MIT Faculty Newsletter, Vol. XXIV No. 1, September/October 2011

in this issue we offer two pieces continuing the discussion of the fate ofmanufacturing in the U.S. – “Rise of the Rest, Fall of the Best?” (below) and “ALetter to President Hockfield” (page 16); “Communication,” by new Faculty ChairSam Allen (page 4); an article celebrating 10 years of the CommunicationRequirement (page 6); and “MIT Ranked 3rd in the World, 5th in the U.S.?” (page 17).

MITFacultyNewsletter

Vol. XXIV No. 1September/October 2011

http://web.mit.edu/fnl

MassachusettsInstitute ofTechnology

continued on page 10

Putting the GenieBack in the Bottle:MIT Faculty andNuclear Disarmament

EditorialPolitical ClimateChange ThreatensScientific Endeavors

On May 4 of this year, the MIT FacultyNewsletter, the Technology and CultureForum at MIT, the Program in Science,Technology and Society, and the MITPhysics Department sponsored a forumentitled: “Putting the Genie Back in theBottle: MIT Faculty and Nuclear ArmsReduction.” Following is a transcription ofthe presentation given by Dr. Kosta Tsipis,long-time MIT Research Associate in theDepartment of Mechanical Engineering.

LET M E START WITH an anecdote thatencapsulates the debate about the utilityof nuclear weapons during the Cold War.In 1991, Mr. Gorbachev organized a hugenuclear arms control conference inMoscow and part of that was a receptionat the Kremlin. Everybody who wasanybody was there: Mr. Gorbachev, JerryWiesner (the science advisor to Kennedy,

continued on page 3

Franklin Auto FactorySyracuse, NY 1913

FOLLOWI NG A SU M M E R OF record-breaking heat and devastating storms,from tornadoes to hurricanes, students,faculty, and staff have returned to the rel-atively safe haven of the academic semes-ter. Whereas the summer weather mayhave represented the reality of climatechange, the summer was also replete withthe reality of American political climatechange – the rise of the right wing of theTea Party, the Republican elevation of thefederal deficit as the defining feature ofthe U.S. economy, rather than its produc-tive components; the emerging budgetarythreats to Social Security, Medicaid,research, and education.

Congressional unwillingness to investin the U.S. economy and eagerness to cutsocial support programs does not bodewell for millions of people out of work,with the young particularly at risk. The

Kosta Tsipis Alice Amsden

Ed. Note: The following article continuesthe discussion initiated by Pres. Hockfieldin her August 29 New York Times Op-Ed,“Manufacturing a Recovery.”

M I T I S G E A R I N G U P to attack thecountry’s serious manufacturingproblem: manufacturing accounts for astagnant share of GDP, less than 15%(although manufacturing output isgrowing absolutely), and a persistentdeclining share of total employment (seegraph, page 14). This comes at a timewhen the prices of world manufacturedexports are rising much more slowly(30%) than the prices of fuels and metals(almost 300% each), which may divertinvestors’ attention towards non-manu-facturing activity and raise manufactur-ing costs. It is also happening when theinvestments in learning of the post-World

Rise of the Rest, Fall of the Best?

continued on page 14

Vol. XXIV No. 1 September/October 2011

Alice AmsdenUrban Studies & Planning

Robert BerwickElectrical Engineering & Computer Science

Markus BuehlerCivil & Environmental Engineering

Nazli ChoucriPolitical Science

Olivier de WeckAeronautics & Astronautics/Engineering Systems

Ernst G. FrankelMechanical Engineering

*Jean E. JacksonAnthropology

Gordon KaufmanManagement Science/Statistics

*Jonathan King (Chair) Biology

*Helen Elaine LeeWriting and Humanistic Studies

*Stephen J. LippardChemistry

Seth LloydMechanical Engineering

Fred MoavenzadehCivil & Environmental Engineering/Engineering Systems

James OrlinSloan School of Management

George Verghese (Secretary)Electrical Engineering & Computer Science

Rosalind H. WilliamsScience, Technology, & Society/Writing

David LewisManaging Editor

*Editorial Subcommittee for this issue

AddressMIT Faculty NewsletterBldg. 11-268Cambridge, MA 02139

Websitehttp://web.mit.edu/fnl

Telephone 617-253-7303Fax 617-253-0458E-mail [email protected]

Subscriptions$15/year on campus$25/year off campus

01 Putting the Genie Back in the Bottle: MIT Faculty and Nuclear DisarmamentKosta Tsipis

01 Rise of the Rest, Fall of the Best? Alice Amsden

Editorial 01 Political Climate Change Threatens Scientific Endeavors

From The 04 Communication Faculty Chair Samuel M. Allen

05 Teaching this fall? You should know . . .

06 Innovations in Communication Instruction at MIT: Celebrating Ten Years of the Communication Requirement (CR)Lorna Gibson, Caspar Hare, John Ochsendorf

07 College Admissions 101

08 HASS Exploration Program: Entering Phase TwoDiana Henderson

09 MISTI Expands Faculty Seed Funds andLaunches New MIT-Chile ProgramApril Julich Perez

13 Faculty FalloutBenjamin Ginsberg

15 Request for Preliminary Proposals for Innovative Curricular Projects

16 A Letter to President HockfieldErnst G. Frankel

17 MIT Ranked 3rd in the World, 5th in the U.S.? Newsletter Staff

Letters 18 Commenting on “Departmental Discussionsof Diversity and Inclusion”James H. Williams, Jr.

19 Nominate a Colleague for the MacVicar Faculty Fellows Program

M.I.T. Numbers 20 U.S. News & World ReportBest College Rankings for National Universities

contentsThe MIT FacultyNewsletterEditorial Board

Photo credit: Page 1, Wikimedia Commons

MIT Faculty NewsletterSeptember/October 2011

pursuit of a policy that represents disin-vestments in the U.S. economy and in ourpeople will soon spill over into erosion offederal support of our institutions ofhigher learning, research universities inparticular. The emergence of Presidentialcandidates critical of the teaching of evo-lution and skeptical of the scientific studyof climate is deeply disturbing. Those ofus in a position to understand the essen-tial role of knowledge, science, and tech-nology in the development of the economyand society will need to speak more clearly,more loudly, and more effectively.

The Coming YearThere are many issues of both nationaland local concern that the FacultyNewsletter hopes to address in the comingacademic year. Some of the topics dis-cussed by the FNL Editorial Board arelisted below. At the same time, we stronglyencourage our faculty colleagues to offerus additional suggestions for articlesthey’d like to see (or write!) in the FNL.Although the print version of theNewsletter only circulates to MIT person-nel, the Web version is visited by manytens of thousands of individuals through-out the nation and the world.

• Decreasing federal financial support forresearch universities – are critical pro-grams at risk?

• Issues of U.S. manufacturing: Are welosing ground to the rest of the worldand MIT’s potential role in improvingthe situation (see Prof. Amsden’s articlein this issue, page 1);

• Post-Japanese tsunami follow-up: Howhas it affected the outlook for nuclearenergy and engineering?

• How best to prepare our students for lifeafter MIT;

• The MIT-Russia research program.Who, what, where, why, and how much$?

• Implementation of plans for increasingfaculty, staff, and student diversity;

• Proliferation nationally of alternate edu-cation scenarios (for-profit colleges anduniversities, virtual learning; privatiza-tion of K-12 public schools);

• Changing aspects of MIT education –increased class sizes, loss of student ath-letic opportunities, other cost-savingmeasures;

• Loss of faculty benefits through theyears;

• Issues of faculty governance at theInstitute (see “From The Faculty Chair,”page 4).

In order to pursue these topics (andothers) in the depth they deserve, we willneed the continued assistance of you, ourfaculty colleagues. Please send us yourcomments and ideas, and don’t be sur-prised if we contact you for some furtherassistance.

• • • • • • • • • •

George Verghese New FNL Secretary

FACU LTY N EWS LETTE R E D ITOR IALBoard member and Professor of ElectricalEngineering George C. Verghese waselected Secretary of the FNL by acclima-

tion at the Editorial Board meeting heldon September 8. Verghese was elected for atwo-year term, and in addition to hisduties as Secretary he will also chair theNewsletter Nominations Committee,which is responsible for vetting candidatesfor the FNL Editorial Board.

