New Office for Mission Effectiveness promotes inclusive academic community in University’s Augustinian Catholic tradition

During the past several years, the creation of an office for Mission has been a growing trend on the campuses of American colleges and universities. The employment section of The Chronicle for Higher Education is rarely without an ad for a vice president for mission. For Catholic universities, however, an office for mission is more than a trend. It’s becoming a necessity, helping to fill the void left by the depletion in the ranks of clerics and religious, who by their vocations and visibility once were witnesses to their institutions’ Catholic heritage and mission.

Villanova University recently authorized its own Office for Mission Effectiveness reporting to the University president. Dr. Barbara Wall, O.P., who had been associate dean in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, was appointed assistant to the president for Mission Effectiveness. Why not a vice president, some have asked.

The Rev. Edmund J. Dobbin, O.S.A. ‘58, University president, answered this succinctly. "The person who has chief responsibility for mission is the president," he stated. "Dr. Wall’s purpose as assistant to the president is to provide a resource, not only to me but to the leadership of the University."

Wall herself described her new role as one of encouraging and supporting mission initiatives that reflect the University’s Augustinian roots and its mission to serve the University community: to encourage students through learning and service to reflect its Catholic values, to provide a rich liturgical life, to support research and thinking, and to challenge both students and faculty to be agents of social change that reflect the Gospel’s concern for the sacredness of all creation and the church’s preferential option for the poor.

"The Catholic university is the place where the Church continues to do its thinking," she pointed out. "We need the kind of research that not only enlivens the tradition, but also moves us to new insights. It is a living tradition and we believe God continues to be actively involved in all creation."

Already, the Office of Mission Effectiveness has been active on a number of fronts: supporting the development of explicit academic programs that reflect both the University’s Augustinian legacy and Catholic social thought, developing a booklet on mission and heritage for both internal and external use, continuing workshops on the Augustinian heritage (which have been underway for the past two years), and instituting curriculum workshops inviting faculty to consider including Augustinian themes and Catholic Social Thought in their curriculum and research.

Right now, Wall and the University-wide Mission Effectiveness Committee are working on a document titled Hiring for Mission for use in faculty hiring. Its purpose is to encourage search committees to keep the mission of the University in mind as they identify candidates. Before publication, the document will be thoroughly evaluated by focus groups and various committees. A similar initiative for staff is underway under the aegis of VQI.

Both Wall and Father Dobbin made it clear that mission effectiveness is not a code phrase for forcing Catholic dogma into the University’s hiring and teaching practices.

"I met with the Mission Effectiveness Committee to emphasize the fact that the University mission is not simply identified with religious dimensions," Father Dobbin stated. "Augustine undergirds the academic momentum of the University with its emphasis on the liberal arts, the centrality of community, inclusivity and service. For Augustine, of course, these multiple dimensions are all grounded in divine love energizing and guiding the academic community.

Augustine lived in the 5^th century. He predated reformations, schisms and the like. His thought, which permeates our mission statement, is based in Scripture, both Old and New Testament. It is catholic, meaning universal, not exclusive.

"We want to invite people to teach here, who buy into the values of our mission. They don’t have to be Catholic to do that. In fact many of the strongest supporters of our mission are faculty members and staff who are not Catholic."

Wall concurred. "We want to encourage people of different religious faiths to be part of this. What we are saying is that we have a mission, we want you to be part of it. We are not being heavy handed but we need to say who we are, thereby adding a significant and unique dimension to higher education.

"We want to encourage all elements of diversity and, at the same time, we need to define our mission inclusively as a Catholic, Augustinian university. We are vitally committed to the Augustinian conception of education, which focuses on the enlargement of mind and heart in the learning process. Our Augustinian sponsorship is at the heart of those values."

Father Dobbin and Wall are sensitive to the fact that the Office of Mission Effectiveness has been established at the same time as the controversial implementation guidelines of the papal document on Catholic higher education, Ex Corde Ecclesiae, are being finalized by the American Catholic bishops. However, both stress that this is just a coincidence of timing and that the two actions are not related. The Office of Mission Effectiveness evolved from task forces initiated by the University and the Province of St. Thomas of Villanova, as well as from conversations dating back more than 10 years.