Scaling up the mission. If Not Now, When?

Given the two-headed colossi currently impacting our nation (I’m speaking of the COVID-19 pandemic and the “reckoning” our country is experiencing around race), institutions and, to my point, schools, need to reconsider whatever their associated “brand” might be regarding their public leadership identity, which means pivoting away from long-held beliefs about themselves.

School mission statements have long promoted the cultivation of leadership qualities on the individual level of the students, less so—or not at all—on the institutional level of the schools themselves. School missions need to be more than about producing great students, great athletes, or even great citizens. Independent schools, in particular, are free to brand themselves however they wish, and, otherwise craft any purpose, pursue any mission, and carve out any market niche they want for themselves. Why not commission an institution’s very cause around social and racial justice, with all aspects of an institution’s existence—programming, policy, and personnel—driven towards this work? If not now, when?