The mission of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (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.
The Institute admitted its first students in
1865, four years after the approval of its founding charter. The opening
marked the culmination of
an extended effort by William Barton Rogers, a distinguished natural
scientist, to establish a new kind of
independent educational institution
relevant
to an increasingly industrialized America. Rogers stressed the pragmatic
and practicable. He believed that professional competence is best fostered
by coupling teaching and research and by focusing attention on real-world
problems. Toward this end, he pioneered the development of the teaching
laboratory.
Today MIT is a world-class educational institution. Teaching and research—with
relevance to the practical world as a guiding principle—continue
to be its primary purpose. MIT is independent, coeducational, and privately
endowed. Its five schools and one college encompass numerous
academic departments, divisions, and degree-granting programs, as well as
interdisciplinary centers, laboratories, and programs whose work cuts across traditional departmental boundaries.