"In a college, the key group of believers is the senior faculty. When they are hostile to a new idea, its attenuation is likely; when they are passive, its success is weak; and when they are devoted to it, a saga is probable. A single leader, a college president, can initiate the change, but the organizational idea will not be expanded over the years and expressed in performance unless ranking and powerful members of the faculty become committed to it and remain committed even after the initiator is gone. In committing themselves deeply, taking some credit for the change and seeking to ensure its perpetuation, they routinize the charisma of the leader in collegial authority. The faculty cadre of believers helps to effect the legend, then to protect it against later leaders and other new participants who, less pure in belief, might turn the organization in some other direction." (Clark, 1972, p. 181)

"For a college to transform purpose into a credible story of unique accomplishment, there must be visible practices with which claims of distinctiveness can be supported; that is, unusual courses, note- worthy requirements, or special methods of teaching. On the basis of seemingly unique practices, the program becomes a set of communal symbols and rituals, invested with meaning." (Clark, 1972, pp. 181-182) 

"The student body is the third group of believers, not overwhelmingly important but still a necessary support for the saga. To become and remain a saga, a change must be supported by the student subculture over decades, and the ideology of the subculture must integrate with the central ideas of the believing administrators and faculty. When the students define themselves as personally responsible for upholding the image of the college, then a design or plan has become an organizational saga." (Clark, 1972, p. 182)

"Upheld by faculty, alumni, and students, expressed in teaching practices, the saga is even more widely expressed as a generalized tradition in statues and ceremonies, written histories and current catalogues, even in an 'air about the place' felt by participants and some outsiders. The more unique the history and the more forceful the claim to a place in history, the more intensely cultivated the ways of sharing memory and symbolizing the institution. The saga is a strong self-fulfilling belief; working through institutional self-image and public image, it is indeed a switchman (Weber, 1946), helping to determine the tracks along which action is pushed by men's self-defined interests." (Clark, 1972, pp. 182) 

Institutional videos provide insights into how colleges and universities uphold organizational sagas overtime. They often allude to images and values of the past with an eye to the future. 

The first video (10:39 minutes) is a campaign video from 1960 discussing the history of Mount Holyoke and overview of academic and social life at the College. Watch the video here.

The second video (1:23 minutes) is a promotional video from 2023. Watch this video here. 

After watching both videos,  discuss the following questions: 

1. How do these sources reflect a "unified sense of a special history" (Clark, 1972, p. 181) of Mount Holyoke? 

2. How do students and alumnae express "personally responsible for upholding the image of the college" (Clark, 1972, p. 182)?

3. What is similar and different between the two videos? 

4. What else was happening at the time these videos were being created? What is the historical context?

5. How has the organizational saga changed and stayed the same over time?