What do mission statements do?
Never an easy question to answer, most education experts agree that mission statements should conform to one basic philosophy: they should set goals for institutions and serve as a yardstick for measuring their performance.
But the consensus stops there.
While some in higher education argue strongly that mission statements should never undergo revision -- no matter how the world around them changes -- others believe that colleges and universities should use them to articulate new and evolving objectives.
Perhaps the single greatest dilemma that authors of mission statements face is how to capture and guide complicated institutions in a few hundred words. Writing mission statements involves the tricky task of choosing what to include and exclude in a matter of paragraphs.
In resolving to revise its own mission statement, Dartmouth faces just that dilemma, those involved in the process say.
"As important as mission statements are, it's very difficult to encapsulate a large institution that's been around for 233 years and boil it down to four or five paragraphs," Susan Dentzer '77, Chair of the Board of Trustees, said.
What to do, then, if a mission statement can only say so much?
For Dentzer, the answer is that a mission statement can only be part of a broader picture.
"Mission statements are important, but the proof of the pudding is, do you actually do as an institution what you say you're going to do in the mission statement, no matter how abbreviated that might be," she said.
But some education experts say there is an easy, less known, way to help abbreviate mission statements without sacrificing important values. They say a corresponding "vision statement" should be written to refine the shorter document and to accommodate changing times.
Anthony Antonio, the Assistant Director at Stanford's Institute of Higher Education Research, studies colleges across the country to determine how to promote equity and diversity. He has seen many mission statements in action, and the most effective one he has encountered was at California State University Monterey Bay, which has a one-sentence actual mission statement and a detailed vision statement that addresses such issues as financial aid and academic programs.
The mission statement sums up the university's goals: "To build a multicultural learning community founded on academic excellence from which all partners in the educational process emerge prepared to contribute productively, responsibly, and ethically to California and the global community."
According to Antonio, a short mission statement was easy to distribute around campus, and the statement was quickly incorporated into daily life.
While Antonio does not believe that mission statements should remain unchanged throughout an institution's history, some proponents of vision statements do.
"A vision statement is the re-framing of the mission statement to make it applicable to today," Thomas Longin, a vice president at the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges, said.
Longin believes that the mission of an institution should never change. "It's like quoting Scripture," he said. "The Bible does not change over time, but accurate re-articulation of Scripture means something to people today."
Longin believes that it is the vision statement, not the mission statement, that should identify specific goals. Such a document, he said, should be written at least as often as the inauguration of each new college president -- or more.
"I'd say every four to five years," he said.
Back at Stanford, Antonio said that another way to make mission statements effective is to incorporate the input of the entire community in the drafting process.
Again referring to Monterey Bay, he said the statement there fostered "a sense of ownership" throughout the university because students, faculty and administrators all played a part in authoring it.
Another tip? Placing mission statements in prominent places.
When Antonio visited Monterey Bay, the mission statement surrounded him. It was "plastered on the walls" and printed on many documents used by the administration, he said.
