in this issue we offer congratulations to the Class of 2017 (Editorial,below); the final From The Faculty Chair from outgoing Chair Krishna Rajagopal(page 4); announcement of the incoming Chair of the Faculty Susan Silbey (page 8); “Some Musings on Retirement After 40 Years at MIT” (page 9); and a report from MIT’s Technology Licensing Office (page 21).

MITFacultyNewsletter

Vol. XXIX No. 5May/June 2017

http://web.mit.edu/fnl

MassachusettsInstitute ofTechnology

continued on page 16

A Primer on IndirectCosts and Why TheyAre Important to MIT

Highlights fromMIT’s StudentQuality of LifeSurvey

continued on page 10

FELICITATIONS TO YOU THE GRADUATES

– and to your families! We join with the thousands of familymembers and friends gathered forCommencement, in sharing the excite-ment of your graduation. MIT’s facultyvalue and take pride in your accomplish-ments as MIT’s class of 2017. Teachingand mentoring you has been a source ofdeep satisfaction, as has the learning andresearch we have done with you. Now, asyou take the next steps along career andlife paths, your contributions to yourcommunities and to society will beamong the most gratifying rewards of ouracademic efforts. We hope you will look back on youryears at the Institute with the satisfactionthat your presence and involvement con-tributed to enhancing the MIT environ-ment and experience for the classes that

EditorialA Letter to the Classof 2017; The Marchfor Science

continued on page 3

Boston March for Science

Institutional Research

D ID YOU KNOW THAT MIT subsidizesevery research grant that it receives, evenwhen the grant includes full overheadcosts? The reason isn’t because MIT has abloated administrative bureaucracy – as Iwill explain we’re actually organization-ally lean. It’s because MIT is a research-intensive institution, and conductingresearch is expensive. Recent discussions in Washingtonabout cutting the federal science budgetby reducing indirect cost recoveryshould be deeply worrisome to all of us.Given the seriousness of the threat, Ithought it would be beneficial for me toexplain not only why these costs areimportant to MIT, but more impor-tantly, how they benefit every researchprogram at the Institute, includingyours.

Maria T. Zuber

IN FEBRUARY 2017, Dean for StudentLife Suzy Nelson invited all enrolled stu-dents to provide feedback on their MITexperience by responding to an on-linesurvey. Designed with input from stu-dents, faculty, and staff, the surveycovered a wide range of topics, includingsatisfaction with academic and non-acad-emic experiences; health and wellness;campus climate; and usage of studentresources. By consulting a diverse group of stu-dents, with differing perspectives andbackgrounds, the MIT community hasanother source of information to betterunderstand what is working well, whatmay need improvement, and how the MITstudent experience could evolve in thefuture. In addition, the survey, which isadministered every four years, provides theInstitute another opportunity for periodic

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Vol. XXIX No. 5 May/June 2017

Aron BernsteinPhysics

Robert BerwickElectrical Engineering & Computer Science

Manduhai BuyandelgerAnthropology

Nazli ChoucriPolitical Science

Christopher CumminsChemistry

Woodie FlowersMechanical Engineering

Ernst G. FrankelMechanical Engineering

Jonathan King (Chair) Biology

Helen Elaine LeeWriting and Humanistic Studies

Stephen J. Lippard (Treasurer)Chemistry

Seth LloydMechanical Engineering

Fred MoavenzadehCivil & Environmental Engineering/Engineering Systems

Ruth Perry (Vice Chair)Literature Section

Nasser RabbatArchitecture

Patrick Henry WinstonElectrical Engineering & Computer Science

David LewisManaging Editor

*Editorial Subcommittee for this issue

AddressMIT Faculty NewsletterBldg. 10-335Cambridge, MA 02139

Websitehttp://web.mit.edu/fnl

Telephone 617-253-7303Fax 617-253-0458E-mail fnl@mit.edu

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

01 Highlights from MIT’s Student Quality of Life Survey Institutional Research 01 A Primer on Indirect Costs and Why They Are Important to MIT Maria T. Zuber

Editorial 01 A Letter to the Class of 2017; The March for Science

From The 04 Some Developments, Advances, and DiscussionsFaculty Chair from the Past Year Krishna Rajagopal 08 Susan Silbey New Faculty Chair Newsletter Staff

09 Some Musings on Retirement After 40 Years at MIT Harry Hemond

12 Day of Engagement, Day of Action Newsletter Staff

14 Prospects for Nuclear Disarmament in Uncertain Times Jonathan Mingle

21 Technology Licensing Office and You Lesley Millar-Nicholson

M.I.T. Numbers 24 from the 2017 Student Quality of Life Survey

contentsThe MIT FacultyNewsletterEditorial Board

Photo credit: Page1: Wikimedia Commons; Page 8: Ben Sachs; Page 15: Jake Belcher.

MIT Faculty NewsletterMay/June 2017

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followed. You can continue to have a pos-itive impact on Institute life by remainingengaged and active as alumni. You will be entering a world of consid-erable uncertainty and increased levels ofsocial and political polarization. After thelast presidential election, you rose to thechallenges presented by the new adminis-tration, as it set about upending muchthat had been taken for granted. Many ofyou joined efforts to protect internationalmembers of our community from thethreat of exclusion or deportation. Manyof you also joined or supported the Marchfor Science and the March for Climate inApril, or participated in MIT’s Day ofAction that month. Issues such as immi-gration, climate change, nuclear disarma-ment, the reduction of global poverty, andthe need to protect fundamental demo-cratic rights have now become arenas forgreater contention. The distant problemsof far-away nations now emerge as prob-lems that this nation – and the world –cannot ignore. Refocusing constructiveattention on all these issues requires theurgent involvement of us all. During your years with us, we on thefaculty have watched the burgeoning ofyour many talents, your creative ambi-tions, your resilience in the face of set-backs, your thoughtful and quirkyself-expression, your creative and entre-preneurial energy, and your myriadachievements. We hope that, as yourvarious individual paths unfold, you willput your powers to work on solving someof the problems that confront us all, andon making our society more responsiblyproductive and more supportive of thosein need. On behalf of the entire faculty, we

wish you vision, strength, commitment,wisdom, success, and much happiness inaddressing these challenges.

