Introduction to the Campaign for Students

The Institute has experienced a significant transformation over the last 15 years. Our commitment to merit and innovation is steadfast, and MIT thrives as the premier institution of science and engineering. We are now also among the first rank of colleges and universities with excellence in a broader set of fields. We admit and attract the best and the brightest of undergraduate and graduate students, while keeping true to our legacy of need-blind admissions and need-based aid. In addition, we are tackling the world's energy crisis and have opened a new frontier at the boundaries in life science, where medicine and engineering intersect. We continue to make world-class contributions, applying engineering and science to solve great problems of the world. Today, more than ever, MIT is developing leaders who solve real-world problems. In order to support faculty teaching and educational innovation, to provide programs and infrastructure to our students, and to secure our commitments to need-blind admissions and need-based financial aid, we must mount a campaign to attract the resources that are needed to secure our future.

The Campaign for Students, a fundraising initiative to support undergraduate and graduate financial aid, education, and student life, will support these transformations.

The goal of the Campaign is to attract support for critical needs at the core mission of MIT – to make it possible for every student we admit to take full advantage of MIT and to keep the Institute competitive. Over the next five years, we hope to raise at least $500 million for scholarships, fellowships, programmatic and capital investment in student life, and initiatives growing out of the Report of the Task Force on the Undergraduate Educational Commons, as well as various faculty initiatives. The Campaign is an opportunity to enhance the overall MIT experience while preparing students for the important roles they will play in the world. Click here for a brief overview of the Campaign.

The Campaign for Students is an umbrella under which School and department initiatives are covered. It will also support and complement efforts that several Schools and departments have already undertaken. We are working to share best practices among all parts of the Institute. Departments will be especially valuable as we enhance our connection to graduate and international alumni. This cultivation will be critical not only in this campaign, but for all our future development efforts.

The Campaign for Students is an important step towards securing the Institute's legacy and its fresh presentation to the current generation. We have come a long way in making MIT special, and I hope that this campaign will help us sharpen the image of what we do for the whole student.

As we look forward to celebrating in 2011 the one-hundred-fiftieth anniversary of MIT's founding, and commemorating our one hundredth anniversary at our present location in Cambridge in 2016, I sincerely hope that you will join us in making your own personal commitment in support of MIT students through the Campaign for Students. We would also welcome your suggestions for contacts, venues, and approaches to our alumni and friends.

In the coming years, we will explore how best to leverage the many initiatives we have in place to make our programs and services stronger and more effective. We believe that the work of the faculty speaks powerfully to the world, and sharing your work with the world can be a critical part of our Campaign presentation. As we near the public launch of the Campaign for Students in October 2008, I welcome your ideas to garner support for this endeavor and ask that you visit humanfactor.mit.edu for more information about the Campaign. Indeed, in the words of President Hockfield, “The world has never needed MIT as much as it does now.”