Examining the Ways Institutions Create Student Engagement:

The Role of Mission

Adrianna J. Kezar, Jillian Kinzie

Journal of College Student Development, Volume 47, Number 2, March/April

2006, pp. 149-172 (Article)

Published by Johns Hopkins University Press

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/csd.2006.0018

For additional information about this article

https://muse.jhu.edu/article/194611

Access provided by your subscribing institution. (17 Oct 2018 12:58 GMT)
Examining the Ways Institutions Create
Student Engagement: The Role of Mission
Adrianna Kezar Jillian Kinzie
This article reviews the results from an in-depth
multi-site case study of 20 institutions examining
approaches to student engagement exploring
differences by mission. The research questions
pursued were: Is mission related to distinctive
approaches for creating an engaging environment
for students? If so, in what ways? The results
demonstrate a set of relationships between
institutional mission and the five benchmarks
of effective educational practice identified by the
National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE).
Implications for institutional policy are reviewed.
Within American higher education there has
long been concern about whether campuses
effectively create engaging learning environ-
ments, especially as they have grown in size.
For example, in the earlier part of the last
century students and outside commentators
noted the increased reliance on the lecture
method, increasing separation of faculty and
students, and decline of interaction among
faculty and students as problematic (Altbach,
1997). These concerns re-emerged each decade
and by the 1960s students were protesting the
impersonal environments that had developed.
In the 1980s, several national reports were
released again raising the same criticisms of a
largely impersonal and passive learning
environment that was less than ideal for
fostering learning. However, these national
reports had more credibility as they were based
on research that illustrated that the large,
Adrianna Kezar is Associate Professor in the Rossier School of Education at the University of Southern California.
Jillian Kinzie is Associate Director, Indiana University Center for Postsecondary Research & National Survey of
Student Engagement Institute for Effective Educational Practice.
MARCH /APRIL 2006 ◆ VOL 47 NO 2 149
impersonal, and passive learning environments
are less likely to create learning (Astin, 1993;
Chickering & Gamson, 1987; Knefelkamp,
1991; Love & Love, 1995; Pascarella &
Terenzini, 1991).
As a result of these concerns and on-going
problems, there has been greater dialogue
about the role campuses play in helping
students succeed. In the last fifteen years, as
campuses have begun to take greater respon-
sibility for student learning, leaders and change
agents have attempted to identify the elements
of a quality/effective learning environment
(Chickering & Gamson, 1987). They are well
aided in this task as there is a plethora of
research on improving undergraduate edu-
cation (Knefelkamp, 1991; Kuh, Douglas,
Lund, & Ramin Gyurnek, 1994; Love & Love,
1995). A report from Education Commission
of the States (ECS, 1995), summarized the key
components within three areas: (a) Quality
begins with an organizational culture that
values high expectations, respect for diverse
learning styles, and emphasis on the early years
of study; (b) Quality undergraduate cur-
riculum requires coherence in learning,
synthesizing experiences, on-going practice of
learned skills, and integrating education with
experience; and (c) Quality undergraduate
instruction builds in active learning, assess-
ment and prompt feedback, collaboration,
adequate time on task, and out of class contact
with faculty. The report goes on to note that

the 12 attributes of good practice will lead to
improved student performance and
satisfaction.
These principles of a quality under-
graduate education have recently been termed
“student engagement” (Kuh, 2001). Student
engagement is defined as the time and energy
that students devote to educationally pur-
poseful activities and the extent to which the
institution gets students to participate in
activities that lead to student success (Kuh,
2003). All of the activities and practices,
whether it be contact with faculty, collabor-
ation, integrating education and experience,
or high expectations, are all mechanisms that
create engagement, which leads to learning
(Kuh, 2001). The research conducted in the
1970s, 1980s, and 1990s has been used to
develop a systematic tool for measuring
student engagement, the National Survey of
Student Engagement (NSSE). Similar to the
report by ECS in the 1990s, the NSSE survey
used research on effective educational practices
to create five benchmarks (rather than three
key components) of an engaged campus:
(a) academic challenge, (b) student inter-
actions with faculty, (c) active and collabor-
ative learning, (d) enriching educational
experiences, and (e) supportive campus
environment (Kuh, 2001).
Although there is a large measure of
agreement as to what practices lead to a
quality/effective undergraduate education and
improved student learning, there is less
agreement about how institutions create an
engaging environment (Astin, 1993; Pascarella
& Terenzini, 1991). For example, does active
learning or academic challenge look the same
on every campus? Also, can campuses use
alternative means for achieving academic
challenge? Does aligning mission with the
approach to engagement create a more
promising approach? Empirical data is needed
150
Kezar & Kinzie
to identify important institutional differences
that might affect the way that engagement is
created among vastly different institutional
types and sectors.
Research from organizational theory
suggests that practices differ based on the
institutional mission, which is often denoted
by sectorial difference or institutional type, and
that colleges and universities that align their
mission with their policies and programs are
more effective and efficient (Birnbaum, 1991;
Bolman & Deal, 1991). The purpose of this
article is to combine what we know from
student learning and engagement (a set of
policies and practices) with what we know
from organizational theory (that these engage-
ment policies and practices will likely differ
based on mission and will be more successful
if the institutions align programs and mission).
The goal of this paper is to demonstrate and
document some of the meaningful differences
in the ways institutions create engagement so
that institutions of higher education can
further examine the degree of congruence
between their mission and the practices that
promote student learning and can better
implement approaches to student engagement.
The research questions pursued were: Does
mission relate to distinctive approaches for
creating an engaging environment for stu-
dents? If so, in what ways? Does alignment of
mission and approaches to student engage-
ment matter?
This paper draws from and complements
research results of the Documenting Effective
Educational Practices (DEEP) project con-
ducted by the NSSE Institute for Effective
Educational Practice in partnership with the
American Association of Higher Education
(AAHE). The DEEP initiative examined the
everyday workings of a variety of educationally
effective colleges and universities to learn what
they do to promote student success. The
Journal of College Student Development
Student Engagement and Mission Alignment
institutions chosen included various types of
institutions to explore whether there were
differences in the policies and practices needed
to create an engaging environment based on
unique mission/institutional type. Case studies
of 20 high-performing colleges and univer-
sities, including large, small, urban, and special
mission institutions, demonstrated that there
are many roads to engagement based on
institutional differences and that institutions
share common approaches to achieve high
levels of student engagement (Kuh, Kinzie,
Schuh, Whitt, & Associates, 2005). This
article focuses on some of the nuanced
differences that might be ignored if one focuses
only on the common approaches.
This paper proceeds as follows. First, the
conceptual underpinnings of student engage-
ment are outlined. Second, organizational
theory that demonstrates how a different
organizational mission often results in distinc-
tive policies and practices for meeting this
mission and related operations is reviewed.
Third, the methodology for the study is
reviewed, and an interpretation of the results
related to mission and student engagement is
presented.
Student Engagement
The National Survey of Student Engagement
(NSSE) is based on the Seven Principles of
Good Practice in Undergraduate Education,
which states “that level of academic challenge,
time on task, and participating in other
educationally purposeful activities directly
influence the quality of student learning and
their overall educational experience” (Kuh,
2001, p. 12). The principles were developed
in 1986 at a Wingspread conference to distill
the research findings on teaching and learning
in higher education. In 1998, after a decade
of continued dialogue about the importance
of revising undergraduate teaching and
MARCH /APRIL 2006 ◆ VOL 47 NO 2 151
learning practices (in addition to several
national reports critiquing higher education),
the NSSE survey was developed to provide a
tool for campuses to understand their per-
formance and a mechanism for creating
change (Kuh, 2003). Participating institutions
are provided data about performance on key
measures that lead to student learning. In 1999
the survey was piloted with 70 institutions.
After four years, more than 725 different
colleges and universities have participated in
the survey. The dramatic rise in use over a short
period of time demonstrates that NSSE is a
tool that campuses see as valuable for facilitat-
ing student success and for campus improve-
ment. Because it is being so widely used, it is
important for campuses to be able to examine
their results and to make accurate assessments
of ways to make interventions on their
campuses. The NSSE initiative is aimed to
further institutions’ efforts to develop a culture
of evidence to inform campus dialogues and
action about the quality of undergraduate
education.
In order to better understand the concept
of student engagement, it is important to
review NSSE’s benchmarks in more detail. The
first benchmark, level of academic challenge,
refers to the importance of academic effort and
setting high expectations for student perfor-
mance. Items in this cluster of activities
include preparation for class, number of
assigned textbooks, number of written papers
or reports more than 20 pages, and coursework
emphasizing synthesizing and organizing ideas,
information, and experiences. The second
benchmark, student interaction with faculty
members, is the amount and quality of time
spent by students in and out of the classroom
with faculty. The result is usually that faculty
become role models, mentors, and guides for
continuous life-long learning. This benchmark
includes items such as discussed career plans

