2003 Presidents Institute

Presidents Institute • Chief Academic Officers Institute • Foundation Conversation • Workshops and Other Events •

2003 Presidents Institute Post-Conference Materials

THE BOARD ENGAGED: MISSION POSSIBLE
Tom Scheye
Scheye@Loyola.edu

Problem: trustees complain that too much of their time is taken up with routine business, and presidents object to the board getting too involved with management. Possible solution: presidents need to recall trustees to their primary responsibility—mission.

Trustees’ fiduciary responsibility, at heart, is responsibility for mission. That’s what was handed down in trust by those who came before, and what they will hand down to those who come after. Thus, their unique perspective on the institution, reaching back to its founding and stretching out into a future as long as the college’s.

Mission is what provides the continuity between past and future, and coherence among the various activities and competing cultures that make the college what it is. And it’s no mystery, not hard to find, though it may be easy to miss. Like Poe’s purloined letter, or Waldo, it may be hidden in plain sight.

How to recall trustees to mission? Start with historical perspective, the myths surrounding your institution. A myth may not be the truth, but it’s no lie. Events in your history become part of the myth because they point the way to who you are today. The perspective then is not on what you were, but what you have always been.

Next, recall for the board some of the essential values that attracted them in the first place: what your college is best at, or best known for, or proudest of. This is the time for idealism. After all, net tuition revenue may be what keeps you up at night, but it doesn’t get anybody up in the morning. Mission is, finally, about the why of things, not the how.

Practically speaking, how do you find the occasion to focus the board’s attention where it belongs? The critical moment might be at the onset of a strategic planning process or a review of the current plan. Questions for the trustees: Is the mission (or vision) at the center of the plan? Or, is there a strategy behind the plan that advances the mission and turns it to competitive advantage? If the answer is yes, then the board can be engaged by these critical, truly strategic questions:

How distinctive should our college be?
How big?
How good?
How diverse?
Famous for what?
And, How can we afford it?

Grappling with these questions, the board will begin to grasp the real meaning of mission.