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Joining the Mission

William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company

Chapter One

In these days of public accountability and assessment, most institutions of higher education (along with businesses and nonprofit agencies) have an organizational mission statement articulating their reasons for existence and primary objectives. Regional accrediting bodies evaluate an institution's success in light of the degree to which it achieves the objectives established in this mission statement. Therefore, if an institution's goal is to provide a two-year general education that will allow its graduates to transfer into a four-year program, it would not be penalized in the accreditation process for failing to offer a B.A. One of the essential pre-conditions for accreditation by the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities, for example, is that "the institution's mission is clearly defined and adopted by its governing board(s)."

Such mission statements serve to establish the educational parameters within which a school will function and acknowledge that in American higher education, there is a range of higher education on offer. The mission statements of R1 institutions tend to concentrate on the production of knowledge, while those of comprehensive universities and liberal arts institutions are liable to be more centered on student learning. While the public probably recognizes the difference between research institutions and teaching institutions, I suspect that few students or faculty members at a major state institution could identify their school's mission statement. How many students at the University of Washington would be able to relate that "The primary mission of the University of Washington is the preservation, advancement, and dissemination of knowledge"? The Web sites of research universities seldom feature their mission; some, such as Yale, even note that because they serve so many different functions, an overall mission would be impossible to define, opting instead for individual college, school, and department mission statements. Smaller private institutions pay more attention to mission. They have meticulously worded mission statements that establish their distinctive identities, unique values, and distinguishing cultures. While students and faculty at research institutions may be blithely unaware of their school's mission, at other kinds of institutions, mission statements are found on banners festooning the quad, engraved on classroom plaques, attached to electronic signatures, and featured in public relations materials. Mission statements may even become the target of student (and faculty) parodies because of their seeming ubiquity. But at mission-driven institutions, a prominent aspect of campus life includes an ongoing conversation about and continued exploration of mission.

Residual rhetoric from a religious past, the word mission originated with the denominational colleges of the early days of American higher education. We will consider that history in the next chapter. While all educational institutions have some kind of mission, with differing degrees of specificity, emphasis, and recognition, a "mission-driven institution," as I will define it here, has three characteristics.

First, it is a private institution, which allows it to hire its faculty and staff, define objectives and practices, and create programs and curricula in ways unheard of at public institutions. From one point of view, this may be seen as greater freedom—to talk about faith commitments in the classroom, for example—while from another point of view, this might be seen as restrictive —requiring all faculty to hold a certain theological position. Nonetheless, private institutions are able to define their mission in ways unavailable to public institutions, and this right is recognized in law, by accreditation agencies, and even by the American Association of University Professors.

Second, a mission-driven institution understands its mission as integrally related to religious belief. According to the U.S. Department of Education, nine hundred postsecondary institutions described themselves as "religiously affiliated" in 2005, which includes Baptist, Catholic, Jewish, Lutheran, Mennonite, Mormon, Orthodox, Presbyterian, Reformed, Wesleyan, and Quaker schools, as well as ecumenical, evangelical, and fundamentalist institutions. (See the diagram on p. 4.) Within this group, the strength of religious affiliation varies considerably, from a token historical connection to a strictly defined adherence to a particular religious order, church, or denomination. Mission-driven institutions connect their educational mission to religious beliefs in some way. Their central identity, values, and practices emerge from their religious identity, values, and practices. Consequently, mission-driven schools are committed to providing an education for the whole student—intellectual, emotional, spiritual, and ethical. Their expected graduation outcomes move beyond imparting knowledge and skills to assisting students to develop moral commitments and ethical practices. Such schools may strive to graduate involved citizens, people of good character, or humble servant-leaders, to name just a few of the more common values-related outcomes. This stands in sharp contrast to many contemporary educational institutions that have deliberately given up the idea of trying to form character and instill moral purpose in their graduates. Perhaps the most blunt spokesperson for this point of view is the abrasive Stanley Fish, whose "Tip to Professors: Just Do Your Job," first published in the New York Times, railed against the idea that colleges should attempt to develop virtues or "nurture such behavioral traits as good moral character." Fish provocatively asserts,

I can't speak for every college teacher, but I'm neither trained nor paid to do any of those things, although I am aware of people who are: ministers, therapists, social workers, political activists, gurus, inspirational speakers and diversity consultants. I am trained and paid to do two things ...: (1) to introduce students to materials they didn't know a whole lot about, and (2) to equip them with the skills that will enable them, first, to analyze and evaluate those materials and, second, to perform independent research, should they choose to do so, after the semester is over. That's it. That's the job.

