Together we provide an environment for our diverse student population to reach their greatest potential through inspiration, accessibility, and support.

How the UAA Student Affairs Mission Statement was developed:

130 UAA Student Affairs employees came together on March 26, 2007 to participate in a facilitated session with the stated goal of developing the UAA Student Affairs Mission statement. The facilitator began the morning session by dividing the participants who were sitting at one of 16 tables into pairs to ask each other “interview” questions. The questions were a way of having the participants get to know each other and describe what they do at UAA, how they do it, for whom, how they feel providing that service, how they would like for students to describe what they do, and what they would like to be doing or see in 5 years.

Then each interviewer was asked to share with members of their table things about the interviewee they learned. One person was assigned to scribing the comments/descriptions. Each member of the table was given an opportunity to describe the person they had just interviewed. Each table then went on to identify themes/descriptors table members used to describe what they did or how they wanted the students to express service/attitude when working with a Student Affairs team member. The participants at each table consolidated common themes/descriptors and chose one table member to serve on the mission statement team to represent the work accomplished at the table.

The mission statement team met for three hours in the afternoon. The team went through each table’s list. The main themes/descriptors were written on the white board. The team began to pin point commonalities, i.e., phrases, words used repeatedly to describe the service/attitude/goals from the table discussions. With commonalities identified, the mission statement team used common terms/phrases to begin to develop the final mission statement. From there the statement evolved and was refined into the product presented to the UAA Student Affairs employees at the end of the day. The mission state team recited the mission statement in unison in front of their Student Affairs colleagues. The reciting of the mission statement resulted in cheers and rounds of applause from the Student Affairs employee.