First Things First: Mission and Legacy

Reflecting on the Mission and Legacy of SMC

Listening to NPR recently, I heard a story about the effort to make Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood available to a new generation through YouTube. Near the end of the interview, someone involved in the project was asked whether the organization was making money from the venture. The response caught my attention. The organization, the speaker explained, was a nonprofit, “driven by mission and legacy.”

I immediately thought of Saint Michael’s College. Saint Michael’s is also a nonprofit institution driven by mission and legacy. Those words offer a useful way of thinking about who we are and, perhaps more importantly, why we exist.

But first things first. Saint Michael’s College exists to educate. We are a college. Teaching, learning, scholarship, intellectual discovery, and the formation of educated persons are not activities that happen alongside our mission. They are the primary means through which we accomplish it.

Our mission statement says that Saint Michael’s College seeks “to contribute through higher education to the enhancement of the human person and the advancement of human culture in light of the Catholic faith.” The crucial words are through higher education. Mission should never distract us from the educational work of the College, as though education were one thing and mission another. Mission tells us why we educate. It asks what kind of human beings we hope education will help form, what kind of culture our scholarship and teaching should help create, and what light the Catholic intellectual tradition can bring to those questions.

That distinction matters. Universities and colleges must balance budgets, recruit students, maintain buildings, compete in a changing marketplace, and make difficult institutional decisions. Saint Michael’s must do all those things well if it is to survive and flourish. But survival is not our purpose. Enrollment is not our purpose. Revenue is not our purpose. They are necessary conditions for accomplishing our purpose. But our purpose is education. And our mission gives that education direction.

But Saint Michael’s is driven not only by mission. It is also driven by legacy. For more than a century, the Society of Saint Edmund has shaped the character of this College. That legacy cannot be reduced simply to the presence of Edmundites on campus. It is found in a particular understanding of what Catholic faith asks of us.

The Edmundites did not remain safely within the boundaries of institutions they had established. They went where they believed they were needed. They served African Americans confronting segregation, racism, and poverty in the Deep South. They served among the poor in Venezuela. Their ministry reflected a conviction that faith must become action and that human dignity is not an abstraction. It must be defended wherever people are excluded, neglected, or denied the opportunity to flourish.

That legacy belongs to Saint Michael’s College. Legacy, however, does not mean nostalgia. We honor the Edmundite legacy not simply by remembering what Edmundites once did, but by asking what their example requires of us now.

• Who needs the education Saint Michael’s can provide?
• Whose dignity needs defending?
• What aspects of our culture need challenging, healing, or transforming?
• What does it mean today to educate people capable of contributing to the advancement of human culture?
• And how might the Catholic faith illuminate that work?

A nonprofit institution cannot define its success simply by what appears on a financial statement. Financial strength makes the mission possible, but the mission determines what the institution is for.

That may be one of the most important things Saint Michael’s can remember at this moment in its history. We are an educational institution. We are driven by mission. We are entrusted with a legacy. And when we keep those three realities together, we understand more clearly why Saint Michael’s College exists. First things first.

If you would like to make a comment or ask a question, I can be reached at dtheroux@smcvt.edu.  Let’s talk!