UW-Parkside just launched a new website that includes many rewritten pages. My college’s mission and vision statements, for example, are now pretty generic: the vision statement is “an education centered on diversity, social justice and personal fulfillment that gives students the knowledge and skills to address some of the most pressing issues in society today,” and the mission statement is “whether it’s international studies or improving the local community; the University of Wisconsin-Parkside College of Social Sciences & Professional Studies will give you the opportunities to go as far as your ambition will take you. We are the newest college on the Parkside campus, and our programs include International Studies, Teacher Preparation (IPED), Criminal Justice, Philosophy, History, Geography, Political Science, Law, Sociology and Anthropology.” To be honest, I can’t remember what the old statements were…and I have no inkling about the many other vision and statements of units I’ve been in over the last 21 years as a graduate student, professor, and administrator. If anyone can state her/his institution’s current vision or mission statement without looking it up I’ll give you a check for $1000.

So one of my tasks in creating a strategic plan for the college is to come up with more memorable vision and mission statements, but is that really even possible? Perhaps my energy would be better served in creating something else, like a “DNA statement” that succinctly describes the core elements of the college, the essential building blocks that animate everything we do. I know, vision and mission statements are supposed to do that but they are so often uninspiring, and have too many components (like two separate statements!). In a future post I’ll have to post a note about possibilities for something more pithy. If the current vision and mission statements spark any thoughts please share them in order to kick off the brainstorming…