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.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology - a coeducational, privately endowed research university - is dedicated to advancing knowledge and educating students in science, technology, and other areas of scholarship that will best serve the nation and the world in the 21st century. The Institute has more than 900 faculty and 10,000 undergraduate and graduate students. It is organized into five Schools - Architecture and Planning, Engineering, Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, Management, and Science - and the Whitaker College of Health Sciences and Technology. Within these are twenty-seven degree-granting departments, programs, and divisions. In addition, a great deal of research and teaching takes place in interdisciplinary programs, laboratories, and centers whose work extends beyond traditional departmental boundaries. The board of trustees, known as the Corporation, consists of about 75 national and international leaders in higher education, business and industry, science, engineering and other professions. Forty-seven alumni, faculty, researchers and staff have won Nobel Prizes.

William Barton Rogers, the Institute's founding President, believed that education should be both broad and useful, enabling students to participate in "the humane culture of the community" and to discover and apply knowledge for the benefit of society. His emphasis on "learning by doing," on combining liberal and professional education, and on the value of useful knowledge, continues to be at the heart of MIT's educational mission.

MIT's commitment to innovation has led to a host of scientific break-throughs and technological advances. Achievements of the Institute's faculty and graduates have included the first chemical synthesis of penicillin and vitamin A, the development of inertial guidance systems, modern technologies for artificial limbs, and the magnetic core memory that made possible the development of digital computers. Exciting current areas of research and education include neuroscience and the study of the brain and mind, bioengineering, the environment and sustainable development, information sciences and technology, new media, financial technology, and entrepreneurship.

University research is one of the mainsprings of growth in an economy increasingly defined by technology. In the first national study of the economic impact of a research university, "The Impact of Innovation," the BankBoston Economics Department found that graduates of MIT have founded 4,000 firms, translating their knowledge into products, services, and jobs. These firms, in 1994, employed over one million people and generated worldwide revenues of $232 billion.

MIT has forged educational and research collaborations with other universities, governments, and companies throughout the nation and the world, and draws its faculty and students from every corner of the globe. The result is a vigorous mix of people, ideas, and programs dedicated to enhancing the world's wellbeing.