October 27, 1994: Vol26n8: It was 'mission impossible' for document at FSEC session

By STEVE COX
Reporter Staff
The quest for approval of an official UB mission statement turned into
mission impossible for the Faculty Senate Executive Committee at a
meeting Oct. 19.
	"The University at Buffalo: A Mission Statement, 1993-2003," a
one-page document drafted by President Greiner, had already been
edited once by an FSEC subcommittee. Yet, it still met with opposition
from FSEC members who felt that, among other things, the document paid
too little attention to undergraduate education.
	"The first sentence," asserted Mathematics Professor Samuel
Schack, "mischaracterizes the university" because of its "singular
awareness of our graduate and professional character." The draft
statement opens with the sentences, "Established in 1846 as a medical
school and developed as a cluster of professional schools, the
University at Buffalo has a distinguishing, characteristic, and
central mission of research, scholarship, and creative activity. These
endeavors shape the university's programs of graduate and professional
education."
	Although the university has been without an official mission
statement since 1970, the accreditation team from the Middle States
Association, which evaluated UB for reaccreditation last year,
stipulated that one be developed as a condition of their
reaccreditation, according to FSEC member Dennis Malone. "Not that it
is that important," Malone scolded; "our students could merely become
ineligible for any federal financial aid" if the lack of a mission
statement caused Middle States to withdraw its accreditation, which he
admitted was a remote possibility at best.
	FSEC chair Peter Nickerson advised the group that, while
discussion of the statement may yield recommendations for changes, it
was "not our (the FSEC's) prerogative to change this." President
Greiner, who withheld the statement he was prepared to release last
spring in deference to the Faculty Senate, is already impatient with
their pace, Nickerson explained, and could certainly issue a mission
statement unilaterally.
	In the end, the FSEC distanced itself from the document by
watering down the language of their own resolution, forwarding the
statement to the full Faculty Senate. They recommended, by a 12 to 3
vote, that the document be promulgated as a mission statement solely
for the Middle States Association rather than for general
dissemination.
	The room was also divided over whether the eight-paragraph
statement was too verbose or too simplistic. Rosalyn Wilkinson, chair
of the Professional Staff Senate, said she felt it "looks like a
vision statement. In fact, we need a simple, repeatable statement."
Computer Science Professor Wayne Bialas agreed, saying, "I am troubled
by any mission statement that begs a table of contents."
	Law Professor Louis Schwartz, on the other hand, considered
the statement too much of an "advertising piece," calling the document
"unashamed puffery and exaggeration." Judith Adams, director of
Lockwood Library, called for additional language that spoke to the
university's "reaching maturation as an undergraduate center." And,
Claude Welch, of the Political Science Department, found the document
full of "high platitude and glittering prose" but listed six issues it
left unaddressed: athletics, alumni relations, our relationship with
SUNY Central, culture, campus construction and, most seriously, the
centrality of undergraduate education.
	Management Science Professor John Boot wanted to completely
disassociate himself from the statement, and called for renaming the
document "a Presidential Mission Statement." He urged his colleagues
not to leave the full Faculty Senate the impression that "we stand
behind every word." The mission statement was due to be presented to
the full Senate on Oct. 25.