While many American educational leaders, including Derek Bok, the former president of Harvard and butt of Fish's attack, have lamented the "underachievement" of American colleges, the mission-driven institution continues to hold ambitions other than solely imparting knowledge and intellectual skills.

Finally, the mission-driven institution purposefully keeps its mission at the forefront of its efforts: initiating its new members into the mission's importance, exploring innovative and improved ways to implement the mission, and testing and revising the mission to meet new challenges and circumstances. Resisting "missional amnesia," such colleges and universities do not allow their founding mission to become merely an antique relic occasionally pulled out of a dusty storage closet for high academic ceremonies. Instead, that mission is employed daily as one of the most fundamental educational tools—a hammer or lever. Mission-driven colleges and universities repeatedly rehearse their story in a variety of venues, and they hope that all of their faculty will embrace this story as their own, will enthusiastically join the mission by identifying the particular ways in which they can contribute to its continuance and future.

Types of Mission-Driven Institutions

Mission-driven institutions come in all Carnegie-classified shapes and sizes, including research universities, comprehensive institutions, and liberal-arts colleges. Another key distinction among mission-driven institutions occurs in the way the relationship between a religious tradition and mission is embodied. The most significant way in which this occurs is in faculty-hiring practices. Many institutions require their faculty to embrace a Christian faith commitment and thus include questions of belief or theology along with more typical interview queries into pedagogical philosophy, scholarly goals, and contributions to campus life. Other kinds of mission-driven institutions opt to maintain connections with their religious tradition in ways other than faculty appointments. Institutions with restricted faculty hiring practices engage in additional ways of pursuing their mission, but a school's hiring practices are a central way of distinguishing several common types of institutions.

Schools with restricted hiring practices may either require 100 percent of their faculty to have a particular faith commitment or attempt to hire a "critical mass" of faculty with such a profession. Robert Benne terms these two different models the orthodox and the critical-mass. What constitutes a critical mass can vary from school to school, ranging from three-quarters of the faculty, to a bare majority of 50 percent, to a strong minority. Benne considers other practices beyond hiring in developing his typology, such as church support, public rhetoric, required courses, ethos, and governance, but since I am focusing on hiring practices, I will use the terms 100 percent and critical mass to distinguish the two kinds of schools with restrictive hiring practices.

The kinds of faith commitments required at mission-driven schools with restrictive hiring practices also vary. Some schools want either all or a critical mass of their faculty to belong to a specific church, denomination, order, or theological perspective; others require all or most of their faculty to subscribe to a general statement of faith; still others are looking for committed members of any Christian church, whether Catholic or Orthodox or Protestant. I will call these the exclusive college, the evangelical college, and the ecumenical college. Benne calls a mission-driven institution without any religious hiring restrictions pluralist. Such colleges and universities deliberately cultivate a plurality of religious positions among their faculty, including non-Christian religions and nonbelief, but faculty typically are asked to agree "to support the mission" in some kind of fashion, whatever their own religious convictions might be. Such institutions may opt to maintain their missional identity by means of particular campus organizations or programs rather than through hiring. They might have a Vice President for Mission whose responsibility is to uphold the tradition and contributions of the founding religious body both programmatically as well as rhetorically, or a mission-related center that runs curricular or co-curricular programs. Institutions with either a critical mass or a pluralist hiring policy may require their students to take a certain number of religious or theological courses so that they learn about Lutheran liturgy, or Jesuit theology, or Mennonite missions. Chapel, spiritual formation programs, community service requirements, and residence hall rules are additional areas that may embody and reflect a college's mission. The idea of exercising any kind of restriction on faculty hiring immediately raises red flags for some people. Of course, all colleges or universities have some kind of restrictions on whom they hire: particular graduate degrees, areas of specialization, teaching skills, scholarly promise, and so on—these rule out some candidates and advance others. However, we tend to think of these kinds of requirements as "qualifications," the kinds of preparation, skills, abilities, and interests necessary for performing one's job well. We also recognize that those qualifications that prepare someone to be a writer-in-residence in an MFA program, however, are going to be quite different from those possessed by a strong candidate for a molecular genetics position at an R1. Because the demands of the positions differ, so do the qualifications. Similarly, working as a faculty member at a mission-driven institution involves a different set of demands and expectations. We wouldn't think twice about the educational goals of an institution prompting it to hire all or a critical mass of Ph.D.s. So why does the idea of wanting to hire all or a critical mass of, say, Baptists cause us to pause?