with a faculty member or advisor, discussed
ideas from a reading or class with faculty
members outside of class, or received prompt
feedback from faculty on academic perfor-
mance. The next benchmark is active and
collaborative learning, by which students learn
more because they are intensely involved in
their education and are asked to think about
and apply what they are learning in different
settings. Activities that represent active and
collaborative learning are: making a class
presentation, working with other students on
projects during class, tutored or taught other
students, or participating in a community
based project. The enriching educational
experiences benchmark refers to the comple-
mentary learning opportunities inside and
outside classrooms that augment the academic
program. Internships, capstone classes, and use
of technology are examples of this benchmark.
Sample questions from the survey include:
talking to students with different religious
beliefs, political opinions, or values; and using
technology to discuss or complete an assign-
ment. The last benchmark, supportive campus
environment, relates to research showing that
students perform better and are more satisfied
at colleges that are committed to their success
and cultivate positive working and social
relations among different groups on campus;
examples include: quality of relationships with
other students, campus environment helps
students cope with their non-academic
responsibilities, and quality of relationships
with administrative personnel and offices.
Organizational Theory
A plethora of organizational theorists have
noted the importance of culture/mission for
organizational functioning and the effect of
mission/culture on programs, policies, and
practices of an institution (Bolman & Deal,
1991; Martin, 1992; Morgan, 1997; Schein,
152
Kezar & Kinzie
1985; Smirich, 1983). Culture relates to the
symbolic elements of an organization such as
its values, mission, and philosophies (Bolman
& Deal; Kuh & Whitt, 1988; Schein, 1985).
There are many different definitions of culture.
Some researchers believe culture is deeply
embedded patterns of organizational behavior
and the shared values, assumptions, beliefs, or
ideologies that members have about their
organization or its work (Peterson & Spencer,
1991). Others describe culture as providing
meaning and context for a specific set of
people (Berquist, 1992; Schein, 1985). Still
others note it is made up of complex layers—
subcultures and fragmented individuals can
even be conceived of as culture (Martin).
Although there is no single definition or
understanding of culture, definitions all allude
to values, assumptions, meaning, and people.
The mission of the institution is one of
the most visible and powerful articulations of
the culture and usually relates to values and
meaning for a campus and provides guidance
for people to act. Thus, many researchers have
identified a connection between the mission
statement and resultant practices, programs,
and activities of an organization (Birnbaum,
1991; Bolman & Deal, 1991; Leslie &
Fretwell, 1996; Morgan, 1997; Tierney, 1991).
Mission refers to the overarching, long-term
purposes of the institution that represent what
an institution is and aspires to be (Kuh, Kinzie,
Schuh, Whitt, & Associates, 2005). As Kuh
et al. (2005) note: “The mission establishes
the tone of a college and conveys its educa-
tional purposes, whether based on religious,
ideological, or educational beliefs, giving
direction to all aspects of institutional life,
including the policies and practices that foster
student success” (p. 25). Every campus has a
mission statement that communicates the
overarching goals, outcomes, and values of the
organization. Because mission is formally
Journal of College Student Development
Student Engagement and Mission Alignment
articulated and long-standing, it is usually
noted as one of the most significant elements
of culture. For this reason, mission became the
focus of this paper as a way to demonstrate
whether variation among campuses’ mission
makes a difference to the way that institutions
approach the process of creating student
engagement.
The processes of an organization operate
uniquely based on the mission the organi-
zation is created to fulfill and the values and
philosophies it chooses to meet the mission
(Bolman & Deal, 1991). Different missions
also affect institutional processes. For example,
in an organization that serves an ever-changing
environment, staff development might be a
greater priority within the organization. In an
organization that serves a stable on-going
mission—for example, hospitals—upholding
professional ethical principles and codes might
be more important to staff development than
on-going activities. In higher education, the
mission of the institution (which is also related
to institutional type) is a critical cultural factor
that has been demonstrated to affect insti-
tutional operations (Birnbaum, 1991). In
liberal arts colleges that have a mission that is
focused more on teaching/local service and
traditions/customs, the distinctive mission and
values affect budget allocations with more
resources for the instructional side of the
house. Research universities value research and
national service and allocate money for
research and administrative staff to support
research and national service.
However, not all campuses appear to be
driven by their mission, as Leslie and Fretwell
(1996) identified in their study of college
campuses in hard times. Successful campuses
allocate resources and make strategic choices
based on their mission statement. One of the
major failings of campuses is losing touch with
their mission or not aligning campus processes
MARCH /APRIL 2006 ◆ VOL 47 NO 2 153
with the institutional mission (Blanchard,
Waghorn, & Ballard, 1997; Diamond, 2002).
Similarly, Tierney (2002) noted that, all too
often, campus mission falls into the back-
ground and the operations become scattered,
draining resources and human talent. There-
fore, not only are institutions likely to differ
in policies and practices based on their
mission, but differing is a successful practice
as that allows the institution to better focus
on their mission by modifying their policies
and practices.
This difference between the stated mission
of the institution and whether faculty,
administrators, and staff act in ways that reflect
this mission is often termed the living mission
versus the espoused mission (Kuh et al., 2005).
When an institution has a mission but very
few people use it to guide their work, then
this is often referred to as the espoused
mission. Often this is what a school or college
writes about itself in its mission statement. The
second type of mission is the school’s lived or
active mission—what the institution actually
does and whom it serves. The lived mission
guides the daily actions of those on campus
in all their activities in the classroom, in
residence halls, and in policymaking. The
espoused mission can be a lived mission, but
often it is not aligned with the practices of
individuals within the institution (Kuh et al.,
2005). For example, a university’s mission
statement might refer to a commitment to
teaching and mentoring undergraduates, but
its lived mission strongly emphasizes graduate
students and doctoral education. This lack of
alignment between the espoused and the lived
mission is important to an institution’s success
(Leslie & Fretwell, 1996). As the literature
suggests, educational institutions that lack
alignment between their espoused and lived
mission may be less effective and efficient.
Within higher education, mission can be

examined from two different perspectives:
(a) unique, individual mission; and (b) insti-
tutional mission according to type or sector.
This study examines both levels of mission.
Several studies have examined mission from
these two different levels (e.g., Berquist, 1992;
Birnbaum, 1991, Kezar & Eckel, 2002;
Tierney, 1988). The advantage of examining
mission from these two perspectives is that
each one examines an important way that
people make sense of the role and identity of
their institution, but each perspective operates
in different ways. Every institution has a
distinctive mission that it notes within its
mission statement and that is “hopefully” lived
through the values, assumptions, and practices
of faculty, staff, and administrators. In
addition to the unique institutional mission,
every institution has evolved within a partic-
ular institutional model/type. For example,
liberal arts colleges tend to focus on the
mission of teaching, while research universities
focus more on research. Urban institutions
tend to serve commuter and adult students and
provide graduate and professional education
and outreach. Special mission institutions
emerged to serve special populations under-
served by other sectors of higher education.
The institutional types that have evolved
represent distinctive purposes that have
emerged historically within the higher edu-
cation system. Both types of mission have been
shown to affect institutional operations
(Birnbaum).
The purpose of this paper is to focus on
mission and its role in understanding how
institutions might approach the process of
creating student engagement on campus. It
should be noted that student outcomes do not
differ significantly by institutional mission or
type; however, the way that institutions achieve
these outcomes can differ, and this is the
distinction this article seeks to identify.
154
Kezar & Kinzie
METHODOLOGY
This article draws from the DEEP research
project (Kuh et al., 2005; Project DEEP, n.d.).
Project DEEP was conducted by a team of two
dozen researchers from Indiana University and
other institutions across the United States in
cooperation with the American Association for
Higher Education (AAHE). The methodology
for the project was a multi-site case study
focused on describing practices related to
student engagement. Case study methodology
allowed the 24-member research team to
explore the various aspects of the campus
environment in depth and identify distinctive
programs, practices, and policies that account
for better than predicted levels of student
engagement and graduation rates among a
diverse set of institutions. The project was
conducted over a 2-year period. This article
expands on the results from DEEP in order
to understand how institutional type/charac-
teristics affect student engagement.
Sample
Several criteria were used to identify the
institutions in DEEP. First, a regression model
was used to identify baccalaureate granting
institutions that had higher-than-predicted
scores on the five clusters of effective edu-
cational practice used by NSSE. These
indicators are level of academic challenge,
active and collaborative learning, student
interaction with faculty members, enriching
educational experiences, and supportive
campus environment. A second regression
model was used to determine the predicted
graduation rates of these schools, and com-
pared them against their actual reported 6-year
graduation rate. Both regression models took
into account student characteristics and
institutional features such as size, selectivity,
and location. Thus, “higher-than-predicted”
means that the institutions generally had scores
Journal of College Student Development
Student Engagement and Mission Alignment
that exceeded what they were expected to be
given their respective combination of student
and institutional characteristics. Higher-than-
predicted levels of engagement and graduation
represent something meaningful beyond what
students bring to college. Arguably, such
colleges and universities have created learning
environments that benefit their students. That
is, students are taking advantage of the
opportunities the institutions provide for their
learning, and the institutions devote effort
(and occasionally resources) to encourage
students to take part in educationally pur-
poseful activities (Kuh, Kinzie, Schuh, Whitt,
& Associates, 2005). The inside- and outside-
the-classroom activities are related to various
measures of student success including learning,
cognitive development, personal development,
satisfaction, and persistence to graduation.
The 20 institutions in this study are
among a larger number that met these two key
criteria. They were selected in part to represent
the diversity of American higher education
institutions. Nine are private institutions, 11
are public. Some are large, public research-
TABLE 1.
Institutions Participating in the Documenting Effective Educational Practices Study
Institution Type Institution Name
Doctoral Extensives University of Kansas
University of Michigan
Doctoral Intensives George Mason University
Miami University (Ohio)
University of Texas at El Paso
Master’s Granting Fayetteville State University
Gonzaga University
Longwood University
Baccalaureate General Alverno College
University of Maine at Farmington
Winston-Salem State University
MARCH /APRIL 2006 ◆ VOL 47 NO 2 155
intensive universities; others are focused
exclusively on undergraduate education. Some
are residential in nature; others are pre-
dominantly commuter and enroll substantial
numbers of part-time students. They range in
enrollments from fewer than 700 under-
graduate students to more than 20,000
undergraduates.
In addition, institutional mission was a
criterion for choosing institutions. For
example, five are research universities, four are
commuter campuses, three are mastero:’s
degree-granting institutions, eight are liberal
arts colleges, two are historically Black colleges
and universities, two are Hispanic-serving
institutions, and two are women’s colleges.
Please see Table 1 for a list of the institutions
in the study. As noted in the review of the
literature, the main institutional characteristic
examined in this paper is mission. The
institutions varied in institutional mission
from primarily research, to institutions that
balance teaching and research, to institutions
that have a predominantly service and teaching
mission. As mentioned above, research,
Institution Type Institution Name
Liberal Arts Macalester College
Sweet Briar College
The Evergreen State College
University of the South (Sewanee)
Ursinus College
Wabash College
Wheaton College (MA)
Wofford College
In Transition California State, Monterey Bay

commuter and urban, liberal arts, master’s and
special mission (women’s college, historically
black, etc.) missions were specifically chosen
and represented the main types of institutional
missions examined in the analysis. In addition,
each campus had a unique mission statement
based on its founding and history. For
example, one campus was focused on develop-
ing diverse leadership for the nation, another
on internationally informed citizens, and a
third on responsible individuals for the world
of work.
Data Collection
The general DEEP data collection approach
is reviewed first, followed by specific details
of the process (see Project DEEP, n.d., and
Kuh, et al., 2005 for additional information).
Subsets of the research team (typically three
to five people) conducted two multiple-day
visits to each of the 20 campuses over a 2-year
period. Team members were experienced
researchers and practitioners who went
through extensive orientation and training for
the project and met at regular intervals
throughout the project. Countless documents
and websites were reviewed prior to, during,
and after site visits. In total, more than 2,300
people were interviewed—many of them more
than once—in an effort to learn what these
schools do to promote student success. After
the first visit, an interim report was prepared
for the campus and feedback sought as to the
accuracy of findings and to identify areas about
which the research team needed to learn more.
The second visit was used to address short-
comings in the interim report and to probe
areas where researchers were still unclear about
the policies and practices that promote student
success at that particular institution. The
second “final report” was sent to the institution
with a request for corrections and additions,
once again to make sure the factual infor-
156
Kezar & Kinzie
mation was as accurate as possible (Kuh,
Kinzie, Schuh, Whitt, & Associates, 2005).
There were four different data collection
techniques: document analysis, interviews,
focus groups, and observation. First, campus
documents were collected by an institutional
informant and sent to the research team.
Institutional documents included accreditation
reports, planning documents, NSSE results,
and descriptions of programs and policies
related to campus engagement. Second, a
research team of three to four individuals
visited the campuses for two multiple-day
visits. On the first site visit approximately
40-80 individuals were interviewed. The team
interviewed upper-level administrators (pro-
vost, president, and cabinet), middle-level
administrators (department chairs and deans),
staff (from across most campus offices
including counseling, residence life, advising,
multicultural affairs, etc.), faculty (repre-
sentatives from humanities, social sciences,
sciences, and professional and preprofessional
programs, etc.), and students (both involved
as part of campus activities or government and
uninvolved) on every campus. The focus of
the interviews was understanding what policies
and practices accounted for better than
predicted engagement scores and graduation
rates. Focus groups were also used to capture
data from groups such as committees on
retention or improving education. In addition,
focus groups were used to obtain data from
students, who were more open to talk in
groups. Observation of classes, residence halls,
activities and events, campus governance, and
other events took place during the site visit.
The campus informant helped identify and
schedule observations of classes and major
campus meetings. Informal observation in the
residence halls, for example, also occurred.
A report developed from the first site visit
was sent to campus officials for broad input
Journal of College Student Development
Student Engagement and Mission Alignment
and review. Each report contained a detailed
analysis of the campus context and insti-
tutional environment and was distributed to
members of the campus for review and
comment. On the second visit, the research
team contained some members of the original
as well as new members with “fresh eyes.”
Focus groups and debriefing sessions were held
with various groups on campus to get their
feedback on the draft report. A final report
was developed from the second round of
interviews, observations, and feedback from
debriefing sessions and focus groups. Inter-
views and focus groups were taped, and
observation and document analysis protocols
completed. Data from all team members was
forwarded to the team leader for incorporation
into the report. The report was circulated to
each team member for review before going to
the campus for final review.
The reports were organized into the
following sections: history and context,
institutional mission, structure and culture of
the campus, overview of effective practices,
and five separate sections on programs and
policies that contributed to the high per-
formance on each benchmark. Teams gathered
data on policies, programs, and practices, but
also examined campus ethos and philosophy,
traditions, and aspects of the environment that
relate to engagement such as the size or
location.
Data Analysis
Several sources of data were used to conduct
cross case analysis for the DEEP project and
in the examination of research questions for
this study of institutional mission: (a) 20
interim and 20 final reports for the campuses,
(b) institutional documents, and (c) interviews
and observations from each campus. The main
source of data used for analysis was the set of
institutional reports. However, to supplement
MARCH /APRIL 2006 ◆ VOL 47 NO 2 157
these reports the documents and individual
interviews and observations were also reviewed
and analyzed. The data were entered into the
Nud*ist data management software program
and coded based on a set of themes developed
from meetings of the research team.
To conduct the examination of mission
and student engagement reported here, each
final institutional report was coded across the
five benchmarks and institutional differences
related to mission were distinguished. Patterns
related to the mission were first identified
across benchmarks. For example, if it was
much more common for liberal arts colleges
to use co-curricular experiences as an approach
to create faculty and student interaction, this
trend was noted and examples pulled. Rela-
tionships between mission and benchmarks
were charted. A pattern was identified in two
ways: For institutions with a unique insti-
tutional mission, it was identified if it was
mentioned by all groups (faculty, admini-
strators, staff, and students) on the campus and
repeated within half of the interviews. For
institutional mission/sector, it was docu-
mented if it transcended all the campuses
within that type of institutional mission. For
institutional type, Masters degree-granting
institutions did not show distinctive patterns
and are therefore not described. Baccalaureate
institutions tended to have similar trends to
liberal arts colleges.
In addition to comments made specifically
by individuals interviewed, documents and
observation were used as support data of trends
and patterns. Also, some trends were identified
by review of the data across institutions, and
then the data were reviewed to see if individual
responses supported this trend. The trends
presented were noted by the interviewees and
were not solely the researcher’s impression or
interpretation. Trustworthiness was obtained
through several procedures. First, data were

triangulated from several different sources
including interviews, documents, and obser-
vation. Second, campus reports were member-
checked for accuracy. Reports were sent out
to the entire campus community for feedback,
and focus groups were held with campus
stakeholders representing the different groups
interviewed (faculty, staff, administrators, and
students). In addition, the second site visits
attempted to check earlier interpretations and
obtain feedback.
Limitations
The main limitation of the study is the sample
size. Although 20 institutions examined
intensively through case study is a very
rigorous methodology, there was a com-
promise between complexity/depth (unique
mission and various institutional types) and
numbers of institutions/breadth that fit into
each area examined. The more conditions
(research, commuter, liberal arts colleges,
single serving institutions, and Master’s degree-
granting institutions) examined, the fewer
institutions that could be explored for each
issue.
A second limitation is that the data rely
heavily on perceptions of members of the
institution about what conditions or causes
accounted for their high scores on NSSE.
Although the research team developed inde-
pendent interpretations based on observations,
documents, and other forms of analysis, there
was a heavy emphasis on the views of insti-
tutional participants. There might be a
tendency for people to believe there was an
alignment between mission and practices since
this is a desirable quality. Since this was not
an ethnography, the research team could only
become somewhat familiar with the nuances
of the campus and test out individuals’
perceptions. Some researchers would consider
this a limitation and others would not, but
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Kezar & Kinzie
we are making it apparent for the reader. A
third limitation of the study is that the data
can identify trends in relationships but cannot
establish causality. Although the trends suggest
that alignment of mission helped to account
for campuses’ success in creating student
engagement and higher than predicted gradu-
ation rates, there is no established causality
through the study methods used. In addition,
the trends might be an artifact of conventional
wisdom; administrators and faculty might
believe that alignment of mission with
activities would result in better practice
without there actually being an impact.
However, it is less likely that the students
would be familiar with this conventional
wisdom, and they also identified this trend.
RESULTS
This study focused on understanding the
relationship between mission (in terms of
institutional type as well as unique insti-
tutional mission) and student engagement.
Findings suggest that the unique mission of
campuses appeared to be a richer analytic tool
for understanding the ways campuses enacted
the program, policies, and practices related to
engagement rather than institutional type (e.g.,
research, commuter, or liberal arts). The
mission represented through institutional type
appeared to affect several benchmarks, but
there were fewer trends in this area and it was
not as pervasive or deep as the unique mission.
Mission related to institutional type appeared
to be a less powerful analytic tool than
individual institutional mission.
Mission: Unique Institutional
Environment
The unique mission of each campus appeared
to be related to the way campuses enacted
engagement across each benchmark. A detailed
review of two benchmarks where this trend
Journal of College Student Development
Student Engagement and Mission Alignment
was particularly strong, enriching educational
environment and academic challenge, will be
used to illustrate this point. However, it should
be noted that the mission of the institution
was related to the way that these institutions
develop faculty-student interaction, active and
collaborative learning, and supportive campus
environments.
Enriching Educational Environment. The
unique mission was related to approaches for
achieving the benchmark enriching edu-
cational environment. Campuses that scored
highly on this benchmark were more likely to
offer experiences that were directly related to
their mission. In addition, they were more
likely to see the explicit connection between
their mission and campus activities or policies.
Some aspects of mission were not always
expressed explicitly in a mission statement, but
as one faculty member offered: “Faculty
members here understand that this (servant
leadership) is a part of our mission, even if it
isn’t written down somewhere.” In the data
presented below, the explicit connection
between mission and policy and practices are
described. As one administrator noted: “Our
mission is communicated every step of the way
to new and current community members. Our
resources are devoted to effective teaching
learning strategies for students and con-
nections between students and faculty that
contribute [to] student growth.” As a result,
members of the community focus on activities
that advanced the institution rather than
argued about what the mission should be. One
caveat is important. Consistency and align-
ment do not mean absence of disagreement
about institutional mission and philosophies.
Although there is widespread agreement about
important educational matters, these campuses
also allowed for and were flexible about
including different voices.
In exploring why the relationship between
MARCH /APRIL 2006 ◆ VOL 47 NO 2 159
mission and educationally enriching experi-
ences was so critical, respondents noted, “The
mission is an area that the campus had focused
resources, both human and financial. There-
fore, we realize we can make more powerful
experiences by focusing our efforts.” The
campuses were following the advice within the
literature on mission that states that organi-
zations that are successful tend to align policies
and practices with mission. The capacity
created through this concentration of resources
enabled more robust experiences to be created.
In addition, respondents relayed that
the institution had a legacy and history
related to the mission which provided for
a myth or stories to be created that gave
these experiences more meaning. Students
feel they were part of something special;
these opportunities were not available on
another campus.
Lastly, the mission was a focal point for faculty,
staff, administrators, and students and an area
of common understanding. Building key
complementary programs around this focal
point ensured that people on campus compre-
hended the value and were committed to its
success. In the words of one faculty member:
The mission has been a lightening rod for
our efforts to improve the learning
experience of students. You can go in so
many different directions and there are
so many different ideas right now—
learning communities, service learning,
collaborative learning, civic education,
cooperative learning, multicultural ap-
proaches, active learning—the list goes
on. But, we found a way to hone our
efforts and it has really paid off—we hear
it from the students. They like that the
programs are focused on the themes that
brought them to this campus in the first
place.
Several examples will demonstrate the

relationship of mission to enriching edu-
cational experiences and the diverse strategies
campuses can utilize. Although only select
examples are given, these trends were apparent
on every campus. However, campuses where
there was more alignment tended to have more
positive feedback from students, providing
some support that alignment was an important
concept.
At a small, liberal arts college dedicated
to teacher education and training in the
professions, the enriching educational experi-
ences focus was on providing ways for students
to have field-based experiences. As one faculty
member was quick to point out: “It is not
uncommon for students to have a 90-hour
practicum followed by a 600-hour internship
experience that is consistent with their job
aspirations.” An example of field experiences
is Literacy Block, which includes two practi-
cums. The first provides early exposure to the
field, solidifies the student’s choice of major,
and provides opportunities for relevant,
applied learning. The second practicum is
focused on the task of integrating the latest
curriculum and methods related to reading
and language arts into elementary schools.
Another faculty member went on to say: “In
addition to going off-campus, the student
work initiative provides opportunities for
students to get work experiences on campus
working with faculty on research in their
chosen field, demonstrating the relationship
between what they are studying and work
possibilities.” Students also have a capstone
experience/senior project, presented at the
spring symposium, that entails putting
together a portfolio that relates to their
understanding of their profession and reflects
the learning they feel they have accomplished
over the four years. One student commented
about this experience:
The effort to connect the institutional
160
Kezar & Kinzie
commitment to obtain practical work
experience to all of our learning experi-
ences has made a difference for me. If the
professional connection had been only a
program, activity, or single event, I would
not have had the learning that occurred
through these concentration of programs.
Another institution had a commitment to
creating citizen leaders as their primary
mission. As a result of this mission, the campus
created a host of programs related to service
learning and leadership development. As one
administrator noted:
Service is fostered in the religious-based
campus clubs and through the career
center that has a central clearinghouse for
volunteer projects. Leadership develop-
ment happens through formal programs
and through involvement and running of
student organizations—[leadership devel-
opment] is happening everywhere. The
formal leadership development program
brings together 30–40 students through-
out the year and ends in a major retreat
where they reflect on what they have
learned. So some are more intensive, but
everything is aimed at the goal of citizen
leader.
Many of these students assume positions of
leadership on campus or serve in student
government. A student reflected on her
commitment to developing citizen leaders:
Student government is particularly strong
on this campus and students learn to
model the citizen leaders they hope to be
when they graduate. For us, being a
citizen leader means involvement, thus,
students are encouraged and are usually
part of 5–6 clubs, groups or communities.
Although a midsize campus, it has over 125
academic, honor, religious, and social clubs
focused on leadership. Students made com-
ments that reflected the involvement motto:
“Pretty much everyone on campus is involved
Journal of College Student Development
Student Engagement and Mission Alignment
in developing as a citizen leader; it is part of
who we are. I was shy, but as a leader, now,
I cannot be off on my own. . . . I must work
with others.” The relationship with the
community is critical to developing citizen
leaders and has become the focus of the
enriching educational experiences offered
by the campus. As one faculty member
mentioned:
We have consciously built our con-
nections with the community and this has
resulted in powerful learning experiences
for students. We have always had these
relationships, but we have increased and
deepened them and use them more
intentionally. We have really focused on
this as a mission related set of initiatives.
Community service is a required component
and integrated into many courses. Students
noted that service “made them aware of what
it meant to live and breathe the campus
mission.”
At a master’s level institution, the mission
of developing leaders among first-generation
college students to serve and uplift their
communities guided its development of
enriching experiences. The university devel-
oped a host of out-of-classroom activities,
programs, and opportunities to promote
student leadership for communities, parti-
cularly among various racial communities
outside the institution. One administrator
described with enthusiasm a unique event:
We offer a bi-national leadership develop-
ment program in conjunction with
another university that also serves an
ethnically diverse student body. At
the program, they [administrators and
faculty] engage in conversations about
ethnic and racial concerns in both locales
and how to contribute to their commu-
nities. These are powerful and dramatic
experiences that students end up coming
back to campus years later to reflect on.
MARCH /APRIL 2006 ◆ VOL 47 NO 2 161
Another program, the student leadership
institute, trains students to be peer educators
helping incoming students adjust to college
life. The 12-week training course focuses on
group dynamics, communication/collabor-
ation skills, and leadership development. One
faculty member commented on this program:
By the time [students] leave here, they will
be extremely skilled in serving as leaders
in the community. It is not enough to
have content knowledge; we aim for
leaders among first-generation college
students.
Each complementary educational experience
is an opportunity to explore students’ leader-
ship potential and to give back to other
students and the community. A student noted
the way these opportunities were important
for learning:
I knew coming here that I wanted to
develop as a community leader and every
opportunity here has helped to increase
my skills. I hear that from lots of students
. . . this place concentrates its efforts and
delivers!
To develop diverse individuals with
personal responsibility, trust, and a philosophy
of independence grounded in the liberal arts,
was the unique mission of another college that
had a matching set of educational enriching
experiences. As an administrator revealed:
The campus does not have any formal
leadership programs; instead the oppor-
tunities for development are created by
the students themselves who have fostered
a large number of clubs and organizations
that they run, rather than having any
administrative liaison.
The students have an active student senate
that, once again, has no administrative
oversight. Instead, administrators and faculty
create traditions and foster an ethos where

students take responsibility for developing
programs and activities. An enriching edu-
cational environment becomes one where
students are charged to create experiences on
their own to challenge each other. Students
described how these experiences seemed to
resonate with the campus mission: “This
campus draws people who are independent-
minded and who want to be challenged in
personal growth. All of the activities reinforce
this mission.”
Academic Challenge. Academic challenge
was another benchmark in which the practices
varied based on the specific mission of the
institution and the unique approach seemed
critical to the success of these campuses. Each
campus in the study defined academic chal-
lenge differently based on the specific mission
it was developed to serve (i.e., leadership of
first-generation students or development of
community activists); had they all maintained
the same definition of challenge, students
would not have been engaged or performed
as well. It was clear from student comments
that they thrived on the campuses because of
the unique definitions of challenge that
empowered students with varied talents. In the
words of one student:
This campus engages me because it
provides a unique challenge. It recognizes
my specific learning needs. They do not
strive to be another campus, but are true
to their mission.
For some campuses, creating challenge
involved creating a set of traditional intel-
lectual experiences such as critical thinking/
logic and focusing on heavy workloads. On
other campuses, academic challenge was
personalized and the student allowed to define
challenge for him or herself. Yet, at another
institution, academic challenge was redefined
in an innovative way as involving students in
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Kezar & Kinzie
new experiences such as service learning and
interdisciplinary knowledge. On others,
challenge was always coupled with the idea of
support. The distinctive definitions of chal-
lenge that emerged to meet the needs of the
unique mission impacted the types of pro-
grams, policies, and practices used by the
institutions to meet this benchmark/goal.
An example of aligning mission to chal-
lenge is a comprehensive, state university with
a mission dedicated to serving first-generation
and non-traditional aged college students
through support, innovative experiences, and
rich external resources. Within this mission the
faculty and staff defined challenge as being a
combined philosophy of challenge and
support. Their official mission and philosophy
is that “everyone can succeed here; our work
is to bring out every student’s potential.” The
departmental and school initiatives worked in
support with this overarching philosophy/
mission. For example, the school of engi-
neering developed study groups for first-year
students and for challenging courses in the
curriculum, and provides opportunities for
students to meet faculty, so that students can
obtain all the personalized support needed to
meet the intensive experience. Because the
campus caters to many non-traditional aged
and first-generation college students, it has
many older students. There is a conscious
effort to use the expertise of older students
with work experience to create a more
challenging classroom environment. One
faculty member reflected on this commitment:
We have a very different group of students
here and you could easily alienate them
if you did not reflect on the institutional
mission and values. There is such a strong
trend for institutions to all be the same—
chase the money and publish, but that is
not going to help meet our specific
mission.
Journal of College Student Development
Student Engagement and Mission Alignment
Challenge was also aligned with the
commitment to innovation. The campus had
one of the first writing across the curriculum
projects in the country as well as an innovative
college that offers interdisciplinary, outcomes-
based education. It was one of the first
campuses to develop learning communities
and first-year interest groups, and it conducted
assessment of courses and departmental and
school learning in order to ensure students are
performing highly and to keep the level of
challenge high. As one administrator com-
mented: “Innovation related to our mission
has made us successful in truly meeting the
learning needs of students.” Lastly, the
institution capitalized on its unique location
near a metropolitan hub to create learning
challenges that no other campus could
provide, such as internships at international
organizations, world-renowned speakers in
classes, and research opportunities with
national and international research organi-
zations. These many programs, policies, and
practices developed a sense of challenge that
is aligned with the distinctive mission at this
campus.
As noted earlier, one of the institutions
studied had a commitment to creating citizen
leaders as its primary mission. This affected
its approach to academic challenge. It was the
third institution within the country to develop
an honor code run by student leaders.
Challenge is defined as university citizens
taking responsibility for their own learning,
and students are constantly reflecting on the
amount of effort they put into their studies.
Because holding leadership positions is one of
the most coveted activities on campus,
administrators noted that:
They have developed an attendance policy
and requirement to hold a certain GPA
to be involved in campus leadership. This
policy was a major driver for student
MARCH /APRIL 2006 ◆ VOL 47 NO 2 163
performance and to push themselves to
do better than they might normally since
students reflected that being able to hold
leadership positions was their most
important goal.
The campus had an intensive writing require-
ment that focused on how to be a citizen
leader. Students noted this as the most difficult
part of the curriculum and made them realize
the complexity involved in leadership:
We are really challenged to enhance our
writing skills, and I think the nature of
the topic made it easier for me to engage,
because it is something I care about and
one of the reasons I came to this campus.
I am not sure I would have challenged
myself if there was not this connection
to being a citizen leader.
Additionally, the institution has an internship,
research, or community service requirement
that provided an opportunity for it to demon-
strate its growing commitment to the devel-
opment of citizen leaders. Students saw this
experience as a personal challenge—one
student captured the perspective of many
students, faculty, and administrators:
It [the requirement] is a place to measure
our progress toward our ultimate goal of
being a citizen leader since this is usually
taken half way through our studies.
Citizen leaders mean challenge is a 24/7
experience, not just in the classroom, thus
the co-curricular experiences are aimed at
developing our leadership potential and
are extremely demanding.
Another state university had a mission to
serve first-generation college students by
building a multicultural learning community
in which students contribute productively,
responsibly, and ethically to the state and the
global community. To make this contribution,
students must “understand diversity and
fusion/interdisciplinarity, develop critical

consciousness/civic responsibility, and aspire
to apply knowledge within a set of com-
petencies/outcomes.” Administrators noted
that “based on this mission and beliefs,
academic challenge was defined as under-
standing diverse viewpoints, recognizing the
interdependence of phenomena, being able to
apply knowledge, and challenging the status
quo interpretation of events.” Faculty had
programs and practices that met this unique
definition of challenge. Faculty members
capitalized on the assets of diverse students to
enrich the classroom; this was both observed
as well as identified in syllabi and assignments.
This unique approach to defining academic
challenge is also demonstrated in the problem-
based, interdisciplinary, service-oriented
curriculum. One faculty member commented:
As you have probably come to see, every
student has a service-learning requirement
and most classes are interdisciplinary and
field-based. But the challenge of under-
standing fusion—a sense of connections
and interdependence—extends beyond
the notion of interdisciplinarity and it
defines the campus experience—collab-
oration and connections abound from
joint programs, cross-divisional commu-
nications, and no separation between the
campus and community. These programs
and practices reinforce our mission of
interdependence of knowledge.
An emotional air and passion characterizes the
learning environment; this is not a place of
challenge marked by passive book learning and
critical reflection/abstraction. Students noted
how “academic challenge is about connecting
to an issue you are passionate about and
wanting to become a change agent for this
issue”—this was noted by faculty and staff as
the development of critical consciousness. The
service-learning requirement helped to connect
students to the mission of critical con-
sciousness, but it was also reinforced by
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Kezar & Kinzie
individual faculty pedagogical approaches. In
summary, the power of the institutional
mission was captured by an administrator:
“Our vision is like a virus; here everyone gets
infected.”
The significance of mission to academic
challenge can be demonstrated at a liberal arts
college devoted to developing individuals with
personal responsibility, trust, and a philosophy
of independence grounded in the liberal arts.
The sense of personal responsibility led to a
definition and approach to academic challenge
that was highly individualized, rather than
embedded in the curriculum. An admini-
strator reviewed this process:
Faculty communicate high expectations
as a part of meeting the campus goals and
mission, trusting students to choose the
best learning opportunities to meet their
individual needs. Students were also
socialized (unwritten practice) by each
other to the sense of academic challenge,
which means intensive, competitive
intellectual involvement, based on your
unique talents.
This approach was reinforced by the freshmen
tutorial where older students teach the first-
year students “how to be students” within this
institution. In addition, each student takes an
intensive cultures and traditions seminar
focused on developing self-knowledge and
related to personal responsibility. One student
noted that “the high expectations around
writing and number of assignments is possible
within this small campus environment with a
mission of high academic challenge, people
know what they are getting into when they
come here.” Challenge unfolded in a more
individualized manner on this campus.
Mission: Institutional Type
In examining the ways the mission of research,
commuter/urban, masters, or liberal arts
Journal of College Student Development
Student Engagement and Mission Alignment

affected engagement, some differences are
noted. A summary of differences is presented
in Table 2.
Research Universities. Research universities
were more likely to focus engagement activities
around research. The ethos of research and
discipline-based learning was more likely to
pervade forms of engagement. Academic
challenge is defined uniquely within research
universities in terms of discipline-based first-
year seminars. Students noted that this
emphasis pleased them as they chose to attend
these institutions for these types of research-
and discipline-based opportunities. Faculty-
student interaction and collaborative and
active learning are fostered through under-
graduate research, learning communities, and
mentor programs often focused on research.
In addition, learning communities or mentor-
ing programs are embedded within student
majors and intellectual interests. Several faculty
and administrators at research universities were

TABLE 2.
Summary of Differences by Institutional/Sector Mission

Type of Mission Research Urban Commuter Liberal Arts Single-Serving

Academic Challenge Research- and Student experiences Intensive reading and Focused on
discipline-based first- and diversity; part- writing; number of empowerment
year seminars and time faculty assignments—
undergraduate knowledge; external through teaching
research resources expectations
Faculty Student Undergraduate Technology Small classes; co- Small classes; co-
Interaction research and curricular activities; curricular activities;
mentoring; learning sense of community; sense of community;
communities intensive mentoring intensive mentoring
Collaborative and Learning communities Technology; using Service learning Service learning and
Active Learning often related to external resources for matching the empowerment
research themes; internships and character activities
technology cooperative development mission
experience
Enriching Focused on research Drawing on Related to mentoring Leadership and
Educational activities community resources and character activism
Environments development; tended
to follow unique
mission of campus
here more than
research university
and commuter or
urban institutions
Supportive Campus Minimal relationships Student centered Intimate size; high Intimate size; high
found between philosophy – open degree of faculty- degree of faculty-
mission and this when students are student interaction for student interaction for
benchmark available; advising and advising and
understanding of mentoring; philosophy mentoring; philosophy
community and of family of family
stakeholders.

