The mission of MIT is to advance knowledge and educate students inscience, technology, and other areas of scholarship that will bestserve the nation and the world in the 21st century.The Institute is committed to generating, disseminating, andpreserving knowledge, and to working with others to bring thisknowledge to bear on the world's great challenges. MIT is dedicated toproviding its students with an education that combines rigorousacademic study and the excitement of discovery with the support andintellectual stimulation of a diverse campus community. We seek todevelop in each member of the MIT community the ability and passion towork wisely, creatively, and effectively for the betterment ofhumankind.Teaching and research—with relevance to the practical world as aguiding principle—continue to be its primary purpose. MIT isindependent, coeducational, and privately endowed. Its five schoolsand one college encompass numerous academic departments, divisions,and degree-granting programs, as well as interdisciplinary centers,laboratories, and programs whose work cuts across traditionaldepartmental boundaries.