With this video I would like to introduce a new means of communication between the President’s Office and the entire campus of OSUIT to talk about topics that are of importance to all of us here at this institution and I cannot think of a better place for us to begin than with the mission statement itself.

This has been around for a while; it was written back in 1993 and it governs every single thing that we do as an institution. It is rather long, but I’d like to take just a moment and read through the entire mission statement first. 

OSU Institute of Technology’s mission is to serve as the lead institution of higher education in Oklahoma and the region providing comprehensive, high-quality, advancing technology programs and services to prepare and sustain a diverse student body as competitive members of a world-class workforce and contributing members of society.

It's kind of a mouthful when you read it all at one time, but I’d like to dissect it, just section by section first.

The opening statement tells me about the responsibility that OSUIT has as a statewide mandate. We are responsible for the state of Oklahoma, as well as the surrounding regions, to be a lead institution of higher education. We are an institution of higher education; we are part of the Oklahoma State University system and we have a responsibility to be a lead in what area? 

Well, continuing with the statement it tells us, to provide comprehensive, high-quality, advancing technology programs and services. Now the terms programs and services are very very important, it refers to everything that we do.

Programs is talking about the majors that we offer, all of the academic and the technical training programs that are offered here at OSUIT. Every faculty member that is employed at OSUIT can clearly see themselves in this part of the mission statement because you are contributing to the programs that are offered here. 

But the term services refer to all the rest of us, those who don’t teach in the classroom or a lab. Those who are providing some sort of service that supports the programs and teachings of this institution. I don’t care what the job is. Maybe you sit in an office and file all day, maybe you are part of the food service, maybe you’re tutorial service, maybe you’re on the facilities and grounds services that are provided here.

Every single service, every single job at OSUIT is critical to support the academic programs and services.

Then the statement goes on and talks about a diverse student body. It acknowledges the fact that we have many first-time college goers here. We have traditional age students, we have non-traditional age students, we have students from different ethnic backgrounds, we have international students, all with different expectations and different cultures, but every single student is important, and they all deserve the same opportunities to achieve their educational goals at OSUIT. 

We want to prepare and sustain these students to be competitive members of a world-class workforce. After a student graduates from OSUIT, they are entering a global workforce and when they apply for a job, we want them to be competitive for that job and once they get the job, we want them to be sustainable with their education they’ve learned from OSUIT.

And then finally the statement talks about we want our students, our graduates, to become contributing members of society. Whatever community they wind up in, whatever state, whatever region, we want them to be contributing back to their culture.

Every single employee at OSUIT I hope can see themselves somewhere within the mission statement of this institution. Every single job, every job description we have would not be offered at OSUIT if it was not important to OSUIT fulfilling its mission.