1.1 Mission and Objectives

Mission

The mission of MIT is to advance knowledge and educate students in science, technology, and other areas of scholarship that will best serve the nation and the world in the 21st century.

The Institute is committed to generating, disseminating, and preserving knowledge, and to working with others to bring this knowledge to bear on the world's great challenges. MIT is dedicated to providing its students with an education that combines rigorous academic study and the excitement of discovery with the support and intellectual stimulation of a diverse campus community. We seek to develop in each member of the MIT community the ability and passion to work wisely, creatively, and effectively for the betterment of humankind.

Objectives

Education: It is the purpose of the educational program to develop in each student that mastery of fundamentals, versatility of mind, motivation for learning, and intellectual discipline and self-reliance that is the best foundation for continuing professional achievement; to provide a liberal as well as professional education so that each student acquires a respect for moral values, a sense of the duties of citizenship, and the basic human understanding and knowledge required for leadership; and thereby to send forth men and women of the highest professional competence, with the breadth of learning and of character to deal constructively with the issues and opportunities of our time.

Research and Scholarship: The Institute seeks through research and reflection to extend the boundaries of knowledge and the horizons of the human intellect. In so doing, it aims to create an atmosphere of intellectual excitement, a climate of inquiry and innovation in which each student develops a consuming interest in understanding for its own sake.

Service: As a modern university and social institution, MIT recognizes an inherent obligation to serve its students, its alumni and alumnae, the professions, the world of scholarship, and society. As part of this obligation, the Institute seeks to serve the community and the nation directly through its faculty and through the use of its facilities and administrative resources whenever there is a compelling need to which it can respond without impairing its primary function.