DUE Strategic Plan

The Office of the Dean for Undergraduate Education (DUE) sits at the core of MIT. The DUE through its actions, touches every student at MIT and all faculty who teach. In the following sections, we lay out the value-added DUE brings to the students and faculty, the DUE values and competencies in the context of the MIT mission and values and the DUE mission and vision. A set of six strategic themes is then enunciated which will lead to an exciting new future for MIT students.

The DUE is the organization at the center of MIT that is charged to do the following for the MIT students. It must identify, recruit, admit and enroll the best students in the world and ensure access without regard to financial need. It then provides services related to enrollment, registration, tuition, degree audits and graduation for all students. Finally DUE equips students with the tools to transition from MIT to work or graduate study, and help them connect with employers, graduate or professional schools and other postgraduation options.

For the faculty, the DUE provides research in learning, information about innovations in pedagogy and technology, support of Faculty Committees and initiatives and support and rewards for educational innovation and excellence in teaching.

DUE Core Values and Competencies

As a part of MIT, the DUE is supportive of MIT's mission and the institute's core values of:

• An unwavering commitment to a meritocracy
• Education and research oriented around Mens et Manus
• Commitment to innovative service to the nation and the world

For the DUE, sitting at the center of the MIT educational experience and touching every undergraduate and graduate student, our core values are centered on our students and service to the faculty. They are:

• Our commitment to superior customer service
• Our deep care for the whole student, integrating life and learning
• Our commitment to excellence in all we do

It is important for any organization to understand its core competencies. Core competencies are aggregates of capabilities centered on complementary critical capabilities. Understanding of core competencies allows the organization to see what areas need to be strengthened (by investment and acquisition) and which areas should be divested. In DUE we aspire to the following core competencies:

• We LEAD in the development and implementation of educational best practices. Key Indicators:
  • Articulation of MIT’s educational approach and agenda
  • Propose, design and assess educational innovations
  • Demonstrate expertise in student learning
• We COLLABORATE throughout the Institute. Key Indicators:
  • Listening and providing constructive feedback
  • Influencing others
  • Building relationships
  • Adapting to change
• We STEWARD MIT resources to ensure maximum value added. Key indicators:
  • Expressing a system-wide perspective
  • Use of relevant project and financial management tools and methods
  • A continuous improvement orientation

We want others to look to us as models for these three competencies.

DUE Mission and Vision

DUE Mission Statement

We enroll, educate and inspire some of the world’s brightest students with a passion for learning and sense of self so they become the next generation of creative thinkers and leaders in a global society.

We lead by promoting the excellence of a science and technology-centric education, ensuring access and opportunity without regard to financial resources, upholding rigorous academic standards, advancing innovation, developing mentoring relationships, strengthening respect for diversity, and serving as a catalyst for learning, exploration and discovery.

DUE Vision

We aspire to be the best in the world in shaping strategic partnerships and creating synergies to integrate learning and life at a research university.

The DUE mission statement captures our passion for our wonderful diverse students, our desire for them to lead in this world and our commitment to innovation in their education. Our vision articulates the idea that we will be the best in the world at what we do and in the context of a research university, we will produce well-integrated students.

DUE Strategic Themes

In order for the DUE to move towards the vision, it was necessary to develop some focused strategic themes in concert with our mission partners at MIT (the MIT academic Departments, the Dean for Student Life, the Dean for Graduate Students and the Information Systems and Technology Group). The strategic themes have the following properties since they will help define the future

• Actionable and achievable on ten year timescales
• Have resource implications (people, space, money)
• Build on strengths, deal with weaknesses, seize opportunities, fight off threats
• Are consistent with our mission, core competencies and lead to the vision

Catalyze the Undergraduate Commons to define the next generation of MIT student

The Task Force on the Undergraduate Educational Commons calls for increased flexibility in the core requirements for all undergraduates. It recommends that students be allowed to take a project-based class in the freshman year and defines a new core area of computation and engineering. These major changes to the core will define a new generation of MIT students. The DUE will undertake the experiments and support the faculty committees in putting these changes into place.

Champion Information Technology (IT) for the provision of information to the students and faculty

We have a critical need to evolve our IT to be more effective in our service delivery. Our student systems support the core business of the Institute and impact a large community of users. A key part of this is to develop a vision and strategy for student systems that meet the strategic needs of our students, faculty and staff. This theme is deeply connected to work in Information Systems and Technology.