• • • • • • • • • •

Editorial Board Elections to be Held in October

I N ACCOR DANCE WITH TH E Policiesand Procedures of the MIT FacultyNewsletter, Institute-wide elections fornew members of the FNL Editorial Boardwill be held in October. The elections willbe electronically-based, and all facultymembers and emeritus faculty will be eli-gible to vote. E-mail providing a link tothe voting site will be sent to all eligiblevoters, and we encourage all faculty andemeriti to participate in the only Institute-wide faculty election at MIT.

Editorial Subcommittee

Political Climate Changecontinued from page 1

The emergence of Presidential candidates critical of theteaching of evolution and skeptical of the scientific studyof climate is deeply disturbing. Those of us in a positionto understand the essential role of knowledge, science,and technology in the development of the economy andsociety will need to speak more clearly, more loudly, andmore effectively.

MIT Faculty NewsletterVol. XXIV No. 1

Samuel M. AllenFrom The Faculty ChairCommunication

WH E N PE OPLE F I R ST LEAR N thatone has become Chair of the Faculty, thetwo most common questions are: “Whatdoes the Chair of the Faculty do?” and“What do you hope to accomplish asChair of the Faculty?” Tom Kochan’s finalcolumn as Chair of the Faculty (“FacultyGovernance @ MIT: Strengths and FutureChallenges,” MIT Faculty Newsletter,May/June 2011) addresses the first ques-tion based on his experience during histwo-year term as Chair, so I’ll focus thiscolumn on the second one.

My overarching goal is to improve thecommunication between the MIT facultyand the administration, in particular byworking to ensure that important deci-sions are made with an accurate view ofthe faculty’s perspective.

We often say that MIT’s shared gover-nance system is a collaborative effortbetween the “faculty” and the “adminis-tration.” Who comprises these groups? Inmost ways, they are defined by theInstitute’s organizational structure. Thefaculty are represented via membershipon Standing Committees of the Faculty,which report to the Faculty PolicyCommittee (FPC). The Officers of theFaculty sit on FPC, and have variousopportunities to interact with the upperadministration (President, Provost, andChancellor). The administration includesthe five School deans, several academicdeans and vice presidents, the Chair of theFaculty, and a few others. This groupcomprises MIT’s Academic Council. TheChair of the Faculty is thus in a uniqueposition at the faculty/administrationinterface.

Two examples of faculty/administra-tion friction I observed during my one-year term as Chair-Elect of the Facultywere: the decision to increase the currentundergraduate enrollment by about 400students over a four-year period, and theadministration’s initial efforts to enterinto an agreement with Russia’s SkolkovoFoundation. Both issues caused somefaculty to feel that they had, at best, only avery limited opportunity to voice their

opinion before the administration put inmotion steps that would make significantchanges. When the faculty complainedabout not being heard, the administra-tion’s response was to review its pastactions to demonstrate that faculty hadindeed had opportunities for input. Withmore collaboration between the facultyand the administration, additional facultyinput could inform the decision-makingprocesses and strengthen the administra-tion’s subsequent actions. Movingforward with important changes could bemuch more collegial and efficient.

The mechanisms for broad facultyinput on important issues may seemlimited, but they certainly exist. Individualfaculty communicate directly to depart-ment heads, then flow via the “bottom-up” route to deans, Academic Council,and the senior administration. A second

communication channel is our system offaculty governance. The Chairs ofStanding Committees, other FacultyCommittees, and FPC members welcomeinput and feedback from the faculty.

The Faculty Officers (Associate ChairMary Fuller, Secretary Chap Lawson, andI) are another important link to theadministration, and we welcome yourcomments, suggestions, and viewpoints.This year the Officers are meeting weekly

with various committee chairs and theirstaff, to exchange information, strategize,and coordinate ongoing efforts. We canbring important issues to FPC and toAcademic Council via the Chair of theFaculty. Our ability to represent youdepends on us knowing your views.Otherwise, we are likely to fall back on ourown personal perspectives. An easy way toreach us is by e-mail to: [email protected].

Faculty have opportunities to commu-nicate their views directly to the adminis-tration through two additional routes.The first is at Institute Faculty Meetings.Each meeting concludes with an off-the-record question-and-answer session withthe President, Provost, and Chancellor; Ibelieve these Q & A sessions have beenunderutilized by the faculty. The secondroute is occasional Faculty Forums that

My overarching goal is to improve the communicationbetween the MIT faculty and the administration, inparticular by working to ensure that important decisionsare made with an accurate view of the faculty’sperspective.


are organized to inform the faculty aboutkey issues and provide a forum for facultyto give their views. One Faculty Forumwas held in February 2011 to discussMIT’s international engagement strate-gies, and to discuss a potential initiative inRussia. There was a respectable facultyturnout for this Forum (much better thanfor some monthly faculty meetings). Asecond Faculty Forum was held onSeptember 20, continuing the faculty dis-cussion begun in February, and included

the current status of MIT’s proposed col-laboration with Russia’s SkolkovoInstitute of Science and Technology.

So I hope to achieve my goal ofimproved communications throughinvigorating the communication alongexisting channels, by close coordinationbetween the Faculty Officers and FacultyCommittees, through keeping facultyinformed about important issues, and byclearly articulating faculty viewpoints tothe administration. I encourage you to do

your part by making your views known tothose of us on the “front lines.”

It’s a real honor to serve as your Chair. Istill have many, many colleagues to meetand work with, and I look forward to doingso. I welcome comments or feedback, as itis essential in being your representative inhelping to shape MIT’s future.

Samuel M. Allen is a Professor in theDepartment of Materials Science andEngineering and Faculty Chair([email protected]).

Teaching this fall? You should know …

the faculty regulates examinations and assignments for all subjects.

Check the Web at web.mit.edu/faculty/termregs.html for the complete regulations.Questions: Contact Faculty Chair Sam Allen at x3-6939 or [email protected].

No required classes, examinations, exercises, or assignments of any kind may be scheduled after the last regularly scheduled class in a subject, except for final examinations scheduled through the Schedules Office.

First and Third Week of the TermBy the end of the first week of classes, you must provide a clear and complete description of:

• required work, including the number and kinds of assignments;• an approximate schedule of tests and due dates for major projects;• an indication of whether or not there will be a final examination;• grading criteria; and• a clear presentation of your expectations about working alone or working with other students.

By the end of the third week, you must provide a precise schedule of tests and major assignments.

For all Undergraduate Subjects, Tests Outside Scheduled Class Times:• may begin no earlier than 7:30 P.M., when held in the evening;• may not be held on Monday evenings;• may not exceed two hours in length; and• must be scheduled through the Schedules Office.

No Testing During the Last Week of ClassesTests after Friday, December 9, 2011 must be scheduled in the Finals Period.

Collaboration Policy and Expectations for Academic ConductDue to varying faculty attitudes towards collaboration and diverse cultural values and priorities regarding academic honesty, students are often confused about expectations regarding permissible academic conduct. It is important to clarify, in writing, expectations regarding collaboration and academic conduct at the beginning of each semester. This could include a reference tothe MIT Academic Integrity Handbook web.mit.edu/academicintegrity/.


Lorna GibsonCaspar HareJohn Ochsendorf

Innovations in Communication Instructionat MIT: Celebrating Ten Years of theCommunication Requirement (CR)

TH I S FALL 2011 TE R M marks 10 yearssince the first entering class was subject tothe Communication Requirement (CR).Beginning with the Class of 2005, the newCR replaced a narrower writing require-ment that asked students to demonstratecompetency in writing at two levels.

Under the current CR all MIT under-graduates fulfill a CommunicationRequirement by completing a program offour communication intensive (CI) sub-jects that integrate substantial instructionand practice in writing and oral commu-nication. The CR requires that studentscomplete at least one CI subject in eachyear of undergraduate study in order toensure that their communication trainingis distributed. Two of the required CI sub-jects are chosen from a group of desig-nated humanities, arts, and social sciencessubjects (CI-H) and provide a foundationin effective writing and oral communica-tion in the context of the subject’s focus.The other two required CI subjects, desig-nated as Communication Intensive in theMajor (CI-M), are taken in the student’smajor department(s). These subjects teachthe specific forms of communicationcommon to the field’s professional and aca-demic culture. As a result of this structure,there are approximately 152 CI-H subjectsand 148 CI-M subjects spanning a diverserange of topics and formats (including lab-oratory classes, seminars, senior theses, andindependent research projects) offeredacross all five Schools of the Institute.