The Editorial Board of the MIT Faculty Newsletter

The March for ScienceON SATURDAY APR I L 22 , the

thousands of people in the March forScience gathered on the Boston Commonincluded several hundred MIT under-graduates, graduate students, postdocs,and staff. It was uplifting to see so manymembers of our community standing upfor public investment in scientificresearch, and for the value of scientificapproaches to the myriad problems oursociety is facing. The MIT group hadrallied outside the Student Center, thenmarched over the Longfellow Bridge,joined by marchers from Harvard, andfusing with groups from BostonUniversity, Harvard and Tufts MedicalSchools, Brigham and Women’s Hospital,and many other institutions, includingbiotechnology and pharmaceutical firms.This built on the earlier February 19Copley Square Rally, coupled to theAmerican Association for the Advance-ment of Science meeting. Their creative signs expressed concernfor the importance of scientificapproaches to disease, to climate, to envi-ronmental protection, and to many otherareas of concern. We had not witnessedsuch a public demonstration from theBoston area scientific community inmany decades. Unfortunately the speakers, thoughlauding scientific approaches to medical,social, and national problems, failed tobring a fully scientific analysis to the gov-ernment policies we were rallying against.

The sharp cuts in the NIH and EPAbudgets that were a focus of the ralliesderive from very specific policies of theTrump administration and theRepublican Congress. The civilian scien-tific programs were not cut just to satisfythe call for reducing regulations on com-merce and industry; they were cut inorder to finance the enormous $54 billionincrease in Pentagon spending, includingnuclear weapons modernization. As the NY Times (March 16, 2017)reported: “President Trump’s 2018 budgetblueprint released on Thursday proposescuts in discretionary spending for mostgovernment agencies to pay for largeincreases in military spending.” BudgetDirector Mulvaney was quite clear inspeaking with Republican Governors: “Byway of defending such extensive cuts, Mr.Mulvaney said simply that the WhiteHouse’s priority was military spendingand that other reductions were necessaryto advance that goal.” (AlexanderBurns, NY Times, March 22, 2017.) Thedeeply dangerous, unsound and expensivenuclear weapons escalation was onesubject of the Conference “Reducing theThreat of Nuclear War,” reported on page14 of this issue. Though the President proposes hisbudget, the actual spending of our incometax dollars is in the hands of House andSenate appropriations committees. Theneed to defend scientific research and sci-entific approaches to national problemscannot be separated from the need to haveour elected representatives vote a nationalbudget that responds to true nationalneeds.

Jonathan KingAron Bernstein Max Tegmark

A Letter to the Class of 2017continued from page 1

MIT Faculty NewsletterVol. XXIX No. 5

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Krishna RajagopalFrom The Faculty ChairSome Developments, Advances, andDiscussions from the Past Year

AS THE ACADEMIC YEAR draws to aclose, I will look back in this column onsome of the many ways in which theStanding Committees of the Facultyhave played their roles in the sharedgovernance of MIT this year. Doing sowill allow me to touch upon manyimportant developments, advances, anddiscussions from the past year. The Committee on AcademicPerformance (CAP) implemented newpolicies regarding the return of studentswho have been on leave, following amajor review last year. For theCommittee on Discipline, this was thesecond year (and the first full year)during which they have exercised MIT’snew policies regarding incidents ofalleged sexual misconduct; they havebegun preparing for a major review ofthese policies next year. The Committeeon the Library System is engaging withthe Libraries as they respond to thereport of the Task Force on the Future ofLibraries. As we heard at the AprilInstitute Faculty Meeting, theCommittee on Campus Planning, ournewest standing committee, has foundits feet and is now playing its anticipatedrole as our eyes, ears, and voice as MITdevelops Kendall Square and WestCampus. The Committee on StudentLife serves as a venue for constructivedialogue among its faculty and studentmembers and the new leadership of theDivision of Student Life, to whom itprovides advice on various policies. Amajor topic this year has been consider-ation of the policy that allows smoking

in some MIT dorms, consideration thathas included respectful and thoughtfulconversation with student leadership.The Committee on UndergraduateAdmissions and Financial Aid playedan effective advisory role as, for thesecond year in a row, MIT introduced

substantial enhancements to under-graduate financial aid. Over the course of the academic year,the Committee on the UndergraduateProgram (CUP) and its Subcommitteeon the Communication Requirement(SOCR), the Committee on Curricula(CoC), the Committee on GraduatePrograms (CGP), and the FacultyPolicy Committee (FPC) havereviewed, suggested improvements to,and approved two new undergraduatemajors, two new undergraduate minors,and two new master’s programs –resulting in the second-most active yearfor the development of innovative cur-ricula for MIT’s students by its facultyand departments in several decades,second only to last year. Interestingly,each of this year’s new majors is beingdeveloped jointly by two departmentsand both of the new minors are inter-

disciplinary, continuing an ongoingtrend of developing new educationalpathways for our students that cross tra-ditional departmental boundaries. It isalso worth noting that in all these casesearly engagement between the groups ofcolleagues developing new curricula

and the relevant faculty committees wasimportant, as it resulted in improve-ments to the new programs that arenow being launched. The committees,each of which includes faculty from allfive Schools as well as students, serve toaccumulate and share perspectives andbest practices over time. The new Chemistry and Biologymajor (5-7) is a combination of theexisting chemistry and biology pro-grams at MIT aimed at students whoare interested in working at their inter-face, which is itself a well-establishedfield of study both in basic research andin applications such as pharmaceuticalchemistry and biotechnology. Theintroduction of this new major wasfacilitated by a change to the rules defin-ing our Laboratory Requirement thatwas introduced during Spring 2017 fol-lowing an analysis by, and recommen-

Interestingly, each of this year’s new majors is beingdeveloped jointly by two departments and both of thenew minors are interdisciplinary, continuing an ongoingtrend of developing new educational pathways for ourstudents that cross traditional departmental boundaries.

