I can appreciate the sentiments regarding the importance of the University's
mission statement. But I cannot agree that we should put a premium on
brevity. If the statement is so important, how can we justify trying to
distill it to a sentence or two? In seeking brevity I fear we will only end
up with some pap about serving the people of Tennessee. To be truly useful,
the statement needs to specify our objectives and to define our institution.
Since our "university" is complex in nature, encompassing multiple colleges
and programs and serving a diverse population, we should prepare ourselves
for an equally complex mission statement... even if that contradicts wisdom
currently in fashion in the corporate world.

Gavin Townsend