Revamping Marshall’s Mission Statement

Photo courtesy of Marshall University

Annually, the campus recreation department at Marshall University meets to evaluate where they are and where they want to go as a team. 

This year, after several months of reading through leadership materials, staff decided it was time to really delve into their purpose on campus, resulting in the revamp of their mission statement to the below:  

Campus recreation will promote health and well-being by providing a clean and safe environment, innovative programs, and opportunities for student development within the Marshall community.

“It’s important to take a step back and make sure you’re still on the right track,” said Bob Holub, the director of campus recreation at Marshall University. “We all have a similar purpose, but each campus has different needs and is looking for a little bit of something different.”

Holub further emphasized just because a mission or vision was something to strive for in the past, that doesn’t mean it still stands true. Times change, and so can your vision, as it has at Marshall. Its previous mission was the below:

Campus recreation will have a lifelong impact on the Marshall community by serving as a destination for healthy lifestyles.

When deciding to reevaluate their mission statement, Holub found teamwork was the best route. “The revamp of our mission, vision and values has allowed for total buy-in from our professional staff as our team crafted the statements collectively,” he said. 

The ninja course at Marshall.

Not only did they hold weekly meetings to assess the future of campus rec, but the team also dedicated their time by collectively reading the “Exploring Leadership” text by Susan R. Komives to ensure they were well-versed on the topic. 

“It was really fun for our leadership team to sit back and watch as some of our younger staff really took the reins on this project,” said Holub. “There were several times I’d walk past the conference room and several of them would be brainstorming how we could make changes for the next planning meeting.” 

Having everyone on board and invested in the re-creation of the campus rec mission not only affected the leadership team. “The overall input has increased buy-in and has trickled down to our student staff who now see, hear and hopefully believe more in what we do every day,” said Holub. 

When considering such a change, Holub suggested being open to different ideas and input from across the board. “One of our best activities was researching not only other campus rec department’s missions, but companies in any and all industries to see what all was out there,” he said.