In celebration of this tenth anniversaryand as a part of the MIT150 events, thefaculty-led Subcommittee on theCommunication Requirement (SOCR)sponsored “Innovations in Communication

Instruction: Lessons from Ten Years of theCommunication Requirement” on April27. With the goal of collecting and sharingexamples of best practices in communica-tion instruction, SOCR invited severalCI-H and CI-M instructors to discuss thesuccesses and challenges of teaching CIsubjects at MIT. Professors Sandy

Alexander and David Jones discussedtheir CI-H subjects, while ProfessorsDavid Wallace and Haynes Miller, in col-laboration with Susan Ruff, a Lecturerfrom Writing Across the Curriculum,described their CI-M subjects. Alsojoining the conversation was NaomiStein ’10 – a former SOCR member,recent graduate of MIT, and currentgraduate student – to reflect on her expe-rience with the CR. The session con-cluded with a lively open discussionmoderated by Diana Henderson, Deanfor Curriculum and Faculty Support andProfessor of Literature. A few key themesemerged from the presentations and thediscussion:

• The students and faculty value theimportance of instruction in communi-cation skills and recognize that withoutthe CR’s structure, instruction might notbe as effective as it is.

• It can sometimes be a challenge forfaculty to balance the demands of teach-

ing the subject’s disciplinary content,writing, and oral communication. All ofthe panelists discussed various strategiesfor meeting these demands.

• Students appreciate when communica-tion assignments are well integrated inthe subject, and are better motivated tocommunicate ideas effectively when theyare interested in the topics about whichthey are writing or presenting.

• The collaborations between instructionalstaff (often from Writing Across theCurriculum) and faculty are vital to thesuccess of many CI subjects. Some panelistswished for additional support to providemore one-on-one attention for students.

The CR [Communication Requirement] requires thatstudents complete at least one CI [CommunicationIntensive] subject in each year of undergraduate study inorder to ensure that their communication training isdistributed. Two of the required CI subjects are chosenfrom a group of designated humanities, arts, and socialsciences subjects (CI-H) . . . . The other two required CIsubjects, designated as Communication Intensive in theMajor (CI-M), are taken in the student’s majordepartment(s).


• The demands of CI subjects have neces-sitated innovations in course design,pedagogies, and instruction. In particu-lar, Mathematics developed a site calledthe MIT Mathematics CI Space whichallowed instructors to share and archivematerials, develop and refine pedagogy,and make use of teaching tips. This sitehas evolved into a Web-based tool, theEducational Collaboration Space (ECS),that it is available for download atecs.mit.edu.

• Students and faculty view the revisioncomponent of CI subjects as essentialand successful, and stressed the value ofproviding feedback to students early and

often in order to allow time for them tolearn from the revision process.

SOCR has long sought to develop a “BestPractices Inventory” for teaching CI sub-jects, and to share this collection with theMIT community. The Subcommittee hopessuch a study will inform the design of newCI subjects, offer the potential to improveexisting ones, and promote conversationamong faculty members teaching CI sub-jects. This well-attended event presentedSOCR with many ideas for moving forwardwith the project. The Subcommittee hopesthis will be the first of several eventsdesigned to share faculty practices and per-spectives on teaching the CommunicationRequirement. We look forward to continu-

ing this conversation about communicationinstruction throughout the Institute. If youhave ideas or suggestions, please [email protected].

Video of the event is available throughthe CR Website at: web.mit.edu/commreq/faculty.html.Lorna Gibson is a Professor of MaterialsScience and Engineering and Co-chair of theCUP Subcommittee on the CommunicationRequirement ([email protected]);Caspar Hare is an Associate Professor ofPhilosophy and Co-chair of the CUPSubcommittee on the CommunicationRequirement ([email protected]);John Ochsendorf is an Associate Professor ofArchitecture and former Co-chair of the CUPSubcommittee on the CommunicationRequirement ([email protected]).

College Admissions 101

I F YOU HAVE A CH I LD who is apply-ing to college soon, whether to MIT orelsewhere, Dean of Admissions StuSchmill will give you a picture of thecurrent college admissions landscape andoffer some advice as you go through theprocess.

The college admissions process canseem quite opaque, especially if you

haven’t gone through it in the last fewyears. Dean Schmill will offer tips onhelping your child navigate the collegesearch process, insight as to how collegeadmissions offices make admissions deci-sions, and will also offer specific insight asto what to expect if your son or daughteris applying to MIT. Anyone with a child inhigh school will find this session useful,

regardless of his or her college plans.The session is open to all MIT faculty

and staff, and will be held on Wednesday,October 12, from 12:00 – 1:00 in Room 1-190.

Please contact Paulina Baltazar [email protected] or 617-258-5514 toregister or with questions.


Diana HendersonHASS Exploration Program: Entering Phase Two

A call to actionF O L LOW I N G L A S T S P R I N G ’ Sinterim report from the Subcommittee onthe Humanities, Arts, and Social SciencesRequirement (SHR), the HASSExploration Program (formerly called theFirst Year Focus Program) enters itssecond phase: we are looking to expandthe roster of these exciting foundationalsubjects. If we continue to build on earlysuccesses, the HEX subjects – as, in theMIT tradition of distinctive acronyms,SHR is now dubbing them – have thepotential to play a crucial part within theHASS requirement.

Working towards that goal, SHR(staffed by members of the Office ofFaculty Support) is seeking existing sub-jects that fit HEX program parameters aswell as soliciting interested faculty todesign and teach new subjects.Advantages of being part of the HEXprogram include the opportunity toexplore topics from multiple perspectivesalong with colleagues, to become morefamiliar with others’ pedagogical tech-niques and strategies, and to share anddevelop new research ideas. Instructors inthe SHR-recommended program can alsotake the occasion to build relationshipswith fellow faculty in other departmentsand often to teach previously unreachedstudents about their area of expertise.

A bit of contextIn 2006, the Task Force on theUndergraduate Educational Commonsproposed the creation of HASS subjectsgeared towards first-year students, to gen-erate a common discussion among under-graduates and familiarize them with

fundamental topics and methods.Especially in the wake of changes to theHASS Distribution requirement (i.e.,HASS-Ds being phased out and replacedby a much larger set of options), some coreeducational practices beyond thoseaddressed by the Communication

Requirement seemed worth modeling andexploring with students early in theirundergraduate training. Funding from theSHASS Fund for teaching and Learningand the d’Arbeloff Funds for Excellence inEducation was made available to designand sustain these conceptually innovativesubjects. The experiment was continued in2009, when the faculty, via the CUP,charged the Subcommittee on the HASSRequirement with the task of determiningwhether the First Year Focus Programshould be recommended to the faculty aspart of the HASS Requirement in 2014.

Under the chairmanship of ProfessorJeff Ravel, SHR has since worked to assessthe First Year Focus Program, to determinethe commonality between experimentalsubjects and whether that commonalityfilled an important educational niche. Two

years into the assessment process(AY2011), SHR renamed the program,believing the HASS Exploration Programmore accurately reflected the subjects’constituency, and established a commonset of parameters for HEX subjects:

• Introduce students to major interdisci-plinary concepts and to disciplinarymethods in the Humanities, Arts, and/orSocial Sciences.

• Encourage students to think criticallyand analytically, and expose students toambiguities inherent at complex levels ofanalysis within fields.

• Feature pedagogically innovative tech-niques, as well as extensive opportunityfor faculty/student interaction.

• Regular faculty should lecture and leaddiscussions, possibly in collaborationwith Senior Lecturers.

In the second phase of the experiment,SHR (now chaired by Professor Andrea

Advantages of being part of the HEX Program includethe opportunity to explore topics from multipleperspectives along with colleagues, to become morefamiliar with others’ pedagogical techniques andstrategies, and to share and develop new research ideas.Instructors in the SHR-recommended program can alsotake the occasion to build relationships with fellowfaculty in other departments and often to teachpreviously unreached students about their area ofexpertise.


Campbell, a veteran of the committee)will assess whether these defined parame-ters in combination provide a crucialundergraduate experience otherwiseabsent from MIT’s curricular require-ments, and whether the HEX Programshould continue as a recommended set ofsubjects or the faculty should considermaking a HEX subject a required part ofthe GIRs.