MARCH /APRIL 2006 ◆ VOL 47 NO 2 165


aware of and noted that “faculty-student
interaction often centers around research
whether it be undergraduate research, discus-
sion of faculty research interests, or students’
research interests. Research is a common focus
for interaction.” Enriching experiences tended
to be research projects or capstones within the
major. A faculty member at a research univer-
sity commented: “Why not capitalize on our
strength for creating engagement? We are a
world class research institution, and we can
provide expertise and opportunities for
research that are unparalleled.” There seems
to be a synergy between the stated mission and
the type of activities used to engage students
on these campuses that were strong in creating
student engagement.
Commuter/Urban Institutions. Commuter/
urban campuses varied in the ways that the
benchmarks were enacted. For example,
academic challenge was fostered through
embracing the assets students brought to the
classroom—these campuses tended to have a
diverse student body in terms of age and race/
ethnicity. Although engaging diversity was
important on many campuses for learning,
commuter campuses tended to have the most
varied student populations and could inten-
tionally and fruitfully utilize this resource. Like
research universities, commuter/urban cam-
puses were capitalizing on a strength inherent
within this type of institution. One faculty
member commented on this distinctive
approach:
Our mission is to be student centered, to
meet unique students’ needs; urban
universities have a long history of address-
ing the needs of adult, part-time students.
But, some institutions have forgotten
their past or lost their way. We haven’t
and we really capitalize on the mission
to design programs and to guide decision-
making.
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Kezar & Kinzie
Commuter campuses used technology
more so than other institutional types to create
faculty-student interaction and active and
collaborative learning. On one commuter
campus, a website called the open forum
linked all faculty, staff, and students who
engage in regular discussion about campus
events/opportunities, politics, and speakers.
Although this practice is probably a practice
that could be used within other institutions
with different missions, it was particularly
important for commuter campuses that are
created to serve a part-time, adult population
with limited time on campus. As one student
described:
I feel really connected to the faculty here,
and I may not see them very much, but I
get email messages, talk with them on the
discussion board, I hear that I have much
more contact than friends at other
campuses.
Commuter and urban institutions were
also usually located in urban areas that
provided a host of external resources that they
used to foster active and collaborative learning;
they also capitalized on external resources to
provide enriching educational environments.
The business, industry, and social institutions
of the urban environment created partners for
service learning, career placements, capstone
projects, and the like. Furthermore, museums,
libraries, major social centers, and inter-
national communities provided enriching
opportunities that many other campuses could
not provide. Part-time faculty bring in more
of the external resources of the community to
class in terms of guest speakers, their own work
experience, and projects and activities that
took place in business or the community. A
student commented on the way that com-
muter/urban campuses could harness their
mission to enrich student learning and
engagement:
Journal of College Student Development
Student Engagement and Mission Alignment
I have noticed the way that this campus
uses faculty from the field, guest speakers,
and field trips to create a better learning
environment. I have friends at other local
institutions and the campuses do not do
any of these things and they are really
disappointed. It just makes sense given
the location.
Although other institutions can use this
approach, it was particularly appreciated by
students in these institutions who had sub-
stantial work and real-life experience. A last
trend related to creating a supportive campus
environment: Commuter campuses have a
strong connection to the external community
and used this to build the supportive campus
environment. For example, advisory boards of
community leaders helped commuter and
urban campuses to understand challenges that
students face and ways they can be better
supported in services provided. An example
from one urban community is that several
ethnically based community organizations
provided input on the specific needs of
students from their immigrant populations.
Liberal Arts Colleges. Liberal arts colleges’
missions focus on teaching, character develop-
ment, and creating community. These insti-
tutions capitalized on their intimate size and
often isolated settings to create engagement.
When liberal arts colleges were founded, they
were often located outside of population
centers to allow for a sense of community to
develop that often fosters character by
developing mentoring relationships with
faculty –(Cohen, 1998). This original mission
and purpose (learning through community
and character development, for example)
continues to be reflected today as many of the
campuses easily create greater degrees of
faculty-student interaction and support for
students based on the intimate setting and size.
As one faculty member commented:
MARCH /APRIL 2006 ◆ VOL 47 NO 2 167
The students and faculty share an inti-
mate intellectual experience that goes
beyond the curriculum and beyond the
classroom—small classes, intense inter-
actions between students and faculty, and
widespread involvement of students,
faculty, and staff in a variety of out of
classroom activities create a common
experience, no matter what the curri-
culum. These close-knit campus cultures
almost compel students, faculty members,
and staff to put their personal lives into
the academic and intellectual fabric of
these colleges.
Liberal arts colleges’ mission of teaching
resulted in academic challenge typically
involving high levels of writing, reading, and
assignments in general. Faculty are expected
to spend more time grading and providing
feedback, based on the mission. In the words
of one faculty member:
Students come here for the personal
experience, the relationships, mentoring,
and interaction. Luckily, we remember
that in all the ways we create learning
opportunities and keep these as central
to our planning. Students know we will
remember them for letters of recom-
mendations and that we are here to help
them with those identity challenges they
often face in college.
Collaborative and active learning often focused
on service learning since this approach is
aligned with the character development
mission of most liberal arts colleges. One
administrator commented on this distinctive
use of values and philosophy:
Large campuses often have to restructure
and redesign themselves to engage stu-
dents to meet their mission, but here we
need to fuel and revisit our values often
to create a consciousness of our mission.
New people come and they need to be
introduced to our mission; long-time

