Mission Effectiveness and Institutional Environment: Influence of Catholic Mission on Undergraduate Core Curriculum Programs
Abstract
Ever greater internal and external influences on U.S. Catholic colleges and universities make institutional environment and Mission effectiveness especially significant (Baldridge, 1971; Balestra, 2003; Eckel, 2006; Kerr, 1963; Mortimer & Sathre, 2007) in order to avoid institutional isomorphism (DiMaggio & Powell, 1983). The goal of this descriptive, instrumental, single-case study was to expand the narrow body of literature surrounding Catholic Mission and academics within Catholic higher education; specifically, to describe how Catholic Mission influenced the undergraduate core curriculum at one Catholic university by investigating Mission effectiveness, institutional environment, and core decision-making. Interview data capturing the lived experiences of the faculty, administrators, and clergy were triangulated with data from documentary analyses and field observations. The data were analyzed using Creswell’s (2013) data analysis spiral. The data uncovered consistencies and inconsistencies between Catholic Mission and the core program. These instances of high and low Mission effectiveness revealed strengths and opportunities which delineated the institutional environment and decision-making factors at Tres Cruces University (a pseudonym) and, ultimately, defined the core curriculum program as distinctly Catholic and inversely related to institutional isomorphism theory.
Subject Area
Education|Educational leadership|Organizational behavior
Recommended Citation
Brown, Gabriella D, "Mission Effectiveness and Institutional Environment: Influence of Catholic Mission on Undergraduate Core Curriculum Programs" (2020). ETD Collection for Fordham University. AAI27837516.
https://research.library.fordham.edu/dissertations/AAI27837516
