Mission Statements of Universitites

As the name suggests, mission statements represent the purpose of educational institutions. These are the milestones which universities aim to achieve and hence serve as a guide to institutional practices. A lot of times, mission statements are aspirational in nature i.e. they suggest what the intuitions aim to achieve in future and are working toward it. While there exist similarities in mission statements of different universities, there are also considerable differences in their mission statements. These differences differentiate one educational institution from the others. In this blogpost, I will compare and contrast the mission statements of two universities, Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee (IIT Roorkee) and Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech), from which I hold engineering degrees. I did my undergraduate from IIT Roorkee and my Masters from Virginia Tech, both in Electrical Engineering.

The home page of the official website of IIT Roorkee states that the institute’s mission is

“To create an environment that shall foster the growth of intellectually capable, innovative and entrepreneurial professionals, who shall contribute to the growth of Science and Technology in partnership with industry and develop and harness it for the welfare of the nation and mankind.”

IIT Roorkee is primarily an engineering university in India, owned and run by the central (or federal) government of India. It is a small university with a total student population of less than 10000, including undergraduate and graduate students. Since IIT Roorkee is primarily focused on engineering, its mission is to “contribute to the growth of Science and Technology.”

The mission statement of Virginia Tech states:

“Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech) is a public land-grant university serving the Commonwealth of Virginia, the nation, and the world community. The discovery and dissemination of new knowledge are central to its mission. Through its focus on teaching and learning, research and discovery, and outreach and engagement, the university creates, conveys, and applies knowledge to expand personal growth and opportunity, advance social and community development, foster economic competitiveness, and improve the quality of life.”

Virginia Tech, located in Blacksburg, Virginia, has a student body of around 30000, which means it is almost thrice as large as IIT Roorkee in terms of student enrollment. Although the name of the university has the word “polytechnic” in it, students can study diverse disciplines at Virginia Tech including liberal arts, humanities, social sciences, music, and theatre. This is probably the reason why the mission statement does not explicitly mention words like technology or engineering. Rather it states that the university focuses on “teaching and learning, research and discovery, and outreach and engagement.” One notable information provided in Virginia Tech’s mission statement is a public land-grant university. There is no information provided about the type of university IIT Roorkee is in its mission statement.

One thing which stood out to me while reading Virginia Tech’s mission statement was its goal to foster “economic competitiveness.” IIT Roorkee’s mission statement does not mention of any kind of competition. I think the reason for this is the nature of social systems present in both the countries. While India is a welfare state where the government has the responsibility to ensure the welfare of all its citizens, the USA thrives on a capitalist system where money and profit guide organizations with little government control in the lives of the people.

Despite having notable differences, the mission statements of both the universities have some similarities as well. Both the universities aim to contribute to the welfare of their respective nations and the mankind in general. Both the mission statements mention individual’s growth as one of their aims. And finally, both the mission statements promise generic qualities such as growth of intellectually smart individuals, research and discovery, entrepreneurial mindset, engagement, welfare of the nation and the humankind. This is in accordance with some of the skeptics who suggest that mission statements use vague language and present generic outcomes.

How do I Feel??

“Hi! How are you? How does it feel when it’s all over? :-)” This is what Saikat messaged me today morning from Mumbai. And this is something many people have asked me many a times in last couple of days. To be honest, I myself have asked this question to me a few times in last two days.

It has been two days since I have left IIT Roorkee forever as a student. Yes, I am an IITR alumnus now. So, how do I feel when I know that I am no more a student of IIT Roorkee? I had heard that the feeling of leaving the campus is a hard one and it’s a bit difficult to control one’s emotion. But seriously speaking, nothing of that sort happened with me though I could realise that some of my friends were quite nostalgic about leaving one of the coolest places in the world (read IIT Roorkee). For me, it was a feeling of joy, triumph, achievement and most importantly happiness for coming out of the college as a lot more mature person than who went in four years ago. I won’t say that I became the best of engineers which IITs are supposed to produce but I can say with ample amount of certainty that every second I spent in the college added to my knowledge base, be it in the terms of learning about life, people and their behaviour, and many other things. But the most important thing I learnt was about myself. I came to meet the true Ashish Agrawal at my college only. And I would always be thankful to that place (IIT Roorkee) that it gave me chance for that, to evaluate myself, to see through myself, to know myself.

Coming back to what I feel.....well, I always dreamt of the day when I would be a graduate and I was waiting for this day for long. And hence, I felt good. And moreover, the last couple of weeks at the college were full of workload and tensions owing to project work, fuss created in the department over the faulty evaluation of the project and then finally no dues clearance. And during these times, I desperately wanted to get away from the college as soon as possible. And so I along with some of my friends came out of the main gate of IIT Roorkee for the last time, one of my friends remarked:

Chalo, finally jail se nikal gaye!!

(Finally, we came out of the jail)

And I even tossed the cowboy hat I was wearing.

Now when I sit at home and have almost nothing to do, sometimes, I think of my life at college, my friends, the people around me. I don’t know when I will see some of the faces, which are very dear to me, the next time. I don’t know when I will be able to hang out with them. May be, I get to see some of them after a long long time, may be I accidently meet some of them in some street in some city like strangers meet. And then may be I will feel the same amount of joy I used to when hanging out with them, may be...........