The key to maintaining a great school is retaining a fabulous faculty while attracting a few outstanding newcomers each year to replace retirees, etc. Competitive salaries, benefits, and sabbaticals help, but if you ask me, it’s the work environment that has enabled Proctor to accomplish these goals. In 1971 the administration provided Proctor’s faculty unprecedented authority to define school structures, policies and programs. The culture that evolved on this campus since then includes a strong sense of institutional self, a high degree of agreement on the values that drive our actions, and a widely shared sense of mission.
In this week's faculty meetings Steve is inviting all of us to consider the wording of the mission statement once again. We do this with some frequency. This is not a matter of changing the mission, of course. Rather, Steve wants us to grapple with the words that best reveal the mission that we share collectively.
I believe that what we do here is very rare. In an industry too often stifled by top-down hierarchies, we enjoy a management style that elevates people to participate in their own management. Everyone benefits….not just those whom we’ll meet next Tuesday.
