Goals
In order to fully achieve our mission, we will need to foster a renewed sense of common purpose among all those who are stewards for the values and responsibilities of higher education in our society. This may well require something approaching a social and professional "movement", carried on over several years and with impact at many levels. Our role will be to encourage the individual and institutional participants that might build such a movement, and to foster the development of relationships, ideas, and a shared sense of purpose that would engender a durable commitment to such a difficult undertaking. During the first two to three years of this effort we will integrate specific strategies in order to pursue the following goals:
We will seek to align and amplify the efforts - those of scholars, teachers, practitioners, and students - whose work is directed toward achieving the public service mission of higher education. Our initial strategy to accomplish this goal will be to convene, connect, and support leaders in higher education who have committed to higher education's role in accomplishing public purposes and to assist them in working together to define the concept of the "public good" in a contemporary society.
We will seek to expand, deepen, and promote the application of scholarship that will lead to a clearer understanding of the public service role of U.S. colleges and universities. Our strategy to achieve this goal will be to support scholarship in key areas that will promote better understanding of how higher education can, and currently does, serve the public good; and connect that scholarship to practice through the formation of targeted "research-practice" syndicates. We will especially seek to inspire a new generation of higher education scholars focused on the public service role of colleges and universities.
We will seek to enhance the level of understanding within the general public about the contributions higher education makes to the improvement of our lives, the defense of our freedoms, and the practice of democracy in a diverse society. While even attracting public attention, let alone changing perspectives is a difficult undertaking, we will begin work on this goal by focusing on influential intermediary representatives for the public, especially legislators and trustees.