The Graduate Program Purpose Statement - Discovering What Your Graduate Program Stands For - and Building It to Last

Your graduate program probably has a mission statement.

Here's the problem: it almost certainly belongs to someone else.

Most graduate program mission statements are one of two things:

• The university's institutional mission with a discipline-specific phrase inserted.

• Something so broadly worded it could apply to any program at any institution in the country.

Neither of those is a purpose statement. And both fail the program in ways that compound.

A statement that could belong to any program belongs to no program.

It can't help an admissions team recognize a well-matched candidate. It can't help a faculty member design a learning experience specific to what this program is trying to produce. It can't help a staff member support a struggling student. And it can't give an alumni coordinator a reason to stay in relationship with graduates five and ten years out.

The revised Play 0.1 — The Program Purpose Statement — explains the difference, walks you through building one, and gives you eight tests for knowing when what you wrote is strong enough to carry the weight the rest of the Playbook will place on it.

If you have a mission statement and you're not sure it's doing the work a purpose statement needs to do, the Compass Test in Section 3 will answer that question in about four minutes.

It's Free.

🔗 Play 0.1 — The Program Purpose Statement: https://rgalsup.com/play-0-1-the-program-purpose-statement/ 

🔗 All published Plays: https://rgalsup.com/grad-program-intake-playbook/