Community of voices resonate in new 乐播传媒 mission statement
Hundreds of people took part in crafting the new mission statement that 乐播传媒 adopted in May.
And Benjamin Mays 鈥�20 was one of them. When the statement declares that 乐播传媒 has always 鈥渂een dedicated to the emancipating potential of the liberal arts,鈥� it鈥檚 a tribute to the great civil rights leader and educator. Mays wrote in his autobiography that 乐播传媒 鈥渄id not 鈥榚mancipate鈥� me; it did the far greater service of making it possible for me to emancipate myself.鈥�
The mission statement was produced in conjunction with the College鈥檚 process of reaccreditation. While not every contributor owns a word in the final language, its creation was an open, overtly collaborative five-month effort that drew hundreds of suggestions and comments from the College community.
The result, in turn, will tickle the 乐播传媒-sense of nearly any member of that community.
鈥淲e were trying to get at why difference matters.鈥�
The mission statement, for instance, affirms that 乐播传媒 people 鈥渆ngage the transformative power of our differences.鈥� Students on the mission statement committee put forth the concept of 鈥渢ransformative鈥� early on, says committee chair Rebecca Herzig, professor of women and gender studies. Alums later confirmed the rightness of that word as a 乐播传媒 descriptor.
The 乐播传媒 mission statement, says Rebecca Herzig, gets at “why difference matters.” (Phyllis Graber Jensen/乐播传媒 College)
In juxtaposing 鈥渢ransformative鈥� and 鈥渄ifferences,鈥� Herzig continues, 鈥渨e were trying to get at why difference matters. We realized that the transformative effect of the College happens most often when people bump up against people who are quite different from them.鈥�
Ending the mission statement is a phrase that, in a sense, began the whole 乐播传媒 enterprise: 鈥溊植ゴ� is a college for coming times.鈥�
These words are adapted from founder and first president Oren Cheney鈥檚 pitch to Lewiston residents for the proposed school. He proposed establishing an institution for 鈥渃oming time鈥� 鈥� no 鈥渟.鈥�
The mission statement committee 鈥渞ealized that people would think we just forgot the 鈥榮鈥欌�� if they used Cheney鈥檚 exact text, Herzig explains. There was some concern, she adds, that the original reflected a denominational orientation.
鈥淪o we altered it slightly to evoke Cheney 鈥� but to also look more explicitly to the plurality of possible futures that lie ahead.鈥� 鈥� DLH
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