MIT Faculty NewsletterMay/June 2017

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dation from, the CUP. Students nowhave the flexibility to satisfy this require-ment by combining designatedmodules. The design of the 5-7 majortakes advantage of this flexibility. The new major in ComputerScience, Economics, and Data Science(6-14) is, as far as we know, the first ofits type at any major research university.Contemporary electronically-mediatedplatforms for market-level and individ-ual exchange combine complex humandecisions with intensive computationand data processing, all operatingwithin engineered economic environ-ments. Examples include: onlinemarkets, crowdsourcing platforms,spectrum auctions, financial platforms,crypto-currencies, and large-scalematching/allocation systems such askidney exchange and school choicesystems. Some forms of exchange thatwere infeasible to coordinate (vehiclesharing, for example) are suddenlyavailable and important. Other marketactivities that were previously thoughtto require centralization and oversightcan now be decentralized and self-regu-lated (crypto-currency being theleading example), and the technologybeneath that decentralization (so-calledblockchain), will have many furtherapplications. MIT is in a position tooffer an innovative major that willprovide students with foundationalknowledge and hands-on experiencerelating to this emerging sphere of tech-nological and economic activity becausewe have a considerable constellation ofresearchers working at the intersectionof Economics and ElectricalEngineering and Computer Science(EECS) as well as, according to surveys,considerable student interest. The new Environment andSustainability Minor is designed toaddress both people and the planet inan integrated manner, drawing uponcontent in four areas: earth systems andclimate science; environmental gover-nance; environmental histories and cul-

tures; and engineering for sustainability.The minor combines a wide range offields of inquiry to directly engage envi-ronmental and climate challenges facingecosystems and populations around theglobe. The minor has been developed bya large group of faculty from manydepartments working with MIT’s newEnvironmental Solutions Initiative. Thenew Polymers and Soft Matter Minorwill provide MIT undergraduates with a

foundation in the science and engineer-ing aspects of polymeric materials andsoft matter. By virtue of its diverse appli-cations, polymer science is interdiscipli-nary, requiring knowledge fromchemistry, physics, and engineering.The new minor will allow undergradu-ates to engage with this field, and in par-ticular with the community of facultyand graduate students cutting acrossseveral departments that constitutesMIT’s long-established interdisciplinarydoctoral Program in Polymers and SoftMatter. Both new majors and both newminors will be available to students inSeptember 2017. The two new master’s programsapproved by the Faculty this year are thefirst two instances of MIT’s new Masterof Applied Science (MASc) degree, anumbrella degree type introduced in Fall2016 for one-year professional master’sdegrees that include a capstone project,not a thesis. Some students will com-plete both semesters of the MASc inSupply Chain Management (SCM) on

campus. Others will begin by complet-ing online courses and proctored examsthat will earn them an MITxMicroMasters Credential in SCM. Someof these students whose performance isthe strongest will be encouraged toapply for admission to MIT. Those whoare selected and who enroll will receiveAdvanced Standing credit for onesemester of their MASc subjects basedupon their MicroMasters coursework;

they will then proceed to do the secondsemester of their MASc and their cap-stone project on campus. The firstMASc students selected in this new waywill arrive on campus in January 2018;the comprehensive proctored examsthat will conclude their MicroMastersare underway. The MASc in Data, Economics, andDevelopment Policy (DEDP) is beingoffered by the Economics Departmentwith substantial support from theAbdul Latif Jameel Poverty ActionLaboratory (a center within the depart-ment). MIT faculty have pioneered ashift in development economics towardmore empirical research and impactevaluation methods that are controlledand quantitative, while at the same timethe broader international developmentcommunity has come to emphasizepolicies and development grounded insuch analysis. The MASc in DEDP isaimed at development practitioners andpolicy-makers in governments, non-

The new major in Computer Science, Economics, andData Science (6-14) is, as far as we know, the first of itstype at any major research university. . . . MIT is in aposition to offer an innovative major that will providestudents with foundational knowledge and hands-onexperience relating to this emerging sphere oftechnological and economic activity…

continued on next page

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governmental organizations, and inter-national agencies around the worldlooking for opportunities to retool, tobecome fluent in modern techniquesand skills. A few thousand studentsaround the world have already com-pleted some of the online coursestoward the MITx MicroMastersCredential in DEDP, and the first proc-tored exams are happening withinweeks. Twenty students selected fromamong the MicroMasters recipients foradmission to the MASc program willarrive on campus in January 2019. The FPC Subcommittee on Sub-term Subjects, chaired by ProfessorJohn Fernández (Architecture), releasedits report during Fall 2016. Prompted byan increase in the number of sub-termsubjects, the FPC had asked this groupto analyze and assess the current statusand to make recommendations. Theirrecommendations include many thatfaculty and departments should alreadybe heeding, such as clear and early com-munication of expectations by instruc-tors in sub-term subjects, as well as aseries of recommendations for depart-ments and faculty regarding ongoingdevelopment of new sub-term subjectsand assessment of those that arerunning. For the particular case of half-term subjects, the subcommittee alsorecommended changes to Rules andRegulations of the Faculty regarding startand end dates, add and drop dates, andend-of-half-term procedures, notingthat lack of consistency in these regardsamong different half-term subjects wascausing stress for both faculty and stu-dents. (The large majority of sub-termsubjects are half-term in length. Thesubcommittee noted examples of peda-gogically well-motivated sub-term sub-jects with other lengths, butrecommended that the changes to Rulesand Regulations should focus on themost common, namely half-term, case,