How to participateFaculty interested in developing and par-

ticipating in these thematically innovativesubjects should consider applying forfunds from the d’Arbeloff Funds forExcellence in Education (web.mit.edu/darbeloff/) and/or the SHASS Fund forTeaching and Learning (shass.mit.edu/inside/resources/internal/ teaching-learn-ing). Both programs are actively seekingto support HEX experimentation. To findout how your subject might join theHASS Exploration Program or how toapply for funding, contact yourDepartment Head, SHR, the Office of

Faculty Support ([email protected]), or theSHASS Dean’s Office.

For a listing of HEX subjects offered inAcademic Year 2012 visit: web.mit.edu/hassreq/exploration.html.

We look forward to working with moreof our talented fellow faculty!

April Julich PerezMISTI Expands Faculty Seed Funds andLaunches New MIT-Chile Program

MISTI (MIT INTERNATIONAL SCIENCEand Technology Initiatives) has increasedthe geographic range of MISTI GlobalSeed Funds, an initiative that helps MITfaculty and researchers launch early-stageinternational projects and collaborations.

MISTI Global Seed Funds consists of ageneral pool for projects in any countryand several country funds. Funding maybe used to cover travel, meeting, andworkshop costs to facilitate internationalprojects and collaboration. Applicants areencouraged to involve MIT undergradu-ate and graduate students in their proj-ects. In addition to country funds forprojects in Brazil, China, France, India,Italy, Japan, and Spain, the program alsonow includes Belgium, Chile, andGermany.

In 2010, MISTI received 112 requestsfor funding, and 46 projects were awardeda total of $903,912.

MISTI has also launched its eleventhcountry program, MIT-Chile. In additionto supporting faculty international collab-orations, MISTI country programsconnect MIT students with internshipsand research around the world. Thanks toa partnership with the Chilean Ministry ofEconomy, Development and Tourism, theMIT-Chile Program will place MITundergraduate and graduate students ininternships with Chilean companies andlabs and facilitate collaboration betweenfaculty at MIT and in Chile. The newlyestablished MIT-Chile Seed Fundincludes funding for projects with anyChilean institution, and two funds specif-

ically for projects with colleagues atPontifical Catholic University of Chileand Adolfo Ibáñez University.

MIT’s primary international program,MISTI is a pioneer in applied interna-tional studies. Each year, the programplaces nearly 600 MIT students in profes-sional internships and research with itsnetwork of leading companies, universi-ties, research institutes, and NGOs aroundthe world. MISTI currently has programsin Brazil, Chile, China, France, Germany,India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Mexico, andSpain. The program is a part of the Centerfor International Studies.

For more information, please visit ourWebsite: web.mit.edu/misti/.April Julich Perez is Associate Director, MISTI([email protected]).

Diana Henderson is Professor of Literatureand Dean for Curriculum and Faculty Supportwith the Dean of Undergraduate Education’soffice ([email protected]).


and then president of MIT), Sakharov(the physicist who developed the hydro-gen bomb for the Soviet Union), andseveral others. Gorbachev was tellingWiesner, “You know we need 3,000nuclear weapons because otherwise wewill not know whether we will haveenough to deter you.” Jerry said “Excuseme, may I ask you a question?” andGorbachev said yes. “Suppose you attackus first and you eliminate all our nuclearweapons except 50. Would you give upMoscow for that?” Gorbachev says no.“Would you give up Leningrad?” No.“Would you give up Kiev?” No. Would yougive up Vladivostok? No. “How many doesthat make?” asks Jerry. Gorbachev sheep-ishly said “ten?” “So you see,” said Jerry,“you don’t need 3,000.” Gorbachev turnsto Sakharov and says “Why are you tellingme 3,000? – Ten, that’s what you reallyneed!” Sakharov went through the usuallitany of not having enough to deter theU.S. after a U.S. first strike. And eventhough we knew that China had only twohundred ICBMs (IntercontinentalBallistic Missiles) with nuclear weapons,we also subscribed to Sakharov’s argu-ment, and kept accumulating nuclearweapons for 40 years.

So now let me go back to relating therole of MIT physicists in nuclear armscontrol over the years. What I have to sayis very personal, therefore you have to

excuse my errors and omissions for tworeasons: Number one, I came to MIT in1966, therefore I do not know what hap-pened before, which apparently was veryimportant. Number two, I’m an old man;I forget. So if I have forgotten instancesand people’s names and so on, I hopeyou’ll excuse me.

So I came here in 1966 to work withMartin Deutsch on particle physics and Iwas assigned an office in Building 26 thatwas right next to Bernie Feld’s. Bernie wasone of the four physicists who came toMIT from Los Alamos: Bernie, VickyWeisskopf, Phil Morrison, and CyrilSmith. Since Bernie’s office was right nextto mine, I would see him going back andforth to Europe and Washington and tonuclear arms control conferences, and oneday I walked in and said “Professor Feld, Iwould like really to do what you are doingin terms of nuclear arms control. Whatshould I do?” He looked up from his clut-tered desk and said, “You work.”

So I started working, analyzing thetechnical and operational aspects ofweapons like strategic cruise missiles, andMIRVs (Multiple Independently-TargetedRe-entry Vehicles) and submarine-launched long-range nuclear missiles, andinformed the public, the opinion-makersand the decision-makers, about nuclearweapons, their uses and their effects.

But long before that, members of theMIT community had already contributedsubstantively to nuclear arms control. Atthe very beginning, in 1945, Phil helpedorganize the “Federation of AtomicScientists” (which quickly became the“Federation of American Scientists”) andthen became its president for severalyears. At that time Bernie joined the Boardof the “Council for a Livable World,” aninfluential group promoting nuclear armscontrol in Washington, and also the Boardof the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists andwas later its editor for many years.

In 1963, Jerry Wiesner walked intoKennedy’s office in Washington on a rainymorning and said to him: “Do you seethat rain falling outside the White House?That rain is bringing down radioactivematerial from above ground nuclear testsand it is exposing to radioactive fallouteverybody from Nevada to New York. Youmust do something about that.” AndKennedy said, “What should we do?” andJerry said, “We have to forbid aboveground nuclear tests.” So Kennedy gottogether with the Russians and indeedabout two weeks before he was assassi-nated, signed an agreement not to haveabove ground tests anymore, which was

Putting the Genie Back in the BottleTsipis, from page 1 Bernie [Feld] was one of the four physicists who came

to MIT from Los Alamos: Bernie, Vicky Weisskopf, PhilMorrison, and Cyril Smith. Since Bernie’s office was rightnext to mine, I would see him going back and forth toEurope and Washington and to nuclear arms controlconferences, and one day I walked in and said“Professor Feld, I would like really to do what you aredoing in terms of nuclear arms control. What should Ido?” He looked up from his cluttered desk and said,“You work.”

In 1963, Jerry Wiesner walked into [President]Kennedy’s office in Washington on a rainy morning andsaid to him: “Do you see that rain falling outside theWhite House? That rain is bringing down radioactivematerial from above ground nuclear tests and it isexposing to radioactive fallout everybody from Nevada toNew York. You must do something about that.” AndKennedy said, “What should we do?” and Jerry said, “Wehave to forbid above ground nuclear tests.” So Kennedygot together with the Russians and indeed about twoweeks before he was assassinated, signed anagreement not to have above ground tests anymore,which was enormously important.


enormously important. If you look at TheNew York Times (May 3, 2011) there wasan article which showed how muchradioactivity was dropped on the UnitedStates because of our and the Russians’above ground nuclear tests. Since the1960s we never had again such bigradioactive fallout anywhere as when wewere testing weapons above ground.

So Jerry Wiesner was one of the first tocontribute to nuclear arms control fromMIT.

And then in 1964 there was an MITprofessor of political science and electricalengineering by the name of Jack Ruina,who attended an annual PugwashConference in India. Pugwash conferenceswere the ones that Russell and Einsteinstarted in 1957 to get scientists together tothink how we’re going to avoid catastro-phe, how we’re going to avoid nuclearholocaust. These conferences started inPugwash, a small village in Nova Scotia,and occur every year. In 1964 it was heldin India. There Jack Ruina presented apaper that explained why ABMs (anti-bal-listic missile systems) would be a disasterif deployed. The Russians said what doyou mean? It’s a defensive weapon! Andhe explained to them how if they developa defense against ballistic missiles, wewould think that it’s perfect, so we’ll haveto keep on building more and more ballis-tic missiles to counter it and if we do thatthen the Russians will build more andmore and more ABMs. In 1964, Jack wasthe first one to say that in public. Andeventually, of course, by ’71 or ’72 theagreement was made between the U.S.and U.S.S.R. to do away with the ABM. Webuilt a single such system in North Dakotato protect an ICBM field, but we nevermanned it. It was never in any way opera-tional.

