The word cloud represents the relative prominence of Key Words in 584 mission statements from 2017.
A primary task of community college leadership is to establish and communicate a shared vision across campus and community. 1 According to the AACC, communicating a college’s mission is an essential leadership competency. George B. Vaughan observes that the mission statement is the source from which everything else flows 2 . A sense of mission can discourage haphazard reactions to fleeting community issues, shifting the focus to long-term community transformation.
Today, the mission statement seems to be a commonsense mechanism for communicating an organization’s core principles 3, but mission statements are relatively novel in the history of management. For example, Riverside Community College published its first mission statement in 1983–nearly seven decades after it first opened its doors. In fact, like most community colleges, RCC has used various management genres to communicate its philosophy, movement, purpose, goals, and other varieties of collective intent. These management genres aren’t just empty words–they structure planning, budgeting, accountability systems, and even help educators understand their “fit” in overall organizational dynamics.
If management genres do, in fact, influence organizational processes, how do mission statements differ from other management genres, such as statements of philosophy? What does a mission statement “do” that a philosophy statement can’t do? What was gained from widespread adoption of the mission statement? What was lost? In this blog, we will explore the affordances and constraints of mission statements.
A list of “management genres” used by Riverside Community College is below (as published in the College Catalog).
Example: Changes in RCC Management Genres Since 1916
- 1916, General Information
- 1920, Aims and Methods
- 1921, Purpose and Aims
- 1929, Aims and Functions
- 1954, Philosophy of the College
- 1955, Philosophy of the College, Objectives, Purposes
- 1956, Objectives, Purposes
- 1957, Philosophy of the College, Objectives, Purposes
- 1960, Objectives and Purposes
- 1962, Philosophy of Riverside City College, Objectives and Purposes
- 1963, Philosophy of Riverside City College, Objectives and Purposes of a Junior College
- 1964, Philosophy of the College, College Objectives
- 1967, The Nature and Role of the College, The Philosophy of the College, The Purpose of the College
- 1983, Mission of the College, Goals and Objectives
- 1985, Our Business, Our Vision, Value (e.g., “Value: STUDENT CENTEREDNESS”), Goals and Objectives
- 1994, Mission Statement; Business, Vision, Values; Goals and Objectives
- 1996, Mission Statement;Goals–1995-2005; Business, Vision, Values; Goals and Objectives
- 1998, Mission Statement; Goals–1995 – 2005; Our Vision and Values; Functions
- 2007, Mission Statements [for district and each campus]; Goals–2005 – 2015; Our Vision and Values; Functions
- 2010, Mission Statements [for college and district], RCCD Goals–2005 0 2015; Our RCCD Vision and Values; RCCD Functions
- 2011, Mission Statement [for RCC]; Vision; Values; Goals
- 2012, Mission Statement; Vision; Values; Goals
- Note: A section on “Academic Freedom” was added in 2007
- Thich Nhat Hanh, citing a Zen proverb
- Roueche, J. E., Baker, G. A., & Rose, R. R. (1989). Shared vision: Transformational leadership in American community colleges. Washington, D.C.: Community College Press American Association of Community and Junior Colleges : National Center for Higher Education.
- Vaughan, G. B. (1997). The community college’s mission and milieu: Institutionalizing community-based programming. In E. J. Boone (Ed.), Community leadership through community-based programming: The role of the community college (pp. 21-58). Washington, DC: Community College Press
- As a management genre, the mission statement was once an innovative management practice used to distill a sense of shared purpose amidst what otherwise might appear to be organized anarchy.