Faculty Council reviews proposed CU mission statement

Group also discusses regent guidance on nondiscrimination, presidential searches

Like the University of Colorado Board of Regents before them, the Faculty Council found it challenging to agree on the exact wording of the university's proposed mission statement during the group's monthly meeting last week.

The Board of Regents drafted the mission statement during its summer retreat, and has asked all of the university's governance groups to submit feedback before the board votes on adopting the statement in November.

The Faculty Council, which met in Denver on Sept. 24, raised several questions about language contained in the draft, and council Chair John McDowell agreed to ask the regents for clarification, specifically for use of the term "institution."

During their Sept. 16 meeting, regents discussed whether the statement should describe CU as a "multicampus" or "multi-institution" university, explained John Wyckoff, an associate professor of geography and environmental sciences, and chair of the UC Denver Faculty Assembly.

"What may seem trivial to one person may not be trivial to another," Wyckoff said.

The proposed mission statement currently reads: "The University of Colorado is a multi-institution public research university serving Colorado, the nation, and the world through leadership in high-quality education and professional training, public service, advancing research and knowledge, and state-of-the-art health care. Each of its institutions is established in the Colorado Constitution and has a distinct role and mission articulated in state statutes."

However, like the regents, members of the faculty governance group did not come up with easy answers to whether CU is an "institution" or "university," or whether it comprises multiple universities, multiple institutions or multiple campuses.

"If we want a mission statement, we want it to be clear. Whatever we're going to say, we just want to say it," said William Emery, an aerospace engineering professor at CU-Boulder.

Several faculty members questioned the use of the term "institution" to describe academic and research campuses that have unique missions, and expressed concern that the terminology was too vague and might be part of a formal effort to "institutionalize" CU.

Kathleen Bollard, associate vice president and academic affairs officer, noted that she was present during the regents' summer retreat. She assured council members that regents were only trying to agree on language that would fairly represent the entire CU system, and not focus strictly on the Boulder campus.

Roxanne Byrne, an associate professor of mathematics at UC Denver, agreed the regents seemed to be exercising flexibility with the language, and suggested that the statement in its current form might be the least offensive to the campuses.

In other business, the Faculty Council received updates from committee and campus faculty assembly chairs, and discussed drafts of regent laws guiding nondiscrimination and presidential searches.