Valparaiso University - IN - Assurance Argument - 10/6/2017 Assurance Argument Valparaiso University - IN 10/6/2017 Page 1 Valparaiso University - IN - Assurance Argument - 10/6/2017 1 - Mission The institution’s mission is clear and articulated publicly; it guides the institution’s operations. 1.A - Core Component 1.A The institution’s mission is broadly understood within the institution and guides its operations. 1. The mission statement is developed through a process suited to the nature and culture of the institution and is adopted by the governing board. 2. The institution’s academic programs, student support services, and enrollment profile are consistent with its stated mission. 3. The institution’s planning and budgeting priorities align with and support the mission. (This sub-component may be addressed by reference to the response to Criterion 5.C.1.) Argument 1.A.1. The nature and culture of Valparaiso University (Valpo) is not unlike that of a closely-knit family. Founded in 1859 as the Valparaiso Male and Female College, but purchased and re-envisioned as Valparaiso University by a group of Lutheran laymen in 1925, Valpo had for decades a faculty, staff, and student body drawn largely from the Lutheran midwest. More recently the university community has become far more diverse, but the spirit of family remains, meaning that transparent, widely-shared participation in university governance is assumed. That shared participation includes development of the mission and the Strategic Plan that supports it. The mission statement of Valparaiso University was adopted in 2004 by the Board of Directors under former president, Alan Harre: "Valparaiso University, a community of learning dedicated to excellence and grounded in the Lutheran tradition of scholarship, freedom, and faith, prepares students to lead and serve in both church and society." The arrival of a new university president, Mark Heckler, in July 2008 provided the opportunity for campus-wide review of the Strategic Plan that undergirds that mission statement. After a year-long "Future Search Conference" which allowed faculty, students, staff, alumni, and friends to articulate a "most desired future" for Valpo, a process and timeline for developing a new Strategic Plan was presented in September 2009. One year later the Strategic Plan, including mission statement, vision statement, nine area vision statements, core values, and goals and objectives, was formally adopted by the Board of Directors. These statements and documents will be referred to henceforth as the university mission. Previous strategic plans were adopted as static five-year documents. The Strategic Plan adopted in 2010 differed in that it would be in constant and dynamic flux based on annual assessment of the university's achievements. That annual assessment has allowed all faculty, staff, and students to Page 2 Valparaiso University - IN - Assurance Argument - 10/6/2017 contribute to the plan and to help guide its evolution; for that reason there is both broad awareness of the mission and transparency about how the Strategic Plan develops. The process for that evolution is as follows. The Strategic Planning Committee, comprised of all deans, vice presidents, elected leaders of the faculty and student body, representatives of the Chapel, hourly staff, and salaried staff, meets in retreat for several days every May to assess the collective progress on meeting goals of the Strategic Plan. Accomplished goals are noted and celebrated, opportunities are assessed, and proposed initiatives are identified and tested against the mission. A second review is undertaken in July by the President's Council. Finally, members of the university community, including students, are invited to comment on proposed changes. The Strategic Planning Committee takes these comments into careful consideration before making its annual recommendation to the Board of Directors. The fifth iteration of the Strategic Plan (2016-2020) was approved by the Board of Directors in October 2015. This inclusive and transparent process has repeated each year since 2010 and is suited to the nature of Valpo’s tightly-knit community. But even as the evolving Strategic Plan seemed poised to guide the university over a decades-long horizon, stakeholders began in 2015 to express a desire for a simpler, more focused, less compartmentalized, less burdensome Strategic Plan. In response, the president introduced a proposal in September 2016 to revise the Strategic Plan's structure. Instead of a framework with five overarching goals, each of which contained a series of objectives which, in turn, contained a set of action statements, the proposed new structure would rely on an easily understood set of “why,” “what,” and “how” statements. At the time of this writing, the university has just finished developing that new structure. The “why” and “what” statements are complete, though development of the “how” statements will continue well into the fall 2017 semester. In the spirit of transparency and openness, faculty, staff, and students were all involved in the process, beginning with a two-day “summit” in September 2016 and concluding with approval of the newly-structured Strategic Plan by the Board of Directors in April 2017. The goal has not been to change the university's mission, but to find a way to move implementation of that mission from a compartmentalized and centralized approach to a more inclusive and integrated approach. This move will enable departments and units to engage more fully in implementation of the unwavering mission. 