faculty need to be reminded of our
mission.
Liberal arts colleges also tended to use
philosophy and values more so than official
programs in order to create academic challenge
(such as verbalizing high expectations) or
support (we are all family here). Active and
collaborative learning depended less on
structured programs, such as learning com-
munities or undergraduate research programs,
and campuses could take advantage of their
small class size to engage students in conver-
sation and activities, which was important
within a campus devoted to a teaching
mission.
Single-Serving Institutions. Since single-
serving institutions are also liberal arts colleges,
there was a high degree of overlap between
these two institutional sectors, whereas most
others sectors, for instance, research univer-
sities, were fairly distinctive. Single-serving
institutions have a history of working with
groups that have been disempowered and
dispossessed, such as Blacks and women, and
as a result tend to frame practices in ways that
emphasize empowerment, service, and leader-
ship. This unique mission affected the way
they enacted three of the five benchmarks
(academic challenge, active and collaborative
learning, and enriching educational experi-
ences). In terms of academic challenge, faculty,
staff, and students all emphasize that challenge
was connected to empowerment through
practices such as reiteration that these students
are highly talented and will succeed in higher
education, encouraging student voice in the
classroom and affirming their comments, and
meetings with advisers to ensure that indi-
viduals are being challenged in ways that are
related to their specific talents. One faculty
member commented on the ways that staff
intentionally try to link empowerment with
challenge:
168
Kezar & Kinzie
There is an understanding among faculty
and staff that we are working with
students that have often faced great
challenges in order to get to higher
education. They might not believe in
themselves and we try to boost their
efficacy and build their strength making
them feel challenged, but in ways that do
not make them lose their spirit.
In terms of active and collaborative
learning, these institutions focused on practices
related to service, such as service learning. In
addition, when engaging in collaborative
learning, the group projects would be em-
powering rather than competitive in function
and orientation. For example, faculty would
hand out ground rules for group projects so
that a sense of community is developed
between members of the project. There were
high degrees of intentionality around making
the active and collaborative learning process
based on equality and community.
The enriching educational experiences at
single-serving institutions usually focused on
leadership development and activism. Because
these groups have been historically margin-
alized within society, the institution felt it was
part of their mission to ensure that individuals
graduating from these institutions could play
a leadership role and might engage in com-
munity and political activism. These insti-
tutions had numerous leadership development
and service learning programs and oppor-
tunities. They also believed that students who
attended these institutions were more engaged
in education when they could see the way that
their education and role in society when they
graduate might lead to social change. As one
student described:
Before I went to college I was not that
connected to education, and it was only
through participation in the leadership
developments programs that I could see
the connection between my education
Journal of College Student Development
Student Engagement and Mission Alignment
and things I cared about like creating a
better society for people like me; I now
have really embraced learning.
IMPLICATIONS AND CONCLUSION
There are many different roads to being an
engaging institution (Kuh, Kinzie, Schuh,
Whitt & Associates, 2005). Campus leaders
need to be cognizant that certain programs,
policies, and approaches may work better
based on their institution’s mission. This may
seem an obvious finding to scholars of
organizational theory, but in reading through
the research and literature on teaching and
learning, such as learning communities, service
learning, active and collaborative learning, and
technology, there is almost no attention given
to institutional differences and how this might
affect the implementation of a particular
program or engagement strategy. Certainly,
most strategies can work in almost all insti-
tutions, but the mission of particular insti-
tutions means that some strategies might work
better than others. This research challenges the
conventional wisdom that engagement is
identical across contexts that can be found
across the literature on various learning
innovations and learning theory (e.g., Driscoll,
Holland, Gelmon, & Kerrigan, 1996; Eyler
& Giles, 1996; Stage, Muller, Kinzie, &
Simmons, 1998).
The study addressed the research question
of whether an institution’s mission is related
to distinctive approaches for creating an
engaging environment for students. The data
presented demonstrate that policies and
practices did indeed differ based on unique
institutional mission and institutional type/
mission. The trends were clear across the
interviewee responses and trends in the
institutions. The article documents meaningful
differences based on mission that can be used
to guide institutions to create congruence
MARCH /APRIL 2006 ◆ VOL 47 NO 2 169
between their mission and the practices that
promote student learning and to better
implement approaches to student engagement.
An important empirical finding is that the
individual, distinctive mission of a campus
appears to impact more policy and practices
related to student engagement and success
than the broad institutional mission related
to institutional type (yet there is no way to
tell if prevalence leads to it being more
effective). Although a few trends were identi-
fied related to institutional type, the majority
of differences were found at institutions
responding to their unique institutional
mission. There is no literature that documents
what aspect of mission is most salient for
policy and program development. This finding
helps to build support for the way mission is
related to particular institutional processes.
This finding can be tested in studies examining
other institutional processes in the future.
The research provides empirical support
for the hypothesis derived from organizational
theory that institutions that align their mission
with their policies and programs are more
effective and efficient (Birnbaum, 1991;
Bolman & Deal, 1991). As noted earlier, the
study addressed the research question: Does
alignment of mission and approaches to
student engagement matter? It appears from
the data collected across these institutions,
particularly the data collected from students,
that alignment of mission was believed to
enhance the learning experience of students.
As noted in the results section, those campuses
where there was more alignment tended to
have more positive feedback from students,
providing some support that alignment is an
important concept. The campuses in this study
aligned their espoused mission and their
enacted mission, becoming consistent and
having what is termed “a mission that is alive”
guiding the activities and work of students,

staff, and faculty. The mission is helpful in that
it provides a constancy of purpose and
direction; individuals used it to explain their
behavior and to talk about what the institution
is, the direction it is heading, and how their
work contributes to these goals. Because the
study was not comparative of institutions that
did not align their mission with engagement
practices, it is hard to definitively address this
question of the degree to which alignment
matters; instead, an empirical trend can be
noted and the perspectives of individuals
offered in support of this hypothesis. More
data are needed to further support this
emerging theoretical concept.
In addition to these theoretical contribu-
tions, the paper’s research findings have
implications for leaders attempting to develop
an engaging campus. Campuses in this study
appeared to be successful by developing
programs and activities to provide enriching
educational experiences that aligned with their
particular mission. Planning efforts around
supplemental learning activities might be more
successful if change agents begin by examining
the mission and ways that programs can be
developed that relate specifically to enriching
that mission and student learning. This can
prove beneficial to campuses in tight budget
times. Rather than develop a host of different
programs, this study showed that honing in
on a few areas is better than a smorgasbord of
experiences. Furthermore, the findings chal-
lenge conventional wisdom that more and
more programs are simply better. Instead,
focused and fewer programs prove successful.
Recently critics are questioning the prolif-
eration of programs on campus that are
considered ways to attract more students and
for marketing purposes rather than for purely
educational purposes (Hersch & Merrow,
2005). It has also been suggested that these
programs are driving up the tuition of colleges
170
Kezar & Kinzie
and universities. This study suggests that
leaders may want to focus on strengthening
the association between undergraduate pro-
grams and mission.
In addition, campuses that defined
challenge in relationship to the students they
claimed to serve in their mission were more
successful in their efforts. For example, if an
institution asserted that first-generation college
students was their primary focus, then
designing challenge in relation to the unique
needs of this group made them more success-
ful. In addition, academic challenge also looks
different based on the intended mission or
purpose of the institution. Creating citizen
leaders requires a different type of challenge
than preparing students for a life as critically
conscious change agents. Although related,
each individual mission linked to slightly
different notions of challenge. Again, these
campuses were judicious with funding and
aligned approaches to academic challenge that
connected with their mission. Although the
results of this paper focused on showing the
benefit of aligning mission with only two
benchmarks, this finding was also reflected in
the other benchmarks such as creating a
supportive campus environment or approaches
to faculty-student interaction.
In terms of the implications of the results
based on institutional type/missions, com-
muter and research universities may increase
their success in creating an engaging environ-
ment if they focus on their strengths and work
to overcome some of the challenges of their
environments. Commuter campuses can
utilize the diversity of their student body, part-
time faculty, and location to create a partic-
ularly engaging environment. Research
universities can use their research activities and
the plethora of campus resources (e.g.,
museums, labs) to create an environment of
unparalleled challenge, active learning, and
Journal of College Student Development
Student Engagement and Mission Alignment
interaction. Both can overcome the challenge
of their large and sometimes impersonal
environments by focusing on their strengths
inherent in their mission. Single-serving
institutions need to keep focused on their
student body and the challenges they face in
society. Many Blacks, Hispanics, and women
have faced hurdles that have made it difficult
for them to fully benefit from education.
Emphasizing empowerment, service, leader-
ship, and activism as part of engagement was
an important strategy. In conclusion, in times
MARCH /APRIL 2006 ◆ VOL 47 NO 2 171
of financial constraint and accountability,
institutions need to do a better job of aligning
institutional program and policies with the
campus mission. Effective educational insti-
tutions that excel in student engagement were
sensitive to their mission and used it to
enhance student engagement strategies.
Correspondence concerning this article should be
addressed to Adrianna Kezar, Rossier School of Education,
University of Southern California, 703C Waite Phillips
Hall, Los Angeles, CA 90089-4037; kezar@usc.edu

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