Then in 1969, we had a big demonstra-tion here in Cambridge with MIT beingthe target – it had to do with the DraperLab. The Draper Lab was completelydevoted to the Air Force and everybodywas complaining about what the DraperLab was doing with the Air Force inVietnam. So to protest the work at Draper

Lab in that war – the students were veryactive at the time opposed to MIT dealingwith weapons and war and at that point –Henry Kendall, among other people,(Scott Paradis, Francis Low, Leo Marx,Salve Luria) started the Union ofConcerned Scientists, which played amajor role in the years to come.

Now between 1973 and 1977 I wasScience Advisor, Science Director atSIPRI, the Swedish International PeaceResearch Institute. The reason I mentionit is because there, in SIPRI, was anAmerican administrative assistant by thename of Randy Forsberg. Randy cameand said, “I’m very much interested in thiskind of thing you guys are doing so I’dreally like to come to MIT to get a PhD inarms control.” But I was in the PhysicsDepartment, and I couldn’t tell thePolitical Science Department what to do.But next year, George Rathjens, anotherprofessor in Political Science who wasdeeply involved in defense issues, went toSIPRI and convinced her to come. SoRandy came in 1978 and, at that time,completely unrelated to her, GeorgeKistiakowsky, (the legendary Harvardchemist who made the explosive lensesthat made the plutonium bomb possible),Bernie Feld, and I would meet everyWednesday afternoon to discuss what thearms control community could do aboutthis unbridled proliferation of nuclearweapons; and I don’t remember who said

it, but someone said “How about propos-ing to freeze the number of weapons inboth the U.S. and U.S.S.R. arsenals?” andwe broke up. Such ideas are a dozen aminute in academia, but they evaporateunless someone works to convert them toactions. At some point after our meeting,perhaps a few days later, I saw Randy inthe corridor and told her about the freezeidea someone had mentioned at ourmeeting. Randy picked it up and shestarted this huge Freeze movement thatculminated in half a million people inWashington and New York marching infavor of freezing the number of nuclearweapons in our arsenal. She was reallyanother very strong voice that came out ofMIT since the Freeze was clearly herdoing. We should never minimize whatRandy has contributed to nuclear armscontrol even though, unfortunately, shedied at a very young age.

Now people outside the PhysicsDepartment, Jack Ruina, GeorgeRathjens, and Bill Kaufman, even thoughthey were Pentagon aficionados, foughtagainst nuclear weapons and nuclear war,and they were also people who came fromMIT.

In addition, you had the BiologyDepartment; Maury Fox was a member ofthe Council for a Livable World and hewas very active. So was Salva Luria; so wasEthan Signer; so were David Baltimorewho came the year I did, and Jon King.

Pugwash conferences were the ones that Russell andEinstein started in 1957 to get scientists together tothink how we’re going to avoid catastrophe, how we’regoing to avoid nuclear holocaust. . . . In 1964 it was heldin India. There [MIT Professor] Jack Ruina presented apaper that explained why ABMs (anti-ballistic missilesystems) would be a disaster if deployed. The Russianssaid what do you mean? It’s a defensive weapon! And heexplained to them how if they develop a defense againstballistic missiles, we would think that it’s perfect, so we’llhave to keep on building more and more ballisticmissiles to counter it and if we do that then theRussians will build more and more and more ABMs. . . .Jack was the first one to say that in public.

continued on next page


And in the Physics Department there wereadditional people like Leo Sartori whocame and joined the group of arms con-trollers. In 1978, Herman Feshbach,Bernie Feld, and I started the “Program inScience and Technology for InternationalSecurity” (PSTIS) in the PhysicsDepartment. About the same time JackRuina and George Rathjens started asimilar program focusing on policy in theCenter for International Studies. In PSTISwe trained a lot of students in nucleararms control who are all now very promi-nent: Matt Bunn is now at Harvard’sKennedy School, managing the AtomProject; Steve Fetter is now working withJohn Holdren in the White House; JoeRomm now has a strong Internet voiceabout both nuclear weapons and globalwarming.

We published a lot of stuff; the effectsof a nuclear attack on a city, laserweapons, particle beam weapons – wepublished 11 articles in ScientificAmerican about nuclear weapons andnuclear war. But my pride and joy is thatwhen Mr. Reagan announced Star Wars in1983, I wrote an article in Playboy(!) inwhich I said that President Reagan knowslittle and understands less about physicsand the laws of nature. PSTIS publishedthe first article about anti-ballistic particlebeam weapons in 1979, saying it’s notgoing to work. Then another one in 1981saying ABM laser beam weapons couldnot work.

But anyway, an enormous amount ofwork was done at MIT: the BiologyDepartment, Physics Department, theCenter for International Studies, graduatestudents, undergraduates, post-doc scien-tists, mid-career physicists – it was really

an assembly of dedicated scientistsworking against a global threat: nuclearwar.

But then many from MIT (Feld,Rathjens, Fox, Tsipis, Bernstein, et al.)became active in the “Council for aLivable World” that was started in 1962 bySzilard, as an anti-nuclear war lobbygroup in Washington focusing onSenatorial elections. Bernie was head ofthat for many years, and then GeorgeRathjens became head. And then in addi-tion was the participation of MIT scien-tists in Pugwash. There were lots ofinfluential people in Pugwash that camefrom the MIT Political ScienceDepartment, from Science, Technologyand Society, from Physics, from Biology.George Rathjens became SecretaryGeneral of Pugwash many years ago andhe was there for 12 years. So there’s anenormous amount of nuclear armscontrol work that originated here at MITbut was conducted outside the Instituteproper.

Then in ’79, the Boston Study Groupput together “The Price of Defense,” athorough analysis of the costs of the armsrace, written mostly by MIT scientists:Randy Forsberg, Martin Moore, PhilMorrison, Paul Walker, Fred Kaplan – all

graduates or undergraduate students,some professors. And then in 1984, JackDennis and many others (Feld, Morrison,Jon King, Tsipis) produced The NuclearAlmanac; everything you wanted to knowabout nuclear weapons and their potentialuses. It is another book about nuclearweapons also from MIT.

And then in 1993, some of us thought,“Clinton is coming in, let’s go toWashington and tell him what to do.” SoPhil Morrison, Jerry Wiesner, and I wrotea little book called Beyond the LookingGlass and we went to Washington and hada press conference outlining our proposalsfor the new Administration. We wereassaulted by everybody asking how manynuclear weapons do we need, and weanswered about 500, and we were just dis-missed completely. Everybody expected usto say “zero.”

Finally at the very end, Phil and I wrotea book, Reason Enough to Hope, aboutwhat the United States should be like inthe twenty-first century. It was Jerry’s pro-posal that he, Phil, and I work on it, butwe lost him prematurely.

So this is a very brief history of whatfaculty and students did at MIT. And Ithink the most important people wereJerry, and Vicky, and Herman who saidOK, nuclear arms control is an integralpart of Physics and we’re going to keep itthat way 50 years after the origin ofnuclear weapons in Los Alamos. Thankyou.

Putting the Genie Back in the BottleTsipis, from preceding page And then in 1993, some of us thought, “Clinton is

coming in, let’s go to Washington and tell him what todo.” So Phil Morrison, Jerry Wiesner, and I wrote a littlebook called Beyond the Looking Glass, and we went toWashington and had a press conference outlining ourproposals for the new Administration. We were assaultedby everybody asking how many nuclear weapons do weneed, and we answered about 500, and we were justdismissed completely. Everybody expected us to say“zero.”

But anyway, an enormous amount of work was done atMIT: the Biology Department, Physics Department, theCenter of International Studies, graduate students,undergraduates, post-doc scientists, mid-careerphysicists – it was really an assembly of dedicatedscientists working against a global threat: nuclear war.

