Vision and Mission Statement
Call to Action: Why We Need A New Mission Statement Now
Our Department of Writing Arts does not live in a vacuum. It lives in an enthralling, imperfect world filled with both love and injustice, reconciliation and erasure. As practitioners of writing and storytelling, we have long been aware of these complex, unresolved dissonances. In our daily practice, we examine, question, compose, tinker, adapt, and remix language in an attempt to harness its power toward creating a more just society, and a more sustainable and life-giving world. These efforts -- to positively intervene in the world through language -- encompass all aspects of our department. To galvanize an informed, empathetic citizenry, we affirm the inherent value of student voices, while also teaching students the responsibility they have to others in exercising their voices. To reshape the landscape of knowledge, we produce timely, meaningful scholarly and creative work. To better our communities, we forge meaningful connections across the university, region, and our discipline. In short, we have mostly succeeded in enacting our 2014 vision statement: “making writers visible, making writers matter.”
As we contemplate our mission statement now, however, it has become increasingly difficult to recognize ourselves in the 2005 statement’s rhetorical claims. Although the words modestly describe our daily tasks, they do not capture the heart of what we seek to do: create a more socially just world through writing. Instead, the rhetoric of professionalism takes center stage, perhaps reflecting (understandably!) early 21st century anxieties about career preparation and the state of the discipline. As a result, our mission statement is often shrouded in the unspoken, but nevertheless implied, language of sameness -- that is, the idea that all students have the same writing and learning needs, that all writing goals are primarily career-oriented, and that diversity is not necessary for understanding writing. Undoubtedly, our 2005 mission statement spoke to the exigencies of its moment. It is a sophisticated, clear document that guided us well. But it is our duty to write to the exigencies of our moment, in unison and with clarity of purpose, and to include those who were -- intentionally or not -- excluded.
If anything, our moment is one of naming. The social movements of our present time, such as #sayhername and #metoo, are rooted in the belief that the rhetorical act of naming -- of identifying one individual as distinct from another-- can produce broad social change. This belief also has shaped recent disciplinary conversations, with Linda Adler-Kassner and Elizabeth Wardle inviting the field of Rhetoric and Composition to “name what we know.” Following this invitation then, along with the call of African American orators to “say it plain,” the goal of drafting this new mission statement is to boldly name the values that drive us to write, teach, research, create, lead, and serve. "Saying it plain," then, means crafting a mission statement that...
As we contemplate our mission statement now, however, it has become increasingly difficult to recognize ourselves in the 2005 statement’s rhetorical claims. Although the words modestly describe our daily tasks, they do not capture the heart of what we seek to do: create a more socially just world through writing. Instead, the rhetoric of professionalism takes center stage, perhaps reflecting (understandably!) early 21st century anxieties about career preparation and the state of the discipline. As a result, our mission statement is often shrouded in the unspoken, but nevertheless implied, language of sameness -- that is, the idea that all students have the same writing and learning needs, that all writing goals are primarily career-oriented, and that diversity is not necessary for understanding writing. Undoubtedly, our 2005 mission statement spoke to the exigencies of its moment. It is a sophisticated, clear document that guided us well. But it is our duty to write to the exigencies of our moment, in unison and with clarity of purpose, and to include those who were -- intentionally or not -- excluded.
If anything, our moment is one of naming. The social movements of our present time, such as #sayhername and #metoo, are rooted in the belief that the rhetorical act of naming -- of identifying one individual as distinct from another-- can produce broad social change. This belief also has shaped recent disciplinary conversations, with Linda Adler-Kassner and Elizabeth Wardle inviting the field of Rhetoric and Composition to “name what we know.” Following this invitation then, along with the call of African American orators to “say it plain,” the goal of drafting this new mission statement is to boldly name the values that drive us to write, teach, research, create, lead, and serve. "Saying it plain," then, means crafting a mission statement that...
- celebrates the diverse experiences and identities of our students
- emphasizes inclusive, safe, and brave pedagogical spaces
- advocates for different learning needs and experiences
- values creative, technical, and digital compositions alongside more traditional rhetorical genres
- recognizes the unseen labor that writing, teaching, leadership, and service require
- views our community's fate as interconnected and mutually bound to one another
- makes room for affective responses to teaching and writing
- prioritizes relationships over deliverables