which was where inconsistency inexpectations was resulting in stress.)Over the course of Fall 2016 and IAP,the FPC worked together with the CAP,CoC, CGP, and CUP to arrive at pro-posed changes that would set consistentstandards. Standardizing expectationsfor start/end and add/drop dates for

half-term subjects will benefit all stu-dents and faculty, including those teach-ing/taking full-term subjects. Themodifications to Rules and Regulationswere approved by the Faculty in Marchand are now in effect. Significant trends and changes inundergraduate major selection andenrollments have been observed bymany of us. For example, these trendshave come up many times in RandomFaculty Dinner conversations. MIT’sdepartments and Schools are feelingcorresponding stresses and strains, andalso opportunities, both in departmentsexperiencing high enrollment and inthose with significantly reduced enroll-ment. Earlier this semester, the CUPlaunched the Study Group onUndergraduate Majors Selection. TheStudy Group is charged with pursuing aprocess of discovery, analysis, and com-munity discussion of data on trends inundergraduate major selection andenrollments at MIT; factors (both inter-nal to MIT and external) contributing

to these trends; effects and implicationsof these trends for students, faculty, andMIT; and responses by departments,Schools, programs, and offices at MIT,including existing best practices and ini-tiatives underway as well as additionalpossible future responses. The groupconsists of seven faculty members from

MIT’s five Schools and two undergrad-uates, and is led by Professor JeffreyGrossman (Materials Science andEngineering). The group would like toreceive your input, and will be engagingbroadly in the coming months. Inputcan be sent to cup-sg-majors-input@mit.edu at any time. The study groupplans to update the CUP on preliminaryanalyses of trends, factors, effects, andresponses in Fall 2017, as well as toupdate the community on plans togather additional data and share obser-vations and best practices. In the previous issue of the FacultyNewsletter, I described the report of theWorking Group on ComputationalThinking and Algorithmic Reasoningfor MIT Undergraduates at length. As Imentioned there, proposals for coursedevelopment are now in the hands ofDean Dennis Freeman, and the CUPhas begun the analyses called for in thereport. This important conversation iswell set up for further progress nextacademic year. In that column, I also

Some Advances, Developments, andDiscussions from the Past YearRajagopal, from preceding page

Earlier this semester, the CUP launched the StudyGroup on Undergraduate Majors Selection. The StudyGroup is charged with pursuing a process of discovery,analysis, and community discussion of data on trends inundergraduate major selection and enrollments at MIT;factors (both internal to MIT and external) contributingto these trends; effects and implications of these trendsfor students, faculty, and MIT; and responses bydepartments, Schools, programs, and offices at MIT,including existing best practices and initiatives underwayas well as additional possible future responses.

MIT Faculty NewsletterMay/June 2017

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described many ways in which facultymembers are responding to theimpacts of the current U.S. administra-tion on MIT, grouping them into lis-tening, learning and teaching, andoutreach. These important conversa-tions will also surely flow into the nextacademic year. Let me also mention here that thereare two Working Groups charged by theProvost that are engaging with impor-tant issues and that are both aiming torelease draft reports before Fall 2017.One, led by Professor Steven Hall(AeroAstro), has been asked to providean academic perspective to the planningprocess for the Volpe site, helping toidentify opportunities to create avibrant development that complementsand strengthens the Kendall Squareinnovation ecosystem. The other, led byProfessor Anantha Chandrakasan(EECS), has been asked to recommendpolicies and procedures related to TheEngine; it includes subgroups focusingon facilities access, technology licensing,conflicts of interests, visas for MITentrepreneurs, and MIT’s innovationecosystem. We can all appreciate theefforts of the many colleagues con-tributing to these Working Groups overthe past semester. Their reports willsurely provide key input to importantongoing MIT-wide conversationsduring next academic year and beyond.So too will Associate Provost RichardLester’s report, A Global Strategy forMIT (web.mit.edu/globalstrategy), inwhich he lays out goals and principlesfor global engagement and recom-mends how we can both bring MIT tothe world and bring the world to MIT.The report was recently released forcomment and discussed at the MayInstitute Faculty Meeting. It has been an honor and a privilegeto serve as the Chair of the Faculty for

the past two years. I want to close thiscolumn with several thank yous. First, to all the many colleagues,including faculty, students, and staff,who serve on the Standing Committeesof the Faculty. I have given some exam-ples above of the activities of these com-mittees from the past year. I have

worked closely with the chairs of all ofthe committees at different times. It isthrough their efforts and the efforts ofall the more than one hundred commit-tee members that the Faculty plays itsmany important roles in the governanceof MIT. Next, I want to thank the many hun-dreds of faculty who have come to theRandom Faculty Dinners over the pasttwo years. Perhaps the most enjoyablepart of being the Chair of the Facultyhas been attending these dinners onceper month, including convening theafter-dinner discussion. As ProfessorJay Keyser did for almost 30 years, Ibegan each after-dinner discussionsimply by asking “What is on yourmind?” The discussions that followedwere varied and wide-ranging, alwaysthoughtful, and exceptionally valuablefor me and my fellow Faculty Officersas we have discharged our informalresponsibility to represent the Facultyin many fora. Next, Associate Chair of the FacultyLeslie Kolodziejski and Secretary of theFaculty Chris Capozzola. For two years

we have been a team-of-three. We havemet in one context or another multipletimes per week, and in so many ways wehave seen paths forward together thatno one of us could have found alone. Icannot imagine how I could have doneanything at all without their advice,counsel, and support. Heartfelt thanks.

The three of us have valued the respect-ful, productive, and positive relation-ships that we have had with PresidentReif, Provost Schmidt, ChancellorBarnhart, and the administration overthe past two years. We are fortunate thatMIT’s shared governance works as wellas it does; not all universities are solucky. Last and the opposite of least, ourFaculty Governance Administrator,Tami Kaplan. She makes everything wethe officers of the Faculty do happen,and furthermore provides both per-spective and anticipation, as she is sooften at least one step ahead. Let me close by wishing the next offi-cers of the Faculty – Professor SusanSilbey (Anthropology), Professor RickDanheiser (Chemistry), and ProfessorCraig Carter (Materials Science andEngineering) – two years that are asproductive, rich, full, and interesting asthe past two have been. And, to all, arestorative and invigorating summer.

