The largest public institution in Virginia, George Mason University is a doctoral extensive institution with three campuses in Northern Virginia and over 29,000 students.

Our mission statement:

George Mason University will be an institution of international academic reputation providing superior education for 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 interdisciplinary and innovative undergraduate, graduate, and professional courses. 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, 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. It will be an intellectual and cultural nexus between Northern Virginia, the nation, and the world. (Adopted January 1991)