What Are We Doing?

We don’t know what we are doing. “Who doesn’t?” you may ask defensively. Faculty, administrators, staff, students. Yes, most of us could describe our roles in higher education and what we are personally trying to accomplish in those roles. What I regularly hear from faculty at various colleges, though, is the lack of a common purpose. At many institutions there is not an explicit shared focus.

I have been regularly attending conferences and discussions about teaching methods. However, before we can assess the appropriateness of particular teaching methodologies, we need to know what we are striving to achieve. Are we preparing students for the workplace? Are we training citizens? Do we want to create critical thinkers? Before exploring teaching methods, faculty and administrators need to be clear about their institution’s mission, vision, values, and goals. And these statements need to be translated into explicit action. The mission, vision, and values define an institution’s identity. It is from this core that actions corporately and individually are to emerge. When the collective and individual purposes and values are aligned and all act congruent with those purposes and values, there is then integrity within the system. It will then become clear what it is we are to do.