Personal Mission Statements, II

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I’d like to share a few reflections about personal missions statements over the next couple of day. Let’s start with this one.

Let’s be honest. Most institutional mission statements are annouced from “on high” or emerge from the efforts of an institution’s planning process.

Institutions, however, don’t have mission statements; people do.

Let’s be even more honest, and my Dean, VPAA, and President may not like this if they read it. Both my institution’s current mission statement and proposed new mission statement aren’t all that important to me. Sure, I understand all the time and energy that has gone into formulating a new one. And, deeply being involved in the strategic planning initiative, I am certainly empathetic to why they must exist and how the tight, demanding time frame in which they must be formulated constricts the process. There are practical demands and requirements of the Chancellor’s office, Board of Regents, legislators, Governor, faculty and staff, donors, parents, students, and the general public. But, a mission statement is not the solution to a problem or the meeting of a requirement or a “one shot” fulfillment of a duty, or the result of a planning process.

It’s not what mission statements say that are important; it is what they do. I’ll repeat that. It’s not what mission statements say that are important; it is what they do.

And, my institution’s mission statements, old and proposed new, don’t do a thing for me. Neither is important to me. Neither turns me on. There’s a disconnect between either one of them and me. Neither is rooted in my adamantine core. They’re ideas, even important ideas. They offer direction, even important direction. But, they don’t create a shared commonality with me. They’re not that powerful, inspiring, moving, impressive force in my heart. Why? They’re so institutional. They’re a search for a “strategic vision;” they’re not personal visions. They say, “This is why VSU has or will have these organizations, programs, and policies.” Mine is so personal and says, “This is why I exist, why I am alive. Bring it on!”

My institution’s mission statements belong to someone else and being asked to fine-tune the language isn’t a committed buy-in. My institution’s mission statements aren’t personal. They’re not mine! They’re not visceral. They’re not inside me. They’re not me. They’re not interlocked, interconnected, integrated, interacted with my avowed purpose, vision, value system, and mission. No, I am moved and directed by my articulated personal mission statement that for years, literally years, I have struggled, agonized over, lost sleep about, cause me many a tossing and turning, pondered, walked on, searched for, written, rewritten, trashed, written, rewritten, and am still honing. It is my discovered, formulated, and articulated “why” that is important to me. That is because my personal mission statement is me; it is mine. It is my “true north.” It is my purpose, my vision, my values, my concerns, my hopes, my beliefs, my faiths, my aspirations. It’s my inside coming out. It is something very meaningful; it’s in my heart and soul. In the spirit of Deuteronomy 6:6-9, it’s in my heart and soul. I wake up with it, talk about it, share it, teach it. It shines through my eyes; I wear it on my face; it’s in my voice; it’s in my step. It’s my aura. I spend my days and deal with every day, day-to-day relationships with it consciously in the forefront of my mind, heart, and soul. It is my mantra.

Institutions don’t have mission statements; people do.

I fondest hope is that my institution’s new mission statement is only the first step in long, arduous, and time-consuming building of a “will you follow me” shared vision that will connect with the disconnected. For a genuine caring about a mission or vision statement that seeks commitment rather than merely compliance, must have a commonality. It must be rooted in collected personal senses of missions and personal visions. The members of my institutional community must buy into it. Each must have a sense of ownership. That is the way to make an institutional mission statement so compelling that it stops being a concept, people begin to see it as if it exists and is alive, and no one is willing to give it up. Otherwise, it ultimately will be meaningless and powerless, little more than the unread first page in the institutional bulletin or various handbooks, and will be banished to the mission statement’s graveyard where it will merely gather dust on a lost shelf unread and forgotten.

Make it a good day.

–Louis–

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About Louis Schmier

LOUIS SCHMIER “Every student should have a person who wants to help him or her help himself or herself become the person he or she is capable of becoming, and I’ll be damned if I am ever going to let one human being fall through the cracks in my classes without a fight.” How about a snapshot of myself. But, what shall I tell you about me? Something personal? Something philosophical? Something pedagogical? Something scholarly? Nah, I'll dispense with that resume stuff. Since I believe everything we do starts from who we are inside, what we believe, what we perceive, and what we do is an extension of ourselves, how about if I first say some things about myself. Then, maybe, I can ease into other things. My name is Louis Schmier. The first name rhymes with phooey, the last with beer. I am a 76 year old - in body, but not in mind or spirit - born and bred New Yorker who came south in 1963. I met by angelic bride, Susie, on a reluctant blind date at Chapel Hill. We've been married now going on 51 years. We have two marvelous sons. One is a VP at Samsung in San Francisco. The other is an artist with food and is an executive chef at a restaurant in Nashville, Tn. And, they have given us three grandmunchkins upon whom we dote a bit. I power walk 7 miles every other early morning. That’s my essential meditative “Just to …” time. On the other days, I exercise with weights to keep my upper body in shape. I am an avid gardener. I love to cook on my wok. Loving to work with my hands as well as with my heart and mind, I built a three room master complex addition to the house. And, I am a “fixer-upper” who allows very few repairmen to step across the threshold. Oh, by the way, I received my A.B. from then Adelphi College, my M.A. from St. John's University, and my Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I have been teaching at Valdosta State University in Georgia since 1967. Having retired reluctantly in December, 2012, I currently hold the rank of Professor of History, Emeritus. I prefer the title, “Teacher”. Twenty-five years ago, I had what I consider an “epiphany”. It changed my understanding of myself. I stopped professoring and gave up scholarly research and publication to devote all my time and energy to student. My teaching has taken on the character of a mission. It is a journey that has taken me from seeing only myself to a commitment to vision larger than myself and my self-interest. I now believe that being an educator means I am in the “people business”. I now believe that the most essential element in education is caring about people. Education without caring, without a real human connection, is as viable as a person with a brain but without a heart. So, when I am asked what I teach, I answer unhesitatingly, “I teach students”. I am now more concerned with the students’ learning than my teaching, more concerned with the students as human beings than with the subject. I am more concerned with reaching for students than reaching the height of professional reputation. I believe the heart of education is to educate the heart. The purpose of teaching is to instill in all students genuine, loving, lifelong eagerness to learn and foster a life of continual growth and development. It should encourage and assist students in developing the basic values needed for learning and living: self-discipline, self-confidence, self-worth, integrity, honesty, commitment, perseverance, responsibility, pursuit of excellence, emotional courage, creativity, imagination, humility, and compassion for others. In April, 1993, I began to share ME on the internet: my personal and professional rites of passage, my beliefs about the nature and purpose of an education, a commemoration of student learning and achievement, my successful and not so successful experiences, a proclamation of faith in students, and a celebration of teaching. These electronic sharings are called “Random Thoughts”. There are now over 1000 of them floating out there in cyberspace. The first 185, which chronicles the beginnings of my journey, have been published as collections in three volumes, RANDOM THOUGHTS: THE HUMANITY OF TEACHING, RANDOM THOUGHTS, II: TEACHING FROM THE HEART, RANDOM THOUGHTS, III: TEACHING WITH LOVE, and RANDOM THOUGHTS, IV: THE PASSION OF TEACHING. The chronicle of my continued journey is available in an Ebook on Amazon's Kindle in a volume I call FAITH, HOPE, LOVE: THE SPIRIT OF TEACHING. There a few more untitled volumes in the works..

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