Krishna Rajagopal is a Professor of Physics,a MacVicar Faculty Fellow, and Chair of theFaculty (krishna@mit.edu).

Next, I want to thank the many hundreds of faculty whohave come to the Random Faculty Dinners over the pasttwo years. Perhaps the most enjoyable part of being theChair of the Faculty has been attending these dinnersonce per month, including convening the after-dinnerdiscussion.

MIT Faculty NewsletterVol. XXIX No. 5

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Newsletter StaffSusan Silbey New Faculty Chair

PROFESSOR SUSAN S. S ILBEY willsucceed Krishna Rajagopal as Chair of theFaculty on July 1, 2017, after serving asChair-elect during the current academicyear. Susan is the Leon and Anne GoldbergProfessor of Humanities, Sociology andAnthropology in the School ofHumanities, Arts and Social Sciences, andProfessor of Behavioral and PolicySciences in the Economic Sociology groupand Institute for Work and EmploymentRelations in Sloan. Professors RickDanheiser (Chemistry) and Craig Carter(Materials Science and Engineering) willserve, respectively, as Associate Chair andSecretary of the Faculty. Susan grew up in Brooklyn, New York,attending Erasmus Hall High School andspending entirely too much time hangingout on the street corners of Flatbush – butthis turned out better than expected: itwas there that she became buddies withher future husband, Bob Silbey, withwhom she spent the next 51 years. After a

BA from CUNY Brooklyn College and aPhD from the University of Chicago, bothin political science, Susan spent 26 years asa sociology professor at Wellesley College,and for the last 17 years she has been in

MIT’s Anthropology department, eight ofthose as Head. Throughout this time,while studying and working in several dis-ciplines, Susan has been doing the samething: conducting empirical research onhow law works. She is preoccupied withunderstanding what makes the law such adurable and powerful institution, moresimilar in its fundamental processesacross its 4,000 years than any other socialinstitution – including the family, thestate, and the economy. Susan is a sociologist of law and organ-izations. From her very first project –observing the Massachusetts AttorneyGeneral’s Office of Consumer Protection –she has been explaining how legalprocesses do whatever it is that they do.She tracks formal legal doctrine in statutes,regulations, and judicial opinions fromenactment through implementation, andultimately to citizens’ experiences andinterpretations of those laws. The formallywritten doctrine taught in law schools rep-resents but a small fraction, and thus anincomplete if not inaccurate account, ofwhat happens on the ground in everydaylife: in shops, offices, universities, homes,and street corners across the nation.

Susan’s most widely used work constructsa model of the cultural representations oflaw that circulate in popular consciousnessand discourse. The Common Place of Law:Stories from Everyday Life documents how

Americans experience and talk about law,simultaneously a game played by unrulylawyers and a solemn process that tempo-rally and spatially transcends the actions ofparticular individuals, an ahistorical aspi-rational norm coupled to pragmatic,locally situated practices. Americans reverethe law, but at the same time often resentand resist it. They seek the protection ofthe law and actively avoid it. Rather thanweakening the institution, however, Susanand her co-authors show how these con-tradictory accounts constitute a matrix ofreinforcing narratives that provide legiti-mation while creating the opportunitiesfor critique, all contained within the sameinstitution. Susan has been developing a generalmodel of the structure of institutionalcultures across a variety of settings (e.g.,alternatives to law in negotiation andmediation, children studying law inpublic schools, engineering education,the organization of scientific laborato-ries). Her most recent work concentrateson the ways in which environmental,health, and safety regulations have beeninfiltrating hospitals, laboratories, andother hazardous workplaces. With her

Susan grew up in Brooklyn, New York, attendingErasmus Hall High School and spending entirely toomuch time hanging out on the street corners of Flatbush . . . .

MIT Faculty NewsletterMay/June 2017

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graduate students, she has been identify-ing examples of successful, pragmaticregulatory enforcement that keeps orga-nizational practices within an acceptablerange of variation close to regulatoryspecifications, but not necessarily per-fectly compliant. At MIT, Susan has been Secretary of theFaculty, and also served on more than adozen committees including, amongothers, the Faculty Policy Committee,Committee on Academic Performance,Killian and Edgerton Award Committees,MITx Policy and Privacy Committees,SHASS Equal Employment OpportunityCommittee, Budget Task Force, and the2012 Presidential Search Committee. She is

the recipient of numerous prizes andawards for her research, including severalbest article prizes from the AmericanSociological Association, a Doctor HonorisCausa from École Normale Supérieure deCachan in France, a John SimonGuggenheim Foundation Fellowship, aRussell Sage Foundation Fellowship, theHarry Kalven Jr. Prize for advancing thesociology of law, and the Stanton WheelerPrize, SHASS Levitan Prize, andCommitted to Caring awards for mentor-ing graduate students. She is Past Presidentof the Law & Society Association, and afellow of the American Academy of Politicaland Social Science. She currently sits on twopanels for the National Academies of

Sciences, Medicine, and Engineering:Performance Based Regulation ofHazardous Materials and the Committeeon Science, Technology, and Law. Susan lives in the Back Bay and WestFalmouth, where she maintains with hersister extensive organic vegetable andhydrangea gardens when not out sailingon Buzzards Bay. Susan’s late husband,Bob (web.mit.edu/robertsilbey/events/memorial.html), joined the MITDepartment of Chemistry in 1966. Heserved as Department Head from 1990-1995, and as Dean of Science from 2000-2007. The Silbeys’ daughters, sons-in-law,and grandchildren live in Cambridge andBrookline.

