Campus News

GC revises mission, vision, values statements

Statement revisions occurred on front end of strategic plan process

Garrett College's Board of Trustees recently capped a year-long review process by approving revised mission, vision, and values statements for the College.

2021-2025 strategic plan

"The College is in the process of developing its next strategic plan," explained Board of Trustees Chair Jason Rush, who represents the Trustees on the Strategic Plan Steering Committee that is guiding development of the FY26-30 plan. "The front end of that process was a comprehensive review of the College's three important operating statements: mission, vision, and values."

Rush said the College administration involved all of its governance groups – Faculty Senate, Staff Senate, and College Council – in a revision of those statements. Each statement underwent revisions that clarified, rather than changed, the College's mission and how it accomplishes that mission.

The new mission statement is: Garrett College empowers our students, regardless of circumstances, to achieve their goals through accessible, high-quality education and support. We are dedicated to developing innovative and sustainable programs that adapt to a changing world, while respecting and supporting aspirations that benefit our community and students.

Dr. Richard Midcap, Garrett College's president, said revisions to the mission statement – which was significantly shortened – were meant to "more clearly focus our attention on the core mission we try to carry out on a daily basis."

"Those of us in higher education can often be guilty of complicating our message," acknowledged Midcap. "We wanted to be very clear and intentional in noting our mission is focused on our students and our community."

Rush said the same philosophy drove revisions to the College vision statement, which now reads Garrett College is an institution committed to student success, real-world preparedness, and community enrichment.

The new values statement – Garrett College believes that every human being is entitled to dignity, worth, respect, and the opportunity to learn in a safe environment – was amplified by five areas of emphasis, including accessibility, excellence, innovation, integrity, and sustainability.

Midcap noted that the mission, vision, and values statements were also reviewed by the Strategic Plan Steering Committee. That group is comprised of Rush, the College's four deans, five community leaders, and Dr. Kelli Sisler, the College's director of institutional effectiveness.

The community members include Garrett County Commissioners Chair Paul Edwards, Garrett County Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Brenda McCartney and GCPS Chief Academic Officer Dr. Nicole Miller, Garrett County Chamber of Commerce President Andrew Fike, Garrett County Community Action Executive Director Chris Mullett, and Garrett County Director of Planning and Community Development Steve Kelley.

"We intentionally built a steering committee that included key community voices because we wanted the community to have a strong voice in development of our next strategic plan," said Dr. Sisler.

The steering committee also developed three broad, overarching goals for the five-year plan:

• Enhance connections with the community.
• Offer innovative, sustainable programs that adapt to changing student and community needs to enable student success.
• Maximize human, technical, physical, and fiscal resources to support the College's strategic objectives.

"We felt it was important for the steering committee to really home in on a small number of goals that the College could focus its resources on achieving," said Dr. Sisler. "Our internal work groups will develop objectives to achieve the goals, and identify the outcomes we're seeking and the assessment measures we will use to evaluate our success in achieving the goals."

Dr. Sisler noted that the College received an impressive amount of community input via an online survey. That input was used in developing the draft goals, and will inform the working groups' discussions and development of objectives.

Edwards said the College has gone about its strategic plan development in a thoughtful manner.

"I appreciate the opportunity to be on the Steering Committee," said Edwards. "The group took the task seriously and everyone provided meaningful input.

"We spent a lot of time discussing exactly what we were trying to convey in an easily understandable way," Edwards continued. "Kelli did a great job leading the group, and I think it gives the faculty and staff some solid discussion points moving forward."

The new strategic plan is set to launch on July 1, 2025.