Preamble: The Mission of George Mason University*

George Mason University will be an institution of international academic reputation providing a superior education enabling students to develop critical, analytical, and imaginative thinking and to make well founded ethical decisions. It will respond to the call for interdisciplinary research and teaching not simply by adding programs but by rethinking the traditional structure of the academy.

The University will prepare students to address the complex issues facing them in society and to discover meaning in their own lives. It will encourage diversity in its student body and will meet the needs of students by providing them with undergraduate, graduate, and professional courses of study that are interdisciplinary and innovative. The University will energetically seek ways to interact with and serve the needs of the student body.

The University will nurture and support a faculty that is diverse, innovative and excellent in teaching, active in pure and applied research, and responsive to the needs of students and the community. The faculty will embody the University's interactive approach to change both in the academy and in the world.

The University will be a resource of the Commonwealth of Virginia serving private and public sectors and will be an intellectual and cultural nexus between Northern Virginia, the nation, and the world.

*Adopted by the Board of Visitors in 1991.
George Mason University, an equal opportunity and affirmative action institution, actively supports the letter and the spirit of all fair employment policies of the Commonwealth of Virginia. For some documents pertaining to specific fairness policies, see Appendix A.