Welcome to Princeton University. We are a community that values learning. Our immodest but heartfelt goal is to be a world-class research university with a distinctive commitment to teaching at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. We regard these two pursuits as mutually reinforcing, a belief that is exemplified by our defining commitments. For example, we expect all of our undergraduate students to complete a major independent research project, and we insist that all of our faculty members – from newly minted assistant professors to internationally renowned Nobel Laureates – engage fully with our teaching mission.

The resulting University is a special and varied place. Princeton is home to world-class research laboratories, wondrous libraries, inspiring art, graceful architecture and charming landscapes. But at Princeton's core are the devoted and talented students, alumni, faculty, staff and friends who care about this University like no other. They form an inclusive community centered on this campus but extending throughout the nation and around the globe, where its members strive to live up to the University's informal motto: to be "in the nation's service and the service of humanity."

I hope that this website will help you to understand the spirit that animates this University, and I hope that you will find answers to at least some of the questions that brought you here. But I hope most of all that – if you are not already on our campus – you will soon have occasion to visit us here at the place we call "Old Nassau," whether to renew old acquaintances or to create new ones.

With best wishes,
Christopher L. Eisgruber '83