Page 141 - Crisis in Higher Education

112 • Crisis in Higher Education

has morphed into outreach and engagement. Although the intent of research
and teaching should be clear, service may not be. Service is faculty provid-
ing support for membership organizations and learned societies that focus
on research, knowledge creation, and teaching excellence through a wide
variety of activities, including forming, managing, and helping these orga-
nizations attain their goals. Outreach and engagement expand this notion
to include community support such as faculty working with government
to design marketing plans for economic development or creating new drug
rehabilitation programs. Most universities do not identify a new source of
funding to support this expanded role, so funds tend to come from existing
sources and typically include faculty’s and administrator’s time. This implies
that tuition dollars are used to support outreach and engagement.
Many people would be surprised to learn that the vision and mission
statements for institutions of higher learning do not focus exclusively or
even primarily on educating students so they can find jobs and earn liv-
ings. As an example of what might be considered a well-reasoned state-
ment for a comprehensive university with bachelor’s, master’s, doctoral,
and specialized programs, consider the following, which is taken from the
Ohio State University’s (OSU) website.

1. “Vision: The Ohio State University will be the world’s preeminent
public comprehensive university, solving problems of world-wide
significance.”
2. “Mission: We exist to advance the well-being of the people of Ohio
and the global community through the creation and dissemination
of knowledge.”
3. “Values: Shared values are the commitments made by the Ohio State
community regarding how work will be conducted. Our values at
Ohio State include: Commitment to Excellence, Collaboration as
One University, Acting with Integrity, Personal Accountability,
Diversity in People and Ideas, Change and Innovation, Simplicity in
our Supporting Processes, and Openness and Trust.” 6
4. Core goals: The institution-wide goals at OSU are research and
innovation, teaching and learning, outreach and engagement, and
resource stewardship. 6

Teaching and learning are mentioned indirectly in the mission state-
ment as dissemination of knowledge, which means publishing schol-
arly research, writing practitioner-oriented articles, and teaching.