The race for the presidency of the United States has highlighted for Americans — and the world — sharply contrasting visions of our nation. Democrats offered an optimistic vision based on the common good and a shared purpose, with slogans like “Stronger together” and “Love trumps hate.” Republicans focused on a different vision. With slogans like “Make America safe again” they chose to dwell on the threats associated with crime, terrorism, and economic uncertainty.
In many companies, a great deal of attention is paid to vision. For example, the question “What do we want to create?” generates specific actions in industry: board discussions, retreats, product-line changes, website redesigns, new-employee training, and messaging in social media. Nike, Zappos, and Patagonia, among other companies, are thought to excel at articulating a compelling, shared vision. Nonprofit organizations, too, engage in the “vision thing.” Oxfam, Habitat for Humanity, and the Smithsonian, for example, have developed clear and inspiring expressions of their desired outcomes.
In contrast, a recent examination I conducted of 140 colleges and universities suggests that institutions of higher education appear to be much less sanguine about articulating their ambitions.
An initial finding of the study is a lack of appreciation for what a compelling, shared vision can do for a college. It should create structural tension between an actual state (where we are) and a desired state (where we want to be). That tension should lead to strategic actions to resolve the discrepancy. This means vision statements need to be stated in forward-leaning language — “will be,” “aspires to become.” Yet many of the vision statements in the study’s sample use the language of today — “is” or “will continue to be” — to describe tomorrow. It is as though many colleges feel that they have already arrived at their destinations and see no real need to challenge themselves or the status quo.
A second finding involves the practical use of vision statements. They aren’t supposed to be decorative or mere afterthoughts. They function to support decision-making, the allocation of scarce resources, and the emotional spark to drive positive change. They should be the basis for the development and execution of an institution’s strategic plan — “How do we get there?” But too often, strategic plans are found in separate parts of a website, with no mention of an aspirational vision; this reflects an unfortunate disconnect between articulating a future and linking it to a series of concrete steps to get there.
Next, many vision statements also lack distinctiveness. A vision that isn’t distinctive is a vision that isn’t compelling. Much of the language being used by colleges and universities involves words such as “excellence,” “quality,” and “pre-eminent.” Such words are then seemingly cobbled together to develop vision statements. Indeed, the analysis shows that many institutions fail the “Wite-Out Test” — institutional vision statements within Carnegie categories are placed side by side, Wite-Out is applied to the names of the colleges, and they immediately become indistinguishable from one another.
A summary finding is that even if colleges and universities have a vision, most apparently don’t feel the need to communicate their aspirations. While regional accrediting associations require the existence of a mission (“Why do we exist?”), fewer than six in 10 of the institutions in the study had visions that could be located on their websites. When visions were located, they were usually found under a tab that said “About the College” or a similar catch-all category, alongside campus maps, parking, and an events calendar.
Rarely, if ever, are any references made to the future of the institution — what it actually hopes to achieve — on or even near its home page.
Why is this important? Why should a lack of an aspirational vision matter to institutions of higher education? Because we have the responsibility to ourselves and our stakeholders to describe and articulate our own future. A compelling, shared vision enables us to develop coherence around our decision-making, energizes people to take the journey, and convinces others that we are clear and confident about what tomorrow will bring.
Anything less is an abdication of responsibility.
We have simply invested too little time and effort asking and answering the primary visioning question: “What do we want to create?” We either don’t think that articulating a compelling, shared vision is necessary, or we can’t gain consensus on what the future should look like, or we are just too busy with our day-to-day work to reflect on such a challenging question. When we do, there doesn’t seem to be much effort devoted to applying criteria to what makes a catalyzing vision or describing a future that is something truly special.
Moreover, the language appears to be reviewed only once every six to 10 years by an internal team, then buried in the pages of a catalog. There is little alignment and energy around specific strategies and the allocation of scarce resources to achieve a collective ambition. Under such circumstances, what was good enough yesterday can easily become good enough for today and even for tomorrow. Inertia and the grip of the status quo dominate.
Unfortunately, the inability or unwillingness to describe a different future is now being interpreted by others as intransigence, arrogance, or aloofness.
That result has helped to usher in an era of accountability in which the locus of control has shifted. Everyone — state agencies, boards, magazines, television pundits — has an opinion about what we should be doing, how we should assess ourselves, and increasingly, in the public sector, states have created budgets with strings attached. The conversation has shifted from the positive societal attributes of higher education to a list of grievances against its institutions.
The mantra of “accountability” has helped fuel a hypercritical environment in which the difference between what we perceive we do and how others perceive us has grown from a small breach to a yawning chasm.
Demonstrating responsibility — which begins by articulating a positive future — is about owning change, being self-regarding, and then seeking to thrive. Being held accountable for a future that someone else is specifying is about being changed, becoming a victim, and then merely surviving.
One choice is a commitment to embrace and shape a different tomorrow; the other is complying with someone else’s expectations for you. One is being proactive by describing a desired state and then designing systems and processes to get there; the other is reacting to circumstances by finding and fixing problems.
We in higher education have lost control of the narrative.
It would appear that political parties, companies, and many other types of organizations have determined that a clear vision for the future is crucial to their success. So, should “visioning” also be important to higher education? The answer should be a resounding “yes.” These results suggest that if we can’t describe our future, others will be happy to do it for us — and to hold us accountable for achieving it, too.
Daniel Seymour teaches at California State University-Channel Islands and is the author of Future College Fieldbook: Mission, Vision, and Values in Higher Education (Olive Press, 2016).
