George Mason University is innovative and entrepreneurial in spirit and uses its multi-campus organization and location near our nation’s capital to attract outstanding faculty, staff, and students. George Mason will: Educate the new generation of leaders for the 21st century—men and women capable of shaping a global community with vision, justice, and clarity. Encourage freedom of thought, speech, and inquiry in a tolerant, respectful academic setting that values diversity. Provide innovative and interdisciplinary undergraduate, graduate, and professional courses of study that enable students to exercise analytical and imaginative thinking and make well-founded ethical decisions. Nurture and support a highly qualified and entrepreneurial faculty that is excellent at teaching, active in pure and applied research, capable of providing a broad range of intellectual and cultural insights, and is responsive to the needs of students and their communities. Maintain an international reputation for superior education and public service that affirms its role as the intellectual and cultural nexus among Northern Virginia, the nation, and the world.