In the fair city of Cambridge By Muddy Charles’s stream Scholars come from around the world To join with academe

At a place quite special and unique A place to build careers A place that's changed in many ways As we've counted off the years

We rode the subway for a dime Lunched at the F+T Got trimmed at the terminal barbershop And parked our cars for free

Proposals sent to NSF Were funded, one in three Support came too from NIH And also industry

The tenure process, though, causedstress The productivity ramp was steep But the goal was meritocracy Not helping us get sleep

Teaching was rewarding The students here are bright Both graduates and undergrads Will often work all night

But sometimes they drop pianos And pumpkins from great height And plant the field with weather balloonsTo the Ivy Leaguers’ fright

Our colleagues are impressive Both brilliant and diverse Some study things that are nano Others probe the universe

Throughout the years our schoolevolvedWith many buildings newOld Kendall Square most disappearedAs our fair city grew

Though time has changed the campus And maintenance is still unsure And parking now costs us a grand Our values still endure

In search for truth, and honoring facts Our quest for knowledge stands May our scholar's code of integrityPersist throughout the land

The charge of our great InstituteAnd its mission in the worldMust ever pass to younger handsAs more years are unfurled

Retirees can shed some tasksLike budgets and boilerplate And grading piles of papersAnd still getting grades in late

But some of us still hope to addAs we move to PPTTo the mission to humanityOf the place called MIT

Harry HemondW. E. Leonhard Professor of Civil andEnvironmental EngineeringMay 2017

Some Musings on Retirement After 40 Years at MIT

MIT Faculty NewsletterVol. XXIX No. 5

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What are direct and indirect costs?Research proposal budgets include directand indirect costs. Direct costs are easilyattributable to individual grants andinclude salary support for faculty, researchstaff, and postdocs working on the project,stipends for graduate students assigned tothe grant, laboratory supplies, certainresearch equipment including computers,and travel and publication costs. Indirect costs (IDC), aka the F&A (facil-ities and administrative) rate or overhead,represent genuine costs of performingresearch that are not easily attributable toindividual grants. Think of these chargesas applying to things that wouldn’t needto exist or be used as extensively if MITdidn’t conduct research. Examples includedepreciation of research equipment andbuildings, laboratory utilities (light,heat/cooling, power), hazardous chemicaland biological agent management,libraries, internet, data transmission &storage, radiation safety, insurance,administrative services, and compliance

with federal, state, and local regulations,e.g., Institutional Review Boards forhuman subject (COUHES) or animalresearch (CAC). Note that only resourcesutilized for research are counted. Thefederal government partially reimbursesuniversities for these expenses.

Faculty salary supportIn addition, since most faculty are paid infull by the Institute during the academicyear, their participation in research duringthis time is supported by MIT.

How is MIT’s indirect cost rate calculated?MIT’s current indirect cost rate is 54.7%.This rate is set through UniformGuidance 2 CFR 200, whereby universitiescalculate their actual overhead expendi-tures based on previous years and appor-tion them to various activities – research,instruction, or other. MIT’s rates arenegotiated and audited each year andrates are applied only to those direct coststhat are subject to overhead, whichexcludes tuition, equipment, major reno-vation, and repair and subcontract awardsover $25K.

The easiest way to think about indirectcosts, illustrated in Figure 1, is to under-stand how the average federal researchdollar is spent at MIT. For a 54.7% over-head rate, 72 cents of every MIT researchdollar goes to direct costs and 28 centsgoes to indirect, or F&A costs. Figure 1shows breakdowns within these categoriesand illustrates that a 54.7% indirect costrate does not mean that 54.7 cents of everyresearch dollar goes to overhead. It is 28cents, because the rate is a fraction appliedto the allowable direct costs added to thetotal direct costs. Dating back to 1991, the governmentimplemented a cap of 26% of the totalnegotiated F&A rate for administrativecosts. MIT has historically been under thiscap (currently 19%, justifying my openingstatement that MIT is administrativelylean). Figure 2 shows that since that time,federal regulations and agency-specificrequirements have skyrocketed, includingdozens of new regulations and expansionof others (www.cogr.edu/sites/default/files/RegChangesSince1991_012417.pdf). In principle, it would be possible tocalculate the exact share of F&A costs

A Primer on Indirect CostsZuber, from page 1

Figure 1. The MIT “Dollar Bill” that graphically explains how every dollar of an MIT federal research grant in FY16 is apportioned between direct and indirect (or overhead) costs.

MIT Faculty NewsletterMay/June 2017

11

required for each individual researchgrant, but it would be a logistical night-mare. Imagine tracking how much elec-tricity was used for light, heat, andinstrument operation on a project byproject basis! UG 2 CFR 200 was designedto estimate these costs for all researchprojects over a year, limiting the need forcomplicated accounting.

What is under-recovery?Many foundations either decline to payindirect costs or reimburse them at muchlower (typically 10%-20%) than the nego-tiated federal rate. Whenever a sponsorpays less than full F&A, it generates under-recovery (UR). Some institutions do notaccept grants unless they carry full over-head, some write off the differential, andMIT, almost uniquely, identifies internalfunds to cover the difference.

How has increasing investment inunder-recovery helped our researchers?With federal support declining for over adecade, it was apparent that increasingfoundation support that incurred UR

would help sustain some areas of MIT’sresearch. Figure 3 (next page) summarizeshow MIT has increased UR support. Thisinvestment includes contributions frommy office, the Deans, and DLCs. Figure 3also shows the associated increase inresearch volume; clearly the increasedinvestment has generated substantialfunding. The slope of the funding curve issteeper than the investment because we

have successfully negotiated higher ratesfrom foundations in some instances, andin others we have been able to convertsome costs usually classified as indirect todirect (e.g., facility costs). While increased UR investment hashelped, the desire to obtain such grants isgrowing at a faster rate than our ability toprovide support.

