114 Strategic Leadership
in 1921 had the story of a metaphoric David and Goliath become so vivid. Not
long afterward, many of the goals of an ambitious strategic plan were fulfilled:
enrollment grew by one hundred students, new facilities were built and older ones
renovated, salaries were substantially increased, and a capital campaign reached
its $40 million goal a year ahead of schedule. The power of Centre’s story was
decisively revealed in 1985 when the Olin Foundation awarded Centre its annual
grant for the complete financing of a new physical science building. In its con-
tacts with the college, the foundation marveled at the loyalty of Centre alumni
and noted the college’s heritage of leadership in its region. Driven by strategic
planning, Centre’s record of financial and academic achievement has steadily
continued to progress since that time.
Although the Centre story has some especially rich motifs, it is representa-
tive of the narratives of identity that can be told in virtually every institution of
higher education. As we have suggested, narratives do what all good stories do,
which is to capture important insights, values, lessons, and truths about identity
in accounts that reach us as agents rather than as observers of life. Stories touch
us as persons, reaching both our minds and our emotions. They use the language
of metaphors, images, and symbols and turns of phrase pulled from everyday life
that interpret the drama of experience in ways that empirical description cannot.
In their empirical study of the use of metaphors in planning and leadership at the
University of Minnesota, Simsek and Louis(1994) describe similar characteristics
of symbolic and metaphoric language. In their study of twenty widely diverse col-
leges and universities that have higher patterns of student engagement in learning
and graduation rates than comparable institutions, Kuh, Kinzie, Schuh, Whitt,
and their associates (2005) show the deep educational significance of campus
culture, symbol, and story. Each campus has a connected set of strong symbolic
meanings and owns a powerful narrative of achievement and identity. Stories
draw us in as participants as we identify through imagination and memory with
the narrative of our community’s identity.
We should not go on to conclude that all is consistent, successful, and cheerful
in stories of identity, for disruption and conflict bring trying challenges to places
and may even tear them apart. These chapters, too, are part of the story. The Civil
War tore a hole in the heart of Centre College, dividing families, students, faculty,
alumni, and the Danville community into two hostile camps, and the Presbyte-
rians into two churches. It led to the founding of a competing university fifty
miles away. The wounds required almost a century to heal, and the college suf-
fered as a result. In the early 1960s the college had to put the ugly legacy of racial
segregation behind it, and through decisive presidential leadership by Thomas
Spragens, it did so with conviction and moral purposefulness.
Finding, Telling, and Translating the Story
As we seek to know and tell our stories, it becomes clear that there are many
individuals, programs, traditions, rituals, documents, and cultural norms and values