Each type of mission-driven institution envisions its educational goals in slightly different ways, and each model has its strengths and weaknesses. The 100 percent exclusive college is able to form a closely knit community in which the common embrace of beliefs and values provides a narrative and vocabulary that can pervade campus life. There's a unity, coherence, and community possible in such an institution unthinkable in the pluralist college. Such an institution is in a strong position to support a "living tradition," one in which a religious heritage continues to be embraced and honored even while undergoing changes and refinements due to the intellectual work of the college. It can draw on and develop the unique strengths of that heritage across a whole variety of academic disciplines. Joining such a mission can be like moving into a friendly small town, pledging a convivial sorority or fraternity, or finding the hospitable church of your dreams. Small towns and sororities can have their downsides, though, and the longing for unity can have repressive aspects. Traditions are liable to stiffen, wither, and petrify without room for criticism or change. Too much consensus can lead to group thinking and stultify creativity and openness to new perspectives. All of these pitfalls are serious problems for any organization but especially so for educational institutions, which are committed to the search for truth and the critical assessment of ideas.

Strengths and weaknesses are reversed at the pluralist college. The variety of perspectives at such an institution can generate productive dialogue and disagreement, opening up innovative ways of understanding, prompting fresh interpretations. But the extent of the differences can also potentially produce a cacophony of sounds without any clear melody. What happens in one classroom or course may have little to do with what happens in another venue; students and faculty alike may find themselves talking past each other without a common story, history, or vocabulary to ground them. Faculty will have a wide latitude of ways in which they can engage with and provide general support for the mission, but that freedom may bring with it a high degree of uncertainty. How much support of the mission is enough? Does such missional adherence need to appear in a certain realm of faculty work, such as in one's teaching, one's scholarship, or one's advising? To what extent are faculty required or expected to participate in particular mission-related extra-curricular events?

In the critical mass colleges, another difficulty arises with the potential formation of an in-group and an out-group: those faculty who personally embrace the religious identity and those faculty who merely tolerate it. The rifts between the two can grow large, with feelings of marginalization occurring on either side. The issue of religious identity can create one more division in a culture that is already prone to division, whether by disciplines ("The business school is always treated better than the philosophy department"), tenure and rank ("She's only an assistant professor—what right does she have to voice an opinion on this curricular issue?"), or academic position ("His ideas are suspect because he's an administrator, and we know they are always trying to undermine the faculty"). Faculty outside the institutional religious tradition may feel marginalized ("They always give the best teaching assignments to the Catholics!"), but those faculty who identify with that religious tradition may feel exploited ("Why do I have to serve on almost every campus committee—just because I'm a Methodist?").

Communities of Mission-Driven Institutions

Mission-driven schools have joined common cause in several different kinds of associations. Perhaps the most widespread is the banding together of schools that share a theological or denominational heritage, such as the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities, the Association of Presbyterian Colleges and Universities, and the Lutheran Educational Conference of North America. Two other significant bodies to which your institution might belong are the Lilly National Network of Church-Related Colleges and Universities (LNN) and the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities (CCCU). Both sponsor a variety of faculty and student programs designed to support mission-driven institutions.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Joining the Mission by Susan VanZanten Copyright © 2011 by Susan VanZanten. Excerpted by permission of William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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