(Re)Envisioning Our Future: KSAA’s Updated Mission, Vision, and Values

Bryonie Carter

April 15, 2024

Beginning with a new strategic plan in 2019, the Keats-Shelley Association of America Board of Directors has focused on expanding the scope of our scholarly and public engagement efforts; reinforcing our commitments to diversity, equity, and inclusion; and helping shape the “Romantic Futures” of our authors. Following the implementation of these new strategies, in October 2023 the KSAA Board of Directors approved both an updated strategic plan and revised Mission, Vision, and Values statements, all of which were made public on the front page of our website earlier this year. 

Over the course of 2023, the newly formed KSAA Governance Working Group began the process of revising the Mission, Vision, and Values statements. Comprising Board members Bryonie Carter, Stuart Curran, George Krupp, and Leslie Morris, the Workgroup weighed several considerations, including:

• Formal and informal feedback from KSAA members, Directors, and Officers.

• K-SAA members’ institutional memories. 

• Recent developments in Romantic-era scholarship.

• Trends in higher education and K-12 institutions, and their related pedagogies.

• The interests and needs of our diverse virtual, in-person, academic, and non-academic communities. 

It was with these myriad factors in mind that the Working Group drafted updated statements and presented them to the Board of Directors for feedback during the October 2023 meeting. The Board collectively reviewed and refined the statements, ultimately approving final drafts which reflect the state of our field, gauge the Association’s plans for growth, and reinforce the core tenets upon which the KSAA was originally founded.

Since their official adoption at the Directors’ meeting in October, the KSAA Board of Directors has been working on the organization’s updated Mission, Vision, and Values statements: 

Mission:

To enrich the study of and appreciation for the works of Keats, the Shelleys, and their contemporaries by cultivating a diverse community of artists, readers, scholars, students, teachers, and other audiences through inclusive scholarship and accessible public programming.

Vision:

The works of Keats, the Shelleys, and their contemporaries will continue to inspire generations both within and outside of the academy.

Values:

We value a wider and deeper understanding of the works of Keats, the Shelleys, and their contemporaries; progressive, rigorous, and creative scholarship; public programming; inclusivity; diverse membership; accessibility; and an engaged community.

If you see yourself in this mission, please contact one of the officers to join our academic and public outreach efforts.

Featured image: manuscript of “Ode to a Nightingale,” 1819, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge