Virginia Tech and UVA are two tradition rivals, both academically and issues related to Football !
In this blog post I am going to compare the mission statement of UVA and Virgina Tech.
In the mission of VT we can read:
“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.”
we can see the importance and emphasis of “learning”, “Teaching” and “research” in the mission statement which is prominent in the whole society of VT. In the strategic management, the mission statement means the main goals that a group have and when some one see the emphasis of “Research” in Virginia Tech statement, it means that here at Virgina Tech, we face with an atmosphere which is based on research. The pressure on young faculty members and graduate students show the importance of “research” as well as “teaching” from point of view of board of vision. This mission I think shows mainly the concentration of VT on Engineering.
Now take a look at UVA mission:
“The central purpose of the University of Virginia is to enrich the mind by stimulating and sustaining a spirit of free inquiry directed to understanding the nature of the universe and the role of mankind in it. Activities designed to quicken, discipline, and enlarge the intellectual and creative capacities, as well as the aesthetic and ethical awareness, of the members of the University and to record, preserve, and disseminate the results of intellectual discovery and creative endeavor serve this purpose. In fulfilling it, the University places the highest priority on achieving eminence as a center of higher learning.”
This is the Statement of purpose of UVA . Goals and purposes of this university highly show the importance of social science and humanities there. In this statement, concepts such as “role of mankind”, “ethic” and “higher learning” are prominent and the view of board of vision show the importance of these notions.
As a social science graduate student, I think if someone wants to work on the social sciences , UVA is much better place where as Virginia Tech is better for engineering and technology studies.