Why don’t we just forget about UR?Some faculty have asked me – why doesn’tMIT just write UR off like some otherorganizations do? The reason is that UR isa real cost representing an investment thatMIT makes in research. If we simply wroteit off, the benefit would fall to a limited

cross-section of MIT researchers.Approximately 70% of foundationfunding supports health-related researchand the overwhelming majority is diseasespecific. By writing off these costs wewould be helping researchers in thosefields in an unbounded way, to the possi-ble detriment of other areas in whichresearch can’t be supported by UR. It ismy goal to understand all of the ways thatMIT could invest in research to enableinformed, strategic decisions about howto best drive discovery.

What would happen if the governmentreduced indirect cost recovery?MIT supports the need to assure that tax-payer dollars are invested responsibly.Federal agencies have different regulations,and while Uniform Guidance has pro-vided some regularization, the burdens ongrantees continue to grow (cf. Figure 2). Ifthe government made an accelerated effortto reduce burdens leading to a decrease inadministrative compliance cost (the “A”part of F&A in Figure 1), this would be awelcome development. But if the federal government cuts indi-rect cost recovery without reducing admin-istrative burdens, then, friends, we’ve got aproblem. All of the facilities and servicesthat are needed to carry out research willstill be with us, and MIT will have to findother ways to cover the costs. Researchsupport in the form of UR, cost sharing,graduate tuition subsidies, lab renovations,etc. comes from internal funds. Thesefunds also provide support for most otherthings that MIT does, from salaries, to ben-efits, to start up and retention packages, tostudent support and beyond. So, it shouldbe apparent why IDC recovery is impor-tant to MIT and to you personally.

If IDC are cut, wouldn’t all researchuniversities be affected?Yes, as would hospitals, laboratories, andresearch institutes. Those without sizableendowments would have a very limitedcapacity to make up the difference, buteven institutions with larger endowmentswould have difficult choices to make.

Figure 2. Cumulative number of regulatory changes applied to research institutions since 1991. Source: Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology, 2015.

Based upon data selected by the Council on Government Relations.

Number of Regulations

Years

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MIT Faculty NewsletterVol. XXIX No. 5

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What can we do to help?MIT has been proactive in educatingsectors, from government to industry tofoundations to the public, on the impor-tance of research and the role that indirectcosts play. If you have contacts in statesthat don’t have major research universi-ties, outreach in those regions would beparticularly helpful. Voices of supportfrom outside universities, particularlyindustry, are especially effective.

A Primer on Indirect CostsZuber, from preceding page

5.55 7.159.75

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MIT Under-recovery Expense and Research Volume FY13-16

UR Expense Research Volume

Figure 3. Recent history of MIT’s investment in under-recovery (UR; in blue), and the research volume UR investment has generated (in red).

Maria T. Zuber is Vice President for Research(mtz@mit.edu).

Newsletter StaffDay of Engagement, Day of Action

THIS SEMESTER SAW OVER 1,000

members of MIT and the broader localcommunity coming together in a large-scale, day-long civic engagement andaction event, “MIT April 18: Day ofEngagement, Day of Action.” This grass-roots effort was organized by a network ofvolunteers from all over campus, includingfaculty, students, postdocs, and staff, span-ning all five Schools. There were over 70different sessions and activities through-out the day devoted to open, respectfuldialogue, discussion, and planning foraction on the greatest political, social, andeconomic challenges facing us today.These sessions and activities addressed

topics including the possibility of nuclearwar; the ambiguous fate of truth inmodern media; climate change; growingwealth disparity; racial justice; the polar-ization of political discourse; inequalitiesin education and economic opportunity;criminal justice reform; immigration; andmany more. The event’s center of gravitywas the Stata Center – throughout the daythe Stata Student Street was buzzing withenergy and excitement – with additionalsessions and activities in Buildings 26, 56,66, and elsewhere on campus. The tremendous quantity and varietyof sessions and activities gave event par-ticipants many possible pathways through

the day depending on their individualinterests. Presenters and activity leadersincluded not only well-known faculty atMIT and other local universities, such asDaron Acemoglu, Abhijit Banerjee, NoamChomsky, Junot Diaz, Jonathan Gruber,Saida Grundy, Joi Ito, Naomi Oreskes,Serena Parekh, and Lily Tsai (leading ses-sions on right-wing populism, health care,civil disobedience, refugees, publicaccountability, and the responsibility ofintellectuals); but also students such asWendy Salkin and Ronni Gura Sadovsky(leading a session on free speech and hatespeech) and Kevin Richardson andDarien Pollock (leading a session on the

MIT Faculty NewsletterMay/June 2017

13

philosophy of racial justice), staff such asLibby Mahaffy (leading a session onbystander intervention) and AlenaMcNamara, Rhonda Kauffman, SofiaLeung, and Anna Boutin (leading anaction zine-making activity), MIT Chiefof Police John DiFava (participant in apanel on police-community relations),and student organizations such as FossilFree MIT (leading a primer on climatechange) and Sloan LGBTQI (leading asession on making start-ups LGBTQ-inclusive). Individuals from manyInstitute offices also presented or organ-ized events, including Officer for InstituteCommunity and Equity Ed Bertschinger;Office of Sustainability representativePaul Wolff; and former Director of theMIT Washington Office, WilliamBonvillian. The range of content contributors alsoextended beyond academia to MIT’sLeader to Leader (L2L) Alumni/aeProgram (who organized an activityaround questions of cultural curiosity)and into the local community, with par-ticipants including Cambridge CityCouncilor Nadeem Mazen (participant ina session on Securing a ProgressiveAgenda), General Counsel for theMassachusetts Department of Housingand Community Development RobertaRubin (leader of a session on inequality infederal housing policy), and Oak Park,Illinois Regional Housing CenterExecutive Director Rob Breymeier (leaderof a session on promoting neighborhoodracial integration). The complete list ofsessions and activities, along with moredetailed descriptions, can be found athttps://www.dayofaction.mit.edu/events.