1.A.2. Multiple strategies aim to ensure that the institution’s mission is understood by those who develop and deliver its academic programs and student support services and by those who recruit the student body. Members of the faculty develop and deliver academic programs. As they are recruited and hired, the mission is presented to them as an essential feature of the institution. Once employed, new tenure- track faculty members participate in a comprehensive, year-long orientation program that culminates in a ten-day seminar in Cambridge, England (site of one Valpo study-abroad center). Throughout the year new faculty are oriented not only to the more mundane aspects of employment, but are also given opportunities to reflect on the character, meaning, and purpose of their own work as teacher-scholars in the context of Valpo’s mission. The capstone Cambridge Seminar is led by senior members of the faculty who help participants gain a deeper understanding of the connections between their work as educators and the university's mission. That understanding, in turn, informs faculty members as they shape and develop the academic programs for which they are responsible. The Cambridge Seminar has had the added positive effect of creating cohort solidarity that extends across departments and colleges; participants can better see beyond narrow departmental concerns to the broader mission of Page 3 Valparaiso University - IN - Assurance Argument - 10/6/2017 the institution. Valpo’s mission to prepare students to “lead and serve” compels the institution to offer academic programs that emphasize both professional and liberal learning. Almost all graduate programs offered at Valpo are professional in orientation and have as their underlying purpose the preparation of future servant leaders. The MBA program, for example, features a strong foundation in values-based leadership, and the MA in Clinical Mental Health Counseling provides research and applied experiences to students whose interests lie at the intersection of counseling and pastoral care. The university’s mission is also central to the work of the Student Affairs staff. Members of that staff are oriented to the mission, not only during their initial recruitment, but also during regular staff meetings and in-service training. One training event was an abbreviated version of the Cambridge Seminar for faculty members, ensuring that staff members deliver programs that mirror the mission and complement academic programs delivered by faculty. Appropriate student recruitment is central to Valpo’s bid to create a learning community that embraces the mission. The mission is communicated to prospective students in several ways: it is prominently featured on the university’s general website along with a brief narrative (“Embracing the Journey”) that helps students understand what the mission means for them as individuals; the print viewbook weaves themes from the mission statement into both text and image; and campus tours follow a list of points that include topics related to themes of the mission statement. The mission calls for a diverse student body, and careful recruitment strategies have led to an increase in the number of students from diverse backgrounds, both with regard to national origin and US diversity, in the last ten years. The percentage of undergraduate international students in the fall 2015 semester was 7.4% (compared to 2.2% ten years earlier), and the percentage of domestic minority students in the same ten-year period grew from 8.4% to 19%. A total of 34.6% of the student body, including undergraduates, law students, and graduate students, come from diverse backgrounds. Once students have been recruited and are enrolled at Valpo, they are regularly reminded of the mission. New students are welcomed at their June orientation program by the president or provost, who use language of the mission to explain how students will find their vocation and be equipped to lead and serve in church and society. Two months later, a convocation marks the opening of the academic year. The president’s remarks again use the language of mission to connect mission to individual goals that new students have. The convocation concludes with two rituals that reinforce the mission: all new students participate in both a formal pinning ceremony that features an interpretation of Valpo’s “Shield of Character,” and in the signing of Valpo’s Honor Code statement in books that are archived in perpetuity. 1.A.3. Planning and budgeting priorities are closely aligned with the institution’s mission and are discussed, respectively, in (5.C.2.) and (5.C.1).