Since first reported in Newsline in early fall of 2020, the university has been in the process of reviewing the DePaul University Mission Statement. The Division of Mission and Ministry, at the direction of the Board of Trustees Mission Committee, committed to lead the review process in a participatory way, following institutional principles of shared governance. All community voices were invited to be heard through a four-phase review process that took place over the past summer and fall and included historical research, a Trustee survey, comprehensive student, faculty, and staff dialogues and surveys, as well as a Seeds of the Mission campaign.Data gathering has now been completed and the process has moved to synthesizing what has been learned. Formal reports will be completed by the end of January and sent to the Board's Mission Committee. The final reports will become available for the university community upon completion of the process, but at this point several highlights have emerged:
- There was a clear and strong consensus among those involved in the process about the need to revise the Mission Statement to be more concise, memorable, and inspiring and to focus on what makes DePaul distinctive.
- There is a strong commitment across the university community to a number of core values seen as essential to DePaul's mission. These included providing a high-quality education, a commitment to student success, fostering a diverse and inclusive community, cultivating an ethic of public service and community engagement, and responding to the needs of society's poor and marginalized.
- The Seeds of the Mission Campaign highlighted many of these core values, as well as other mission-based principles made evident in the work and stories of many DePaul faculty, staff, students and alumni.
- The historical review of the evolution of the university's Mission Statement and other statements of purpose revealed a considerable responsiveness to the context of different times and needs, as well as a maturation process in the university's sense of identity and mission.
- Feedback from the Board of Trustees survey showed a continued commitment to the university's Catholic, Vincentian, and Urban character, to academic excellence, as well as to maintaining access to an affordable education and a diverse, inclusive community.
- The process also made clear that our present and emerging social context invites deeper reflection on what will be essential to the mission of DePaul University in facing issues of systemic racism, environmental sustainability and violent conflict in our country and world.
Rev. Guillermo Campuzano, C.M., Vice President for Mission and Ministry, has overseen this process with the support of staff members in the Division of Mission and Ministry.
“I believe that this entire process contributes to building a sense of community around common purpose. This purpose that is not given to us, but one that we define together based on our experience, our own worldview and our own understanding of the legacy given to us in the Vincentian Spirit," he says. “I'm happy to find that all the main elements of the Vincentian Spirit have been explicitly named—human dignity, community, celebration of diversity, students as our primary mission, care for those on the margins, and social and environmental justice."
Moving forward, Fr. Campuzano and the Division of Mission and Ministry will work in communication and collaboration with the Board Mission Committee to create a revised Mission Statement to be presented for approval by the Board of Trustees in May. Once the statement is formally approved, the Division of Mission and Ministry will launch a campaign to introduce the updated Mission Statement.