified specific student learning outcomes such as public-speaking abilities, writing abilities, understanding of science, appreciation of the fine and performing arts, understanding of historical and social phenomena, mathematical understanding, or environmental understanding. Yet many of these outcomes are said to be lacking in American college graduates, and this is a matter of national concern. Surely students, parents, and employers can be reassured by mission statements such as that of Franklin and Marshall College, which aims to teach young people “to read, write, and think critically . . . and to educate them to explore and understand the natural, social, and cultural worlds in which they live.”
We should also ask whether the goals for student learning expressed in the mission statement correspond with the campus’s current academic programs and practices. A campus might have praiseworthy goals but have failed to support the academic programs necessary to facilitate the attainment by students of those goals. Consider, for example, the third most common goal in our survey, for students to acquire leadership skills. Have campuses translated that goal into requirements, programs, and curricula? A campus’s mission statement can be the impetus for a conversation not about what some faculty are doing in some courses for some of their students, but rather about what all of the faculty aspire to do together for all of the students.
Mission statements can provide a secure grounding as campuses embark on assessment of student learning outcomes. Some faculty are concerned that academic programs, courses, and students’ learning might be assessed unfairly and according to ad hoc and unfamiliar criteria, including those represented in standardized tests. However, the process of assessment gains both legitimacy and effectiveness, in terms of strengthening student learning, when it is closely linked to the learning goals established as central in a campus’s mission. Asking whether the student learning goals set forth in a campus’s mission statement have actually been attained by students when they graduate is a powerful strategy for supporting, defending, and strengthening academic programs.
A mission statement should guide the faculty: this is what you are, together, expected to teach the students. And it should guide the students: this is what each of you is expected to learn. As important as setting forth learning goals, however, is the process through which a campus’s mission statement gains its legitimacy. Typically, a mission statement is reviewed and endorsed by the trustees or governing board, often following review and recommendations by students, faculty, administrators, and staff. In an article in the winter 2006 issue of Liberal Education, Jerry G. Gaff and I discuss how this process can be consistent with the AAUP’s principles of shared governance.
Revising Mission Statements
Mission statements have lesser or greater roles on different campuses. If the integrity and outcomes of academic programs and the rights of faculty and students are protected through other documents and through well-established governance procedures and traditions, then the mission statement may itself be of less importance. Many campuses, however, would benefit from a revised and strengthened mission statement.
A first step for faculty interested in revising a mission statement is to consider the current statement and ask, “Do I agree with these goals and values, and can I defend them before students, parents, and alumni? Does this statement represent what is most important in my work on this campus?” A next step is to invite a small group of colleagues and students to consider the strengths and weaknesses of the mission statement, identifying what is fundamental, what seems opaque, and what is lacking. If the campus would benefit from a revised mission statement, don’t move quickly to rewrite it. Instead, attend first to process—perhaps by initiating a conversation, involving both trustees and faculty, that would lead to an informal consensus regarding areas of change. If this process includes all the campus’s stakeholders—perhaps even legislators and regional employers—and proceeds transparently and thoughtfully, the mission statement will represent a campus-wide consensus on values and aspirations, expectations for student learning, and academic priorities for many years ahead. A mission statement should not be seen as a list of obligations imposed from the top down, but rather as a public declaration of responsibilities that the stakeholders have voluntarily accepted for themselves. The process of renewing a campus’s commitment to its mission statement can strengthen and sustain friendships and feelings of academic community. It can also be a vital and exciting moment in a college’s history and can chart a new trajectory for the future.
Jack Meacham is SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor emeritus at the University at Buffalo, State University of New York. His e-mail address is meacham@buffalo.edu.
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