Kosta Tsipis is a Research Associate in theDepartment of Mechancial Engineering([email protected]).


Benjamin GinsbergFaculty Fallout

Administrators have taken over U.S. universities, andthey’re steering institutions of higher learning away fromthe goal of serving as beacons of knowledge.

B. Ginsberg, “Faculty Fallout,” TheScientist, 25(8):70, 2011. Reprinted withpermission of The Scientist LLC ©2011.

D U R I NG MY N EAR LY FIVE decades inacademia, the character of the universityhas changed, and not entirely for thebetter. As recently as the 1970s, America’suniversities were heavily influenced, if notcompletely driven, by faculty ideas andconcerns. Today, institutions of highereducation are mainly controlled byadministrators and staffers who make therules and increasingly set the priorities ofacademic life.

A recent study showed that between1997 and 2007, the number of adminis-trative and support personnel perhundred students increased dramaticallyat most schools – 103 percent at WilliamsCollege; 111 percent at Johns Hopkins;325 percent at Wake Forest University;and 351 percent at Yeshiva University, tocite some noteworthy examples. My book,The Fall of the Faculty, exposes this trou-bling reality.

The ongoing transfer of power fromprofessors to administrators, who oftenlack academic credentials, has importantimplications for curricular and researchagendas. On the surface, faculty membersand administrators seem to share a generalunderstanding of the university and itsplace in society. If asked to characterize the“mission” of the university, both groupsusually agree with the idea that the univer-sity is an institution that produces and dis-seminates knowledge through its teaching,research, and public outreach efforts.

This similarity, however, is deceptive.To faculty members, scholarship andteaching are the lifeblood of academic life,and the university is an instrument neces-sary to achieve those ends. But to admin-istrators, the faculty’s research andteaching activities are, first and foremost,means of generating revenues, not ends inthemselves.

These differing orientations giveadministrators and professors divergentviews of teaching and research activities.Administrators have what might be called ademand-side view of the curriculum. Theybelieve that a college curriculum should beheavily influenced, if not completely gov-erned, by the interests and preferences ofpotential customers – the students, parents,and others who pay the bills.

The faculty, on the other hand, viewsteaching as an end more than a means,leading them to take what might be calleda supply-side view of the curriculum.Professors are more concerned withteaching topics they consider importantthan with placating students and othercampus constituencies.

With regard to research, academicstend to take the view that ideas and dis-coveries should be broadly disseminatedthrough peer-reviewed publications andpresentations at professional meetings.Some professors, to be sure, are interestedin the possibility of profiting from theirdiscoveries. But most professors are moreconcerned with the process of discoveryand the professional recognition thatcomes from developing new ideas in thelaboratory, and they see any pecuniary

gain to themselves as incidental to theirmain goals.

University administrators, on theother hand, view faculty research mainlyas a source of revenue for the institution.They are not particularly entranced by itsintellectual merits, except when commis-sioning puff pieces for the alumni maga-zine. In recent years, through theintroduction of technology transferoffices, administrators have taken chargeof knowledge dissemination. To adminis-trators, scientific discoveries are primarilysources of hundreds of millions of dollarsin potential overhead fees and licensingfees.

What is the ultimate purpose of theseadministrative efforts? Administrators saytheir goal is to financially strengthen theirinstitutions so they may better pursuetheir teaching and research missions. If,however, we focus on what administratorsdo, rather than what they say, a differentpicture emerges. What administrators dowith a good many tuition and researchdollars is reward themselves and expandtheir own ranks. At most schools, evenmid-level administrators are now paidmore than all but the most senior profes-sors in the professional schools, and con-siderably more than professors in the artsand sciences. And new deans are croppingup everywhere.

Benjamin Ginsberg is the David BernsteinProfessor of Political Science, founding directorof the Washington Center for the Study ofAmerican Government, and Chair of the Centerfor Advanced Governmental Studies at JohnsHopkins University ([email protected]).


War II de-colonized generations arehandsomely paying off. This intensifiesglobal competition, not least of all on anunderground playing field paved withsubterfuges to circumvent the liberalintent of World Trade Organization law.In this demi-monde an accurate accountof real government policies to promotemanufactures is hard to grasp.

MIT has an excellent teacher to guide itin this endeavor – a past community-wideattack on manufacturing problems thatresulted in a landmark study in 1989,“Made in America,” published by the MITCommission on Industrial Productivity.This earlier Commission focused on high-tech, clusters, and outsourcing. As shownin the graph, after the study’s publication,the share of manufacturing in GDP fellbriefly and then stabilized, probably forserendipitous reasons (Toyota and otherJapanese giants began investing inAmerican manufacturing in 1990); possi-bly also reflecting the short but very wide-spread national discussion of manufac-turing which MIT stimulated, but alsoreflected. This second round follows thefirst under a new MIT committee for thetwenty-first century, Production in theInnovation Economy (PIE), with many ofthe same experienced corps of people asthe old Commission, and an even greateremphasis, as its name suggests, on fightingfor competitiveness with frontier innova-tions.

This is a very American way to look atan American problem, which seemsappropriate enough, but does this waygain enough insight into the countries thatare our new competitors, the BRICs(Brazil, Russia, India, and China) andother emerging economies – not Germanyand Japan, against which we’ve alreadylearned to compete, of necessity, withstate-of-the-art technologies? These newcountries’ huge trade surplus with us islargely in “mid-tech,” not high-tech, andthe mid-tech component would be evenlarger if the electronics sector, classified ashigh-tech, had its unskilled assembly oper-

ations subtracted (Malaysia, a countrywith relatively weak technological capabil-ities, has an astounding 67% of its exportsin high-tech due to this accounting error).Mid-tech industries such as steel, ship-

building, and semiconductors are maturebut demand is still growing, and new tech-nologies – some highly advanced – arebeing borrowed from other industries orgenerated internally to cut costs andimprove product design, not necessarily tofoster new technological frontiers.

If the U.S. is serious about raisingmanufacturing employment and output,it has to run on two tracks: one runs fromthe manufacturing problem to advancedtechnologies as solutions, and the otherruns from the manufacturing problem tomid-tech industries, many of which arehigh-wage, large-scale employers.Fortune’s 500 largest international firms(in terms of revenues) in 2008 ranked twoTaiwanese electronics firms as 109th (HonHai) and 342nd (Quanta Computer)

while Google ranked 423rd and Amazonranked 485th (lean and mean). If the net-works connected with these firms werefactored in, the size disparity might beeven larger. This is where the jobs are.

Besides running on the high-techtrack, PIE must ensconce itself evendeeper in the culture of mid-tech to getinto the minds and motivations of theworld’s leading manufacturers. Only thencan PIE also anticipate revolutionarytechnologies that emerge from mid-techsectors, such as high-speed rail, a fast-growth industry with dense linkages toother sectors that have left the U.S., oncethe railroad king, woefully behind.

High-tech is also emerging out of mid-tech in the field of energy, and just asDetroit withered under competition fromthe Far East’s manufacturing corridor,Houston may follow under competitionfrom the Middle East’s oil fields. OPECmembers now regard themselves as “greenenergy suppliers;” they use oil and petro-

Rise of the Rest, Fall of the Best?Amsden, from page 1

Source: BLS and BEA

If the U.S. is serious about raising manufacturingemployment and output, it has to run on two tracks: oneruns from the manufacturing problem to advancedtechnologies as solutions, and the other runs from themanufacturing problem to mid-tech industries, many ofwhich are high-wage, large-scale employers.


chemicals as cash cows to finance R&D inclean technologies such as wind, solar,hydro, and nuclear power. The U.S. haslong been the leader in the oil, gas, andpetrochemical business; Japan neverbecame especially competitive in thisfield. But emerging economies are movingfast, favored by the fact that their best andbrightest chemical engineering graduateswant to work for national oil companies,because they invest heavily in R&D,whereas this is not the case with Americangraduates. Will PIE get its hands dirtyexamining the energy, mining, and miner-als industries, including rare earth metals(the U.S. has only one company,Molycorp, active in this field)? Thesesectors now bear heavily on the cost-effec-tiveness of manufacturing, and can onlyattract the best graduates by investing inknowledge and the environment.

