I’m relieved that the wording predates this thread by years, as it takes the wind out of @merci91’s sails regarding institutional integrity. I didn’t agree with the negative appraisal of possible borrowing but feared that s/he would milk it until the udders ran dry (and prolapsed). As for “The Independent Ivy,” boy was that a desperately miscalculated campaign. “This Is Why” seems to be working for fundraising. To me it sounds vapid, but all slogans do. The words “practical idealism” (and, to a lesser degree, “rigor”) simply jumped out at me when I visited the website to look up a department page. I don’t know in what way Wesleyan’s idealism has become pragmatic (I was a science major and the work was very rigorous, but not wedded to idealism in any programmatic way); it wasn’t so during my time there and given my earlier musings in the thread about adding programs that address the world’s urgent needs, it occurred to me that whoever writes their copy might have taken inspiration from that. In retrospect, I should have searched for earlier instances but instead came here immediately to report what seemed an amusing development. Mea culpa for the lack of research and the casualness about matters that seem of passionate interest to others. I never read the 2020 thing; nor have I ever read institutional campaign mission statements. Cheers to those who meditate on such writings as a kind of lectio divina. As Miss Brodie said, “For those who like that sort of thing, that is the sort of thing they like.”