Documenting institutional identity: Strategic writing in the IUPUI comprehensive campaign

Karen Lynn Bishop, Purdue University

Abstract

This dissertation considers the discourse generated in the IUPUI comprehensive campaign as “documentary reality” or illustrative of how issues, such as authority and decision-making, are negotiated within hierarchies for the purpose of creating institutional identity. Regarding the scope of the dissertation, the project chronicles the one-year strategic planning phase before the public phase of the campaign, through rhetorical analysis of documents. Specifically, these documents are ones generated by the university, the School of Liberal Arts, the School of Dentistry, and the IU Foundation, and have been selected because of their discursive features that lend themselves to the process of creating and articulating a concrete identity for the institution. Among these documents are mission statements (for the institution and both schools); cases for support drafted by both schools; preliminary and final institutional cases for support; and the campaign plan. Central to IUPUI's campaign is the issue of creating an institutional identity for itself from the myriad of programs, hybrid programs, and schools. A favorable outcome or cohesion of these programs as they contribute to the identity of the campus is dependent on the successful writing of the program/school cases for support and how they are in effect translated into the larger institutional case to construct that identity. Considering IUPUI through documentary reality becomes a way of recording knowledge of processes and events for the campaign, which have significant implications for program administrators in various contexts. Through written discourse we are able to analyze organizational reporting procedures, patterns of interaction between departments, features of genre and other acts within the institutional context to ultimately aid in the effective administration of those contexts. The evidence of this reality becomes documentation strategies—written plans which account for the method of analysis just described and are a vehicle for reflective practice as well as knowledge production.

Degree

Ph.D.

Advisors

Rose, Purdue University.

Subject Area

Rhetoric|Composition|Higher education

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