Develop a holistic student experience to produce leaders for the future

From the time of the Task Force on Student Life and Learning, faculty, staff and students have expressed the belief that interaction between students and faculty is critical to the development of a confident, well-educated graduate prepared to make significant contributions in the global workplace and world community. Initiatives directed by this theme are intended to articulate a holistic approach to the education of our students, setting the standard for undergraduate academic advising and mentorship, and defining collaborative initiatives and programs for student leadership development. This theme has critical connections with the Office of the Dean for Student Life.

Provide Global educational opportunities that enable our students to appreciate and learn from other cultures

The Task Force on the Undergraduate Educational Commons has signaled their interest in promoting and developing international opportunities for our students. This is to prepare them for the challenges of a global economy and for making substantial contributions to globalized society in the 21st century. In a world where even high-end engineering and science occurs world wide, it is increasingly important to ensure that our graduates are well prepared to lead and to compete. While this perspective might be of value, the data indicates that only about 15 per cent of MIT undergraduates engage in a significant international experience as a result of their four years at MIT. We will work to increase this to a majority of our students having a global experience.

Advance from Teaching to Learning in our classrooms

In our Teaching and Learning Laboratory we have been studying how improvements in pedagogy can support students learning for this new era. We believe we are doing well, but we can do even better in providing some of the brightest young people in the country & the world with the highest quality education possible. We are in a strong position to do this now: MIT has had a five year period of innovation, and the Task Force on the Undergraduate Educational Commons calls for this kind of shift. Our vision is to create a deep shift in the educational enterprise at MIT so that it is motivated by the desire to foster MIT students' mastery of the knowledge, skills, and habits of mind they will need to succeed.

Champion and increase pipeline diversity

A diverse student body is critical for fulfilling the Institute’s mission, and more broadly, it helps to position this nation for continued global participation and leadership. Consistent with a range of initiatives aimed at faculty issues, this theme focuses on the actions necessary to ensure that our minority students are well represented at every level of the educational pipeline at MIT. It also aims to empirically advance the notion that diversity and quality are congruent. This theme has critical interactions with the Graduate Student Office (GSO).

These themes allow us to be proactive in influencing the future of the MIT educational enterprise. The themes give us foci to marshal a portion of our rograms and resources and will require the work of interdisciplinary teams throughout DUE. In addition to these themes, we will maintain the highest level of quality in our ongoing critical core business of admissions, financial services, career counseling and the services of the Registrar.

Envisioned Future

We have a bold vision in the context of growing societal need for analytically educated people to lead. The big problems and issues in a global society do not divide themselves into narrow academic boxes. MIT students have much to offer these big issues and it is incumbent upon those of us at the core of MIT to help provide them the skills, attitudes and knowledge to address these large-scale issues.

We have outlined our six strategic themes that with our underlying core values will
enhance and support our core competencies. These themes, when well executed, will lead to an envisioned future where MIT students are educated to be the next generation of leaders in a diverse global society.

At MIT, our envisioned future has the following elements for the MIT faculty:

• We are recognized as one of the visible leadership groups at MIT in education and service with our mission partners
• We have enabled a deep and fundamental shift in the faculty culture from teaching to learning based on a rigorous coupling of education and research
• We have improved the physical teaching and learning environment in support of existing and emerging pedagogy
• We have recaptured and reinforced the principle of the unity of the faculty- all faculty participate in the commons and want to be part of teaching all our students

For our students we have shifted and enhanced the strong MIT culture so that:

• We have helped develop a sense of global awareness in our students with a strong sense of the value of diversity
• We have brought high-perceived value to enrich and couple life and learning. The divide between a life of scholarship and a residential life at MIT has vanished. Our students have fun and grow as holistically in all their MIT settings.
• We have enhanced our graduation rate so that it is better than our peers. This applies to all our students without distinction.
• We have increased the share of our undergraduates who pursue graduate studies at MIT and elsewhere
• We routinely advance leadership development for all students and our students are well recognized as for their ability to converse broadly and rise to the leadership challenge.

In the world outside MIT, we envision a future state where we are the world leader in articulating the value of an S&T centric education. This education is what is necessary to lead in the complex technically dominated situations in the future and the world looks to MIT for answers.