What Universities Mission Statements are Portraying

Looking into Widener University and The University of Alabama Mission statements.

Widener University

Information:

Widener University is a small private metropolitan university located outside of Philadelphia and offer 40 majors. There student population is composed of 6,496 students that when broken down includes: 3,215 undergraduate, 2,248 graduate, and 1,033 law students. The campus diversity is reported as “Students represent 49 states and 22 countries, with 30% of the student body consisting of U.S. students of color and international citizens.”

· Pennsylvania, USA

· Smaller 3,000 undergrads

· Private University

Mission Statement:

Here at Widener, a leading metropolitan university, we achieve our mission by creating a learning environment where curricula are connected to societal issues through civic engagement.

Our mission at Widener includes the following tenets:

· We lead by providing a unique combination of liberal arts and professional education in a challenging, scholarly, and culturally diverse academic community.

· We engage our students through dynamic teaching, active scholarship, personal attention, and experiential learning.

· We inspire our students to be citizens of character who demonstrate professional and civic leadership.

· We contribute to the vitality and well-being of the communities we serve.

Discussion:

Widener’s mission statement is well written and is broken down into bullets that address the core values presented in the mission statement. The university focused the center of their statement on “learning environment”. Being a smaller university that is not worldly known for its research and publications this is a strategic move to focus on the type of education one would receive by attending this university. The statement then says “where curricula are connected to societal issues through civic engagement.” This denotes that the university strives to make the education beyond just classroom application or concern but teach students in a way that impacts society on a greater level. This is also expanded upon through the first three tenets bullets.

With being a smaller private university widener has to market itself to the outside community. “We engage our students through dynamic teaching, active scholarship, personal attention, and experiential learning.” Through the programs offered by the university it indicated that they do strive to expanded the education their students receive. Widener offers a verity of Co-op, service, and research options that students can partake in. They have also recently released the “Inside Track” campaign which also closely follows the current mission statement. However, they state that there is diverse academic community, but the 84% of their student population comes from PA or NJ.

I enjoy that in the breakdown of tenets that are included in the mission the university also mentions that “We contribute to the vitality and well-being of the communities we serve.” This indicates that they strive to care for and safe guard their students, faculty, and community in which they are in. This is especially important with Widener being located in Chester, PA that includes a diverse community where about 40% of the population below the poverty level the university has a responsibility to the community in which it resides to not induce harm.

The University of Alabama

Information:

The University of Alabama is a state university and offer 70 undergraduate degrees. With 38,103 undergraduate’s student this large university has about a 20% minority enrollment and 50 state representation.

· Alabama, USA

· Large about 30,000 undergrads

· Public State University

Mission Statement:

The University of Alabama will advance the intellectual and social condition of the people of the state, the nation and the world through the creation, translation and dissemination of knowledge with an emphasis on quality programs in the areas of teaching, research and service.

Vision Statement: The University of Alabama will be known as the university of choice for the best and brightest students in Alabama, and all students who seek exceptional educational opportunities. The University of Alabama will be a student-centered research university and an academic community united in its commitment to enhance the quality of life for all Alabamians and the citizens of the nation and the world.

Discussion:

The University of Alabama mission statement address the impact the university hopes to make as a whole on the society around them. This statement unlike Widener University is not purely focused on the education one would receive by going there, but the overall goal of the University to provide an academic environment that will generate “legends”. This is seen also in the Universities campaign “Where Legends Are Made.”

This University has an immense status as a world class university that has great academic programs and produces well know research. I think this is seen in the way that the University address that they will “advance the intellectual and social condition” of not just their community, but the state, nation, and world. This mission statement is a larger picture of University accomplishment or what they hope to accomplish rather than focused on the individual experience comparative to Widener’s mission statement. This is a distinct difference that represents each University’s stature as privet/public and small/large population.