The practice of a university president, dean, or other university leader issuing a statement in response to a high-profile current event, policy, or phenomenon is business as usual for higher education. Recently, university leaders have received perhaps an unprecedented amount of scrutiny and consequences for statements in response to external…

Mission statements provide educational institutions with the legitimacy to market and promote services through positive statements. This study applied genre analysis to examine the function of promotional rhetoric in top 100 international universities' mission statements. Bhatia's rhetorical moves of promotional genre was triangulated with Pearce…

Ethiopia, with no colonial language legacy, adopted English medium instruction (EMI) policy with the establishment of its first higher education institution, University College of Addis Ababa, over seven decades ago. Over the last two decades, the country has significantly expanded its higher education institutions (HEIs) to increase skilled human…

Job applicants should not be required as a condition of employment to profess their loyalty to partisan statements or beliefs. Yet universities that solicit statements of commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion from job applicants do precisely that. Both practitioners and critics of "diversity, equity, and inclusion" (DEI) know…

The universe of small institutions includes "special mission" institutions. Although these institutions share several similarities, each plays a special and distinct role in higher education, providing a unique culture and experience for their students. They include women's colleges, Historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs),…

Public-facing statements about anti-racism and linguistic justice have become common tools for educational organizations to promote values of criticality and openness. Such statements often explicitly reject practices that equate language difference with deficit and continue to harm marginalized groups that speak languages or use pronouns that…

The European Commission recently incentivized universities to establish alliances in order to institutionalise regional collaboration through the European Universities Initiative (EUI). Alliances are envisioned to maintain Europe's global position and enhance regional integration. Their mission statements are ways of signalling identity and…

We analyze the role of institutional founding conditions and institutional legacy for universities' self-representation in terms of diversity. Based on 374 universities located in the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, and Poland, we can differentiate between a more idealistic understanding (logic of inclusion and equality) and a…

This report presents the findings of the 2023 EUA Learning & Teaching Thematic Peer Group "Development and strategic benefits of learning and teaching centres", beginning with a presentation of the centres represented in the group and proceeding by presenting a virtuous cycle model for the continuous advancement of centres.…

Vision statements in organizations help CEOs provide focus and direction to a company's activities and motivate employees toward improved performance. This article explores if an instructor can use a vision statement to overcome course design challenges and motivate students toward improved learning and then presents a process used for developing…

Mission statements have become increasingly important for the accreditation of business universities and colleges. Thus, understanding similarities and differences in the content of business school mission statements is especially timely. The mission statement is also the first component of the strategic management process. It provides the…

Land acknowledgments are one step that educators and institutions can take to begin realigning their relationship with Indigenous peoples. However, many fear doing more harm than good when taking the first step of doing a land acknowledgment. In this paper an instructor who overcame such hesitation and an Indigenous faculty member share a six item…

This statement was formulated by a subcommittee of Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure. It was approved by Committee A in December 2024 and adopted by the Association's Council in January 2025. The AAUP has never determined that the neutrality of institutions is either necessary for, or incompatible with, the principles of academic freedom.…

The European Universities Initiative (EUI), created by the European Commission in 2017, is a recent novel phenomenon within the European Union policy toolkit that explicitly targets the development of transnational cooperation in higher education (HE). To date, the EUI counts 44 European university alliances, involving around 340 HE institutions.…

This document records testimony from a hearing held to examine how SCOTUS's decision on race-based admissions is shaping university policies. Member statements were presented by: (1) Honorable Burgess Owens, Subcommittee on Higher Education and Workforce Development; and (2) Honorable Robert C. Scott, Ranking Member, Committee on Education and the…