The shipbuilding industry is nowsometimes classified as high-tech due tohaving achieved record rates of speed andsafety in carrying hazardous cargoes.Korea is the world’s largest shipbuilder,employing upwards of 10,000 workers,having aced out Japan (but quivering atthe rise of China). It began life in the1960s, at the same time as the Brazilianshipbuilding industry, which failed. NowBrazil is trying to restart shipbuilding;Brasilia has ordered its state-owned oilcompany, Petrobras (ranked 34th on

Fortune’s 500) to source its oil tankersfrom local shipyards. Is it possible for theU.S. to start a shipbuilding industry of itsown?

The answer depends on the distinctionbetween “made by Americans” and “made

in America” – by foreign-owned companiesfrom the de-colonized world. PIE has abun-dant economic expertise on board to figureout the best incentive system to rebuildAmerican manufacturing. But this incen-tive system must leverage the outwardforeign direct investments that emergingeconomies are now undertaking – account-ing for one-quarter to one-third of totalworld outward Federal Direct Investment(FDI). India invests in China (China isIndia’s largest export market) and Chinaallies with Korea to invest in Indonesia;Taiwan now invests more overseas thanforeign firms invest in Taiwan. The U.S.must rejuvenate its manufacturing sector

by attracting the world’s great manufactur-ers to invest in the U.S. Developed countriesaccount for 95% of total FDI in the U.S., butthe share of manufacturing in their invest-ments is fast declining.

This may all seem a far distance from

what MIT is good at, but PIE is the perfectorganization to look carefully around theInstitute, to find the many faculty withexpertise in manufacturing technologies,both product and process, suitable formid-tech. Unless it casts its net widely, PIEwill be frozen in the late 1980s, uncom-prehending of the “rise of the rest.” Unlike1989, it is no longer the case that manu-facturing and outward FDI are under-taken almost exclusively by the U.S.,Europe, and Japan, in which the mostadvanced technologies stole the show.

The U.S. has long been the leader in the oil, gas, andpetrochemical business; Japan never became especiallycompetitive in this field. But emerging economies aremoving fast, favored by the fact that their best andbrightest chemical engineering graduates want to workfor national oil companies, because they invest heavily inR&D, whereas this is not the case with Americangraduates.

Alice Amsden is a Professor of PoliticalEconomy in the Department of Urban Studiesand Planning ([email protected]).

Request for Preliminary Proposals forInnovative Curricular Projects

The Alex and Brit d’Arbeloff Fund for Excellence in Education

TH E OFFICE OF FACU LTY SU PPORTseeks preliminary proposals for faculty-led projects to enhance the educationalexperience of MIT undergraduates,preferably those that affect large numbers

of students or transcend specific depart-mental curricula.

For guidelines and more information,visit web.mit.edu/darbeloff/ or contact

the Office of Faculty Support at x3-6776or [email protected].

Preliminary proposals with an estimatedbudget are due by Friday, October 14.


Ernst G. FrankelA Letter to President Hockfield

Susan HockfieldPresident of MIT77 Massachusetts AvenueCambridge, MA 02139

Dear Dr. Hockfield,I R EAD YOU R OP-E D in The New

York Times on the impact of the loss ofmanufacturing on the U.S. economy withgreat interest [“Manufacturing aRecovery,” August 29, 2011].

While we lost much of our manufac-turing to countries like China because oflower labor costs, we must recognize thatother large manufacturing countries, suchas Germany, Japan, and now also SouthKorea, continue to maintain a healthymanufacturing base though their laborcosts are at least as high as ours, particu-larly in Japan and Germany. The reasonsare therefore largely in the fact that we donot have an adequate, properly trained,skilled labor force, nor do we, like otherlarge manufacturing nations, maintain agood life-long retraining program.

For example, when a former student andrenowned Greek shipbuilder, SotirisEmmanuel, tried to open the QuincyShipyard, we found that the major reasonpreventing a successful reopening was thatthe only skilled labor force ready to work inthe yard were older workers who had retiredfrom the Bethlehem/General Dynamicsyard 10-20 years earlier. We could not findyoung trained workers. While much of theoutsourcing of manufacturing was done byU.S. companies such as GE and othersbecause of lower costs abroad in the past,increasingly, as our experience with QuincyShipyard showed, the reason is lack of avail-ability of trained, skilled, American labor.

One reason for this appears to be theill-conceived government policy of“college for all” which tries to encourageall high school graduates to continue witha four-year college education, whetherthey are qualified for college or not. As aresult, we now have nearly 83% of highschool graduates continuing their educa-tion in a college (often a for-profitcollege). Most of these college studentshave no idea why they are in college orwhat use they expect to make of what theylearn. At the same time, enrollment intrade schools, community colleges, etc.,has dropped. Not only did this generate asubprime student loan crisis which willsoon parallel the subprime mortgagecrisis, as an increasing percentage ofcollege students fail to find jobs in theirfield and default on their loans, but ourmanufacturing finds fewer and fewerqualified workers.

Another result of this is that oureconomy suffers from the fact that theaverage age at which Americans join theworkforce has increased from less than 19years to well over 22 years, depriving oureconomy of three years’ of output andcontributions to social programs such asSocial Security and health care. In fact, asimple calculation shows that if we hadpeople join the workforce on average atage 19, as assumed when the SocialSecurity program was established, theprogram would be financially sound andself-sufficient.

Another important issue that affectsour manufacturing competitiveness isremuneration. I worked in Japan forMitsui & Company for an extendedperiod and found that not only were all

workers affected by changes in technologyinvolved in the technology change deci-sions – unlike the U.S. where such deci-sions were and are imposed from above –but remuneration was and is also moreegalitarian, with the highest paid personat Mitsui limited to 50 times the totalremuneration of an average technicalworker. By comparison, many U.S. manu-facturers are mimicking financial servicecompanies by paying their executivesobscene salaries and bonuses which bearno relation to their actual contributions.

Finally, I should mention that in othercountries, such as Germany and Japan,economic planning not only includesindustrial but also educational planning,which implies that future skills and pro-fessional needs are predicted and train-ing/educational programs, support, etc.,adjusted to assure availability of therequired trained/educated workforce.This, as a result, not only assures greateremployment, but also a greater balancebetween supply and demand. While manyof our politicians may object to such plan-ning, I feel that unless we start to move inthis direction we will not only continue tolose more manufacturing but also jobs,and we will continue our economicdecline.

I am at your disposal to supply furtherdetails on this subject which I believe is ofenormous importance for the revival ofthe American economy.

With best regards and wishes,

Ernst G. FrankelPhD, DBA, MBAProfessor Emeritus


Newsletter StaffMIT Ranked 3rd in the World, 5th in the U.S.?

I N A SALI E NT EXAM PLE of just howconfusing college ranking systems can be,MIT was recently ranked third in the QSWorld Rankings (behind the University ofCambridge [U.K.] and HarvardUniversity). But in the latest U.S. News &World Report undergraduate national uni-versities rankings, announced in the mag-azine’s “America’s Best Colleges” issuepublished in late August, the Institute wastied for fifth, behind Harvard andPrinceton (tied for first), followed by Yaleand Columbia. In an unusual occurrence,there were actually five schools tied for fifth:Caltech, Stanford, the University of Chicago,and the University of Pennsylvania allreceived the same score as MIT.

The Institute maintained its place asthe number one undergraduate engineer-ing school in the country, and alsoremained second to the University ofPennsylvania in the undergraduate busi-ness school category.

Whereas the U.S. News & World Reportrankings are the most well known andaccepted in the United States, in additionto the QS World Rankings there are severalother national and international rankingagencies. These include Princeton Review,Kiplinger, the Times Higher Education,among others.

It is important to note that each differ-ent ranking system uses both its ownmetrics, and focuses on different aspectsof education. For example, QS WorldRankings puts great emphasis on the pro-duction by faculty and employment of

students (output) whereas U.S. News is farmore concerned with input to students.

Categories (and weights) used by QSWorld Rankings include:

• Academic Reputation (40%)• Employer Reputation (10%)• Citations per Faculty (20%)• Faculty/Student Ratio (20%)• Proportion of International Students

(5%)• Proportion of International Faculty

(5%)

Categories (and weights) used by U.S.News to judge colleges include:

• Undergraduate academic reputation(22.5%)

• Graduation and retention rates(20%)

• Faculty resources (20%)• Student selectivity (15%)• Financial resources (10%)• Alumni giving (5%)• Graduation rate performance*

(7.5%)*The difference between actual and pre-dicted graduation rates.

