Leadership Stories

Linking Change to an Institution's Mission and Values
A conversation with Dr. Paul E. Stanton, Jr.

President, East Tennessee State University
Johnson City, Tennessee

Paul Stanton's biographical information states he is a native of Atlanta, Georgia. But if you spend even a few moments talking with him, you would swear he was born and bred in East Tennessee. The people East Tennessee State University serves — the students, the communities, the businesses and industries — are on his mind and in his heart. Dr. Stanton thinks first and foremost of what they need and how the work of East Tennessee State University can contribute. As he explains, "You must know the people, the region, their attitudes and perceptions to begin to build bridges and be able to sustain them."

"Put people first," Stanton says. "Build on relationships through trust and integrity. If we want to effect change in our region -- academic change or any change -- we need to take the Golden Rule approach. It may sound a little trite, but it is the best way to do business."

East Tennessee State University (ETSU) is a regional institution with 12,000 students. Three years ago, the university as a whole began the process of articulating and adopting the current vision, mission, and value statements.

"We worked closely with the Eastman Chemical Company, a major employer in northeastern Tennessee," Stanton says. "Eastman Chemical had won the prestigious Malcolm Baldrige Award as an industry model of continuous improvement.

"An Eastman executive worked with us for eighteen months to help translate the industrial model to an academic institution," he says. "Eastman led us through the process, and it has worked miracles."

ETSU had skeptics on campus, Stanton admits. But even the nay-sayers were infected by the excitement growing around them.

"If you develop a reasonable, rational mission and values that fit the institution and the region you serve, this process works," he emphasizes. "Our vision and mission were written for our institution, not Emory or Duke. The values that grow out of the mission are based upon the desires, resources, and challenges of our communities and our region."

ETSU's vision, mission, and values are at the core of changes the institution has been making since, Stanton reports. "Our mission states that we are committed to educating students to become responsible, enlightened, and productive citizens. That ties directly to some of the changes we've been making.

"The mission leads us in the direction of community responsibility in Northeast Tennessee. We need to understand community, business, government, and health care systems to turn out a product that meets community needs."

Mission and Values Guide
University's Direction
Today, ETSU is putting its mission and values into practice.

"We have 125 academic programs and community orientation has a place in each," Stanton says with pride. In addition, each of ETSU's nine colleges has at least one community advisory board. "We have found that the community is where you can find more diversity of opinion. Some colleges, like the business college, have more than one advisory board," he explains.

"It is the advice of these bodies that is guiding the university's development. In the Department of Dental Hygiene, for example, the community advisory board felt strongly that the program should move from an associate to a baccalaureate program. It's a direction we might not have gone but for the insight of the advisory group."

The university also has more than 100 continuous improvement projects in the works -- 75 in academe alone. The improvement process is part of translating the vision, mission, and values into action. At a recent President's Council retreat, Stanton says the discussion among department heads and deans was animated and action-based.

"Anything is fair game if the goal is to improve how we work towards our university's mission. And we've learned that the more nimble an institution is, the more efficiently it uses its resources," he says. "Our goal is service to the community and enhancement of education in the region."

Practical Benefits to Community Focus
Although ETSU's service orientation and community focus are laudable principles for a university, they have a practical dimension as well, Stanton says.

"We partner at every opportunity with business and industry. As a public institution, we recognize that state dollars can only go so far. And the more we work with community and in service of community, the more we learn about the strength of community people as supporters in the state capital," he acknowledges.

"In general, the community has very little knowledge of the problems of higher education. Through service on advisory boards, community members learn about academic institutions. They learn what it takes to change policy in a public institution and they act upon that knowledge.

"Community members become advocates as well as partners," Stanton believes. "If you have community folks behind you, they will make sure the legislature does what needs to be done."

Stanton's belief in the power of community voices was forged in part through his experiences with the W.K. Kellogg Foundation's Community Partnerships with Health Professions Education Initiative. ETSU was one of seven sites in a multi-year initiative supporting the development of multidisciplinary primary care health professions education in out-of-hospital settings. The Community Partnerships initiative linked ETSU with communities in remote, rural settings. The work of the project deepened the university's ties to the issues and interests of communities.

"The Community Partnership linkages had a direct relationship with where we were going as an institution. Support from the Kellogg Foundation made everything happen sooner. The Community Partnerships Initiative got us into the community and into out-of-hospital settings faster. But we already were committed to moving in that direction. The project's approach was exactly in line with where we believed our regional mission to be," Stanton asserts.

Other projects promise expanded opportunities for ETSU to pursue its community-focused mission and values. According to Stanton, a federally-funded service learning initiative is one such project.

"We now have twenty different academic programs — from nursing to Spanish — that have part of their education in off-campus, on-site, job-related experiences in the field. Students are learning firsthand and by example in work settings."

ETSU also has been involved in networking with six Tennessee institutions around service learning methods and opportunities.

Stanton sees this as only one of many possibilities for moving ETSU and the region it serves in new directions. His optimism about promoting change has a firm foundation in the vision, mission, and values his organization has embraced. For those who seek to promote change in their institutions, Stanton's advice is clear: Link change objectives to institutional priorities and look outside as well as inside for guidance.

"I think wherever an institution is located, you need to tie into the needs of the community around you and let your mission reflect what you can do to better the community. If you link change with improving the educational product, it will make bridges easy to acquire. It comes down to basic communication. You have to listen to learn what is needed."