Much of the content, and about half of the language, in this draft was contributed by Dan Kaiser, and it also reflects specific suggestions from Jean Ketter, Sam Rebelsky, Loretta Johnson, and another faculty member.
It seems impossible to keep the mission statement short while still articulating all of the principles and values that we stand for and all of the practices that we take as fundamental to Grinnell College life (enrolling students and appointing faculty of diverse backgrounds, ranking teaching above research and service in promotion and tenure evaluations, not charging admission fees for College events, and several others). Since my attempt to produce a short list of them was choppy, rambling, and inelegant, perhaps it's better to separate the mission statement proper from the statement of principles. But in that case the long form of ``Core values of Grinnell College'' is already a satisfactory statement of principles, so I've just dropped my list.
Here is an earlier draft (from March 27, 2001), with the parts that I've changed, moved, or deleted in boldface:
Grinnell College is a community for the development of intellectual and moral character in undergraduate students through study, discourse, and practice of the liberal arts. Seeing knowledge as an end to be pursued for its own sake, but recognizing also a responsibility to cultivate humane values, an appreciation of human diversity, and a commitment to justice in human relations, the College helps students to free themselves from the bonds of ignorance, habit, prejudice, and apathy.
Both in its residential life and in its academic program, the College supports personal responsibility, free inquiry, and the exercise of critical thinking, and encourages its members to appreciate the various forms of human creativity and to understand the ways in which scholars and artists have conceived of and examined the human condition.
Our goal is to graduate men and women of great intellectual ability, character, and autonomy; who are knowledgeable, yet curious and open-minded; who proportion their beliefs to the quality of the supporting evidence and reasoning; who write and speak clearly, fluently, logically, and persuasively; who try always to act wisely and humanely, on the basis of sound and perspicacious judgement, sympathetic understanding of the values and perspectives of others, and close attention to relevant facts and principles; and who, when in positions of authority, apply their understanding and ability for the common good.
Following a suggestion from a faculty member, I deleted `in undergraduate students' from the first sentence of the first paragraph and changed `students' to `its members' in the second sentence of that paragraph, so as to recognize that we other members of the community also have a continuing responsibility and desire to free ourselves from those bonds.
I changed `discourse' to `discussion' in the first sentence because of the awkwardness of the wording `discourse ... of'.
I transferred the phrase `an appreciation of human diversity' from the first paragraph to the second, rephrasing it as `to respect and value the diversity of human culture', which seems to me a little more accurate and forceful.
At one point, the phrase `on the basis of' is deadwood; I replaced it with the preposition `with'.
It struck me that `sound and perspicacious judgement' was a little bombastic, so I reduced it to `sound judgement'. (Perspicacity is implied by the following clauses anyway.)
The structure of the last paragraph is deliberately old-fashioned and substantial, not to say weighty. In an effort to make it smoother and less jarring, I stripped out the repeated relative pronoun `who'. This eliminated both the disruptive semicolon after `autonomy' in the earlier draft and the awkward construction beginning with `and who' after the last semicolon. Following a later suggestion by Loretta Johnson, I changed the clauses from verb phrases to adjectival phrases, again in the hope of improving the flow of the sentence.
Dan Kaiser and Loretta Johnson both pointed out that there is not enough contrast between being knowledgeable and being curious and open-minded to justify the word `yet', so I took it out.
Loretta Johnson suggested changing `the various forms of human creativity' to `all forms of human creativity', which I think raises the tone a little.
Notes on the original draft (March 21, 2000)
To comment on the proposed mission statement or to contribute to these notes, send e-mail to stone@cs.grinnell.edu.
This document is available on the World Wide Web as
http://www.cs.grinnell.edu/~stone/mission-statement/camellia-notes.xhtml
created March 21, 2001
last revised October 21, 2001