U.S. News also rated individual engineer-ing and business departments. Several ofthe Institute’s programs in these areaswere ranked in the top 10. They are:

Engineering• Aerospace/Aeronautical/

Astronomical (1st)

• Biomedical/Biomedical Engineering(4th)

• Chemical Engineering (1st)• Civil Engineering (8th)• Computer Engineering (1st)• Electrical/Electronic/

Communications (1st)• Environmental/Environmental

Health (7th) [tied with Michigan]• Materials (1st)• Mechanical Engineering (1st)

Business• Entrepreneurship (5th)• Finance (3rd)• Management (9th)• Management Information Systems

(1st)• Productions/Operations

Management (1st)• Quantitative Analysis (1st)• Supply Chain (2nd)

Data was taken from the 2012 editionof the U.S. News & World Report’s“America’s Best Colleges.”

Perhaps the most important thing tokeep in mind, however, is that regardlessof the ranking system or metrics, MITtends to do very well indeed!

See “MIT Numbers” (back page) for thetop 10 rated schools by U.S. News over thelast decade.


To The Faculty Newsletter:

“THE MIT DEPARTMENT OF PHYSICSis committed to increasing the diversity ofits faculty and student populations,”Professor Edmund W. Bertschinger writesin the March/April 2011 MIT FacultyNewsletter (FNL) [“DepartmentalDiscussions of Diversity and Inclusion”].He then offers some analyses of MIT’s“racial climate,” and reports on his role in“leading change” in diversity and inclu-sion, mentioning the “lower probability”of success by black (and other “underrep-resented”) junior faculty, as well asmaking inferences about the unspokenthoughts of black (and other “underrepre-sented”) students about their race.

The author addresses several issuesconcerning racial diversity and inclusionwithin MIT’s Department of Physics andpresents a how-to manual of sorts.Bertschinger describes his efforts to seeksolutions through monthly cateredlunches whose purpose is to discuss theseissues. He describes ways to make discus-sions “fun and easy to reveal hidden bias.”In the only unambiguous example that Iam able to cull from his article,Bertschinger warns that “A sympatheticremark like ‘It’s okay to get a B’” to a blackstudent “can be interpreted as ‘You don’tthink I’m capable of earning an A becauseof my race.’” Now, when embedded in theappropriate constraints of discourse, “It’sokay to get a B” is an innocuous sentence.However, in the absence of context, as pre-sented by the author, such a remark isdeeply problematic. In my opinion, thisexample actually has nothing to do withrace. If we substitute “female” for “black”and “gender” for “race” the issue is clear.Bertschinger’s article leads me to questionthe merit of writing about black people inthis fashion.

At MIT we have been fortunate to havehad numerous faculty and administrators

who have positively contributed to diver-sity. As a student and junior facultymember, I had fantastic mentors and rolemodels. I know other individuals who arecurrently proactive around these issues,some of whom I have personally visited toacknowledge and express gratitude fortheir support of black, as well as other,students. Because of MIT’s PhysicsDepartment’s world-class status, it iscapable of doing great good. I know andrespect several faculty colleagues in thatdepartment. But I question the value ofBertschinger’s approach and am saddenedby his language in the article.

Although many black students arewithdrawing from Institute and depart-mental extracurricular activities, they areconcurrently and increasingly perceivingthemselves as members of a post-racialsociety. Go figure: There appears to be aninconsistency here, but crosscurrents andsubtleties abound in racial matters, all themore reason they should not be treatedcallously and especially not with overtonesof a master-chattel history. [I have decidedto respect the preferences of our black stu-dents as choices of their journey, just as myparents’ generation chose to defer to mygeneration’s lie-ins, love-ins, and sit-ins.My most persistent advice to them is thatthey should (1) not draw a line betweenwork and fun (2) set high and independ-ent standards of thought and achievementfor themselves (3) exercise, at least, achild’s portion of common sense in theirdaily lives and (4) habitually use the wordsplease and thank you. I rarely discussmatters of race with black students, andonly if they ask me about the elephants inour backpacks. Black students at MIT arelugging around a lot of stuff: they areensnared within the mottled and evolvingsociopolitical tensions of affirmativeaction, extant – internal and external –prejudices, an ill temper of black angst andanger, and the ideals of equality.]

As I have written in previous FNL arti-cles, the psychological damage to blackstudents around these issues at MIT canextend beyond their graduation, oftenwell into their careers. But some of themare reluctant to complain for fear of beinglabeled as unappreciative. An article thatsuggests that monthly catered luncheonswhere blacks are discussed in ways that are“fun and easy to reveal hidden bias”benefit black students needs to providemore evidence than simply asserting suchbenefits. Although, according to theauthor, “attendees regularly tell me howmuch they enjoy and look forward tothese lunchtime discussions,” we need toknow that the information and interac-tions actually produce results, rather thansimply allow faculty to feel less guilt aboutcontinued structural bigotry – at all levels– at MIT.

Referring to his lunch attendees,Bertschinger writes that “Everyone wasconcerned that underrepresented minor-ity faculty members were being promotedwith lower probability…,” and describeddiscussions of the “tension at MIT” con-cerning “diversity and inclusion versusexcellence.” But I worry that setting up anopposition of “diversity versus excellence”has the potential to create a toxic environ-ment that would harm the careers of blackjunior faculty. In an MIT culture based ondiversity versus excellence, what addedobstacles will black junior faculty –indeed, senior black faculty too – confrontwhen they solicit prospective researchsponsors, teach their students, recruitgraduate students, chat with MIT col-leagues, communicate with colleaguesfrom other universities, or interact withtheir families, friends, golfing buddies…?It would be a shame if readers ofBertschinger’s article were to concludethat everything that any black facultymember accomplishes at MIT is evaluatedusing a diversity-versus-excellence scale.

lettersCommenting on “Departmental Discussions of Diversity and Inclusion”


Indeed, black faculty have every reason tofeel insulted. I do not believe that thisarticle represents the kind of discourse weshould be engaging in at MIT. For whatit’s worth, I offer one modest near-termsolution to the MIT Physics Department’sacknowledged problems of diversity andinclusion.

Black Undergraduates in Physics:The Physics Department does notadmit MIT undergraduates; they areadmitted by the Institute. Undergraduateschoose their course of study, and conse-quently determine the diversity withineach department. Thus, MIT’s Physicsfaculty should simply treat their fewblack undergraduate majors precisely thesame as they treat any (other) under-graduate.

Black Graduate Students in Physics:The Physics Department barely has anyblack graduate students. Thus, MIT’sPhysics faculty should simply admit andtreat their occasional (if any) black gradu-ate student(s) precisely the same as theytreat any (other) graduate student.

Black Faculty in Physics: The PhysicsDepartment has no black faculty.

There are authentic concerns regard-ing diversity and inclusion at MIT; aserious one being suggestions that blackstudents and faculty don’t belong hereand would not be here except for policieslike affirmative action.

James H. Williams, Jr.ProfessorDepartment of Mechanical Engineering

Twenty (20) years ago: Throughout April1991, Professor James H. Williams, Jr.conducted a weekly fasting sit-in at theoffices of the MIT president and provost.At that time, he was the only native-bornblack American faculty member in thecombined schools of engineering andscience. The primary, though frequentlymischaracterized, purpose of that protestwas to highlight several of the themesabout black students discussed in thisarticle.

Nominate a Colleague for the MacVicar Faculty Fellows Program

TH E MACVICAR FACU LTY FE LLOWSProgram recognizes MIT faculty who havemade exemplary and sustained contribu-tions to the teaching and education ofundergraduates at the Institute. Togetherthe Fellows form a small academy of schol-ars committed to exceptional instruction

and innovation in education.MacVicar Faculty Fellows are selected

through a competitive nominationprocess, appointed for 10-year terms, andreceive $10,000 per year of discretionaryfunds for educational activities, research,travel, and other scholarly expenses.

For more information and the nomi-nation process, visit web.mit.edu/macvicar/ or contact the Office of FacultySupport at x3-6776 or [email protected].

Nominations are due on Monday,November 14.

M.I.T. NumbersU.S. News & World ReportBest College Rankings for National Universities, 2003-2012


Documents

MIT Faculty Newsletter, Vol. XXIV No. 1, September/October 2011