Pro-Palestinian student encampment at the University of Oregon, 1 May 2024. Photo by: Spacemace1, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Ann Skeet is senior director, leadership ethics, and John Pelissero is director, government ethics, both with the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University. Views are their own.
In the midst of graduation season, the effects of monthslong protest on college campuses are being felt in the form of suspended students and cancelled commencement ceremonies. Some universities have had relative success in dismantling protest encampments and moving on with classes and graduations, while others have struggled to find common ground between protesters and university leadership. We think there’s an underutilized resource that leaders can leverage in this moment.
The universities able to find common ground with students have done so by engaging with them directly in dialogue, setting boundaries that are consistently applied, and working to achieve compromise, rather than digging in firmly with a resolute stance against discussions of divestment from Israel and the arms industry. In doing so, the leaders of those universities have modeled what they hope to teach: civil discourse amongst people with different points of view.
In short, these leaders have centered students in their decision-making as called for in most of their university mission statements. They have acted in ways that reflect their principles, values, and promises. That they have done so should not be the rare exception resulting in conflict resolution. It should be the expectation that those in these university communities can rely on the mission of the organization to guide the way in challenging times.
We have written previously about the need for university leaders to have a framework for ethical decision making to guide them when campus controversies erupt. We point now specifically to the power of a university’s mission and purpose as a tool of ethical decision making.
In a recent op-ed in the Chicago Tribune, Northwestern President Michael Schill wrote about why and how leaders at Northwestern engaged with student protesters. “This resolution—fragile though it may be—was possible because we chose to see our students not as a mob but as young people who were in the process of learning.” Schill foregrounds the university’s role as educator and reminds us that the faculty’s primary role is to teach.
When visiting Northwestern’s website to learn more about the university’s mission, vision and goals, there exists a mission statement that is remarkably brief for an academic institution, but one that speaks clearly to the university’s clear-eyed view of itself as a place committed to teaching. “Northwestern is committed to excellent teaching, innovative research, and the personal and intellectual growth of its students in a diverse academic community.” It goes on to list eight principles, including the promise to transform society, grow leaders, encourage debate, and strengthen community. It would appear that Northwestern is living its mission.
The good work to live the mission began well before this year’s campus protests. College and university presidents, particularly new presidents, often look to the mission of their institution to guide their leadership and, at times, commence a review of the mission to ensure that it continues to serve the evolution of higher education, the central needs of students, and the pursuit of new knowledge. As noted by the Society for College and University Planning, universities should engage in development of multi-year strategic plans that are designed to operationalize the mission and values of the institution. University governing boards have the fiduciary duties of “care, loyalty, and obedience,” to enact policies that are consistent with their mission, and recruit leaders whose actions will be consistent with and affirming of the university’s mission and values.
Contrast Northwestern’s mission with Columbia’s much longer statement, which mentions research before learning, “Columbia University is one of the world’s most important centers of research and at the time a distinctive and distinguished learning environment for undergraduates and graduate students in many scholarly and professional fields. The University recognizes the importance of its location in New York City and seeks to link its research and teaching to the vast resources of a great metropolis. It seeks to attract a diverse and international faculty, staff, and student body, to support research and teaching on global issues, and to create academic relationships with many countries and regions. It expects all areas of the University to advance knowledge and learning at the highest level and to convey the products of its efforts to the world.”
On Columbia’s site, on a page termed “Values in Action,” its president, Minouche Shafik, announced an effort in December 2023 to re-examine Columbia’s values and practices in the wake of growing unrest following the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel. In a video on Columbia’s website, she does an admiral job of trying to reset expectations and engage her community in dialogue as well. Responding to challenging times in an organization’s culture is a best practice of ethical leadership. That events have devolved to the point that they have on Columbia’s campus—with police intervention to dismantle an encampment, the transition to online classes for the remainder of the semester, and the cancellation of commencement ceremonies—speaks to how difficult it is to amend values at the very time that an institution needs to be leaning on them.
Though mission and values statements may appear to be flowery sentiments crafted by committees, the best ones telegraph how things are done in an organization because they are a tool of decision-making in the organization. People in organizations with living missions and integrated values turn to them regularly to plan strategically and to guide decision making, especially when faced with thorny dilemmas such as the clash of rights and perspectives the conflict in the Middle East has brought to college campuses in the U.S.
In the present state of campus protests, it is likely that some leaders as well as protesters have failed to ground their actions in the university mission. University leaders have a special duty to care for the university’s mission in all circumstances. But it is wise, also, for students and faculty to be educated in the university mission and the values that promote dialogue and critical thinking before engaging in protest or demanding changes in the university’s behavior and policies. Doing so strengthens the moral basis for protest, notably on national or international issues like those that are at the center of discussions and protests on college campuses now.
When leaders can turn to those mission and values statements in moments of crisis or concern and use them with confidence, it’s because they have made the investment in them over the long term. They built confidence in leadership and trust in the organization through their consistent application or they have frankly acknowledged past missteps when decisions were made that were inconsistent with the institutional mission. This is how universities most effectively use mission as key tool for ethical decision making.