Learning is the fundamental goal of Rai Foundation. It is the activity that binds the community together, and our success in fostering it is what determines our ultimate value to the nation and the world. Learning includes discovering new truths about nature, creating technologies, and, above all, developing the habits of mind that ensure a continuing ability to acquire new ideas and perspectives.

This is not a static endeavor. Today, in fact, much rethinking and reshaping of our educational enterprise is called for. The issue is not only what our students learn, but also how they learn it. Faculty should explore educational uses of new information technologies, reworking curricula to reflect the changing workplace, and making fundamental changes in professional education. We must also seek a new balance between learning as an individual activity and as a group endeavor.

One thing will not change: Rai Foundation remains a place where students work very hard and learn a lot within a disciplined context. The Rai Foundation education will differ in many respects from that of today's universities. I ask you all to help further this quiet revolution in progress.

Educational innovation will always be a hallmark of Rai Foundation. We have far too long now been learning history, living in history. Our bent of mind has been too much on past & theory too little on practically & application. We have to change.

We have to create a large-scale rigorous scientific base for the teaching and practice of engineering. We are creating a mode of education. Intensive exposure to cutting-edge technologies and establishes a new paradigm for a type of education that both serves and draws from industry.

Today, change, complexity, and globalization define the world our students will enter. Work is being organized in new ways, organizations are linked worldwide by new technologies, and societal priorities are changing. Our graduates must have the skills and f lexibility to thrive in this fast-evolving environment. We at Rai Foundation will be moving on many fronts to make sure that you do too.

The exciting advances of the last forty years in the life sciences & engineering have caught the imagination of many students. Our SEAS, C2ASE & IDEA colleges have seen a wave of interest in biology, biological chemistry, biotechnology, biomedical engineering, and the neural sciences, electronics & telecommunication & architecture will teach these subjects with traditional depth and intensity, emphasizing innovative laboratory experience as well as theory.

Similarly, many students have developed a concern with environmental science, technology, and policy. We are teaching students to approach the critical issues of environmental quality and sustainable development with rigor and objectivity and in an appropriately interdisciplinary fashion.

The Media Department in CMAC & SPACE have new undergraduate in media arts and sciences. This field explores the uses of emerging electronic media. Applications range from personalized news, to computer-mediated group work, to the use of multimedia technologies in areas from the arts to air traffic safety. Our performing arts, courses will be the first of its kind to offer degrees in Theater, Drama, Acting, Music, Painting, and Sculpture etc.

As our students observe the globalization of industry and contemplate the future, many have developed a strong interest in global education. CLASS, CHAT, SOFT offers world-class innovative courses.

The Management Schools SAMS & SEMS have conducted intensive studies of the interests of students and the views and needs of industry. Out of that exercise has come a redesign of the school's and curriculum, which now features "tracks" allowing students to specialize in areas such as financial engineering and entrepreneurial studies.

The schools have an educational agenda that combines a greater emphasis on practice- oriented education with increased teamwork. Involved as well are realistic design experiences, an enhanced focus on process and manufacturing, and increased attention to economic and societal concerns.

Today we are in the new technological realm, thanks to the development of the World Wide Web, high-resolution computer graphics, digital wireless communications, and similar innovations. These advances are already exerting a major influence on education.

Collectively we all have to ensure that the process of creative renewal can continue to thrive here. I hope that you will all join this vital effort. Rai Foundation has a special responsibility to sustain its stated role as an innovative educational leader. Together, we can meet that responsibility.

VINAY RAI