Eastern’s Mission statement has existed for more than 10 years. This semester, questions addressing Eastern’s mission statement have been circulating the campus.

It first started when the National Accreditation Council visited Eastern last spring. NCA suggested that the university revisit the statement.

Then at faculty luncheon on Aug. 31 President Hencken took their advice.

“I believe that during this school year we need to have a thorough discussion of the Mission of the university,” Hencken said.

He proposed seven questions to help propel the discussion.

Now, Blair Lord, provost and vice president for academic affairs, has circulated a timeline for the discussion and the questions to the Council of Deans, department chairs and government groups.

“I really wanted to approach this as almost a blank sheet of paper, a kind of conversation,” he said. “And if you look at those questions, it’s sort of what they force people to do. It’s trying to get them to think about how they see Eastern’s mission and who Eastern is and really give some thought to that.”

According to the timeline, the deans and directors are to collect campus feedback regarding the mission and report back to the vice presidents by December.

“I’ve asked them to have those discussions across more than a single meeting, so that people have the chance to reflect and get new ideas to bring back to the table,” Lord said. “At this point, I’m going to make sure people are discussing it, but it’s really the whole fall term that the discussion is in the field, that it’s supposed to be taking place.”

In January, the vice presidents will summarize and synthesize the information the discussions generate from their different areas. The summaries will then be sent to the Council on University Planning and Budgets, where a committee will be formed to draft revisions to the statement.

“After we’re done with that, then turn to see whether we can write a statement that captures the ideas that we’ve talked about,” Lord said.

By March, CUPB will submit a revised draft of the mission statement to the campus community who will have a month to review and approve it before it’s forwarded to the president and later to the Board of Trustees.

“In many ways I think Eastern has a pretty good sense of itself,” Lord said. “We know who we are pretty clearly, but this is a chance for anyone who wants to get involved in that conversation to get a chance to think very intentionally about that.”