MIT’s Day of Action was inspired bythe Institute’s historic leadership in theMarch 4 Movement of 1969 (science.sciencemag.org/content/163/3872/1175),and built on the highly successful Day of

Action held by Princeton University onMarch 6, 2017 (https://dayofaction.princeton.edu). MIT’s event was organized extremelyquickly. A public call to action was issuedat the beginning of March and garneredsignatures from hundreds of communitymembers; content proposals were solicitedstarting in mid-March and led to the over70 sessions and activities that took placeover the course of the day, including lec-tures, panel discussions, workshops, filmscreenings, food offerings, music, and art-making. Additionally, a volunteer fair washeld in the Stata Student Street in the after-noon, with over 20 on-campus and localcommunity organizations setting uptables to help event participants learnabout opportunities to channel theirenthusiasm for civic action into ongoinginitiatives. The event was open to all, rep-resenting the full diversity of the MITcommunity, and featured open, respectfuldialogue and the exchange of ideas fromthe widest variety of intellectual, religious,class, cultural, and political perspectives.

The Day of Action’s rapid organizationand broad participation underscore thepowerful potential for civic engagementand action at scale by members of the MITcommunity.

Feedback to Day of Action organiz-ers has been extremely positive, withparticipants calling the event “a greatsuccess,” “incredibly well organized,”and “an amazing day,” with it being “thefirst time I can recall that I’ve gone to afull day of talks and every single onewas interesting.” Day of Action co-orga-nizer Roger Levy (faculty, Brain &Cognitive Sciences) considers the eventextraordinarily meaningful, stating that“Now, more than at any time in mymemory, people are asking, ‘What can Ido?’ For so many MIT students, post-docs, staff, faculty, and local commu-nity members to devote a day of theirlives to address the political, social, andeconomic challenges of today providesa visceral answer. It shows what we cando, together.” Whatever the next stepsfor this grass-roots initiative may be,the success of MIT’s Day of Action onApril 18 demonstrates the energy andpotential for a renewed norm of civicengagement as a fundamental part ofcampus life.

The event was open to all, representing the full diversity ofthe MIT community, and featured open, respectfuldialogue and the exchange of ideas from the widestvariety of intellectual, religious, class, cultural, and politicalperspectives.

MIT Faculty NewsletterVol. XXIX No. 5

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Jonathan Mingle, MIT NewsProspects for Nuclear Disarmament in Uncertain TimesIn conference on nuclear threat, former EnergySecretary Moniz and Rep. Lee call for diplomacyto diffuse risks

May 9, 2017

FROM R I S I NG TENS IONS ON theKorean Peninsula to questions about thefuture of the Iran nuclear agreement, thespecter of nuclear conflict has returned asa concern for policymakers and citizensalike. Two leading voices on nuclear issues,U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee and formerSecretary of Energy Ernest Moniz, dis-cussed the prospects for disarmamentduring a day-long conference on“Reducing the Threat of Nuclear War”held on MIT’s campus on May 6. “Frankly, the possibility of a nuclearbomb going off is higher today than 20years ago,” said Moniz, “in terms of thevarious regional conflicts we are facing.” Lee, a Democrat representingCalifornia’s 13th District and a prominentadvocate in Congress for nuclear disarma-ment efforts, recently returned from a tripto South Korea and Japan, where she metwith security officials and visited thedemilitarized zone (DMZ) betweenNorth and South Korea. “I saw how volatile the region is,” shesaid. Lee is a co-sponsor of H.R. 669, a billthat would prevent the U.S. presidentfrom launching a first-use nuclear strikewithout authorization under a declara-tion of war by Congress. “We must continue to put pressure onthis president to give Congress a compre-hensive strategy for deterring NorthKorea, that puts diplomacy and nonmili-tary strategies at the forefront,” she said.

“It is incumbent on us to show thisadministration the value of diplomacy,”Lee said, calling on attendees to pressuretheir elected representatives to oppose theTrump administration’s proposed sharpincreases in defense spending and plannedexpansion of the U.S. nuclear arsenal. “Hisbudget puts forth a $1.4 billion increasefor the National Nuclear SecurityAdministration (NNSA) to build morebombs, yet it doesn’t make our planet anysafer, nor does it advance NNSA’s goal ofnuclear nonproliferation,” she said. “After nearly a decade of persistence,the Obama administration, together withour allies, were able to negotiate a dealthat put a lid on Iran’s nuclear programand created the most extensive and intru-sive nuclear verification regime ever nego-tiated,” she said. Moniz described the key features ofthat agreement, reached in 2015 amongIran, the U.S., and five other worldpowers, and shared his perspective on itsprospects for survival under the Trumpadministration. “This was an important example ofdiplomacy reaching critical security goalswithout a shot being fired,” he said. He reminded the audience of the longand difficult history of relations betweenthe U.S. and Iran, stretching back to theU.S. role in a coup in 1953 and the hostagecrisis of 1979. “The grounds of distrust arevery, very deep,” Moniz observed. “Thismakes it even more remarkable this agree-ment could be accomplished.” Moniz outlined how the agreementhas successfully halted the Iranian

weapons development program, whichhad been “expanding very dramatically,with 20,000 centrifuges and [was] close to[finishing a reactor that would produce]one or two bombs’ worth of plutoniumper year.” Moniz also pointed to “extraordinarytransparency and verification measures,”which give inspectors from theInternational Atomic Energy Agency(IAEA) access to suspicious sites. “No other country has a fixed time inwhich to respond to inspector requests,”he said. Iran, however, must respondwithin weeks to IAEA requests. “This iscompletely novel.” Commenting on Republican criticismof the deal, he noted that quarterly reportsto Congress have confirmed that Iran iscomplying with its requirements. “If the U.S. walks away from the agree-ment,” he said, “we get the worst of bothworlds. Then Iran has no formal con-straints. And some may say, ‘We’ll putsanctions back on them.’ It won’t work. Itworked before because we had the entireinternational community on the samepage enforcing those sanctions.” He expressed doubt that other coun-tries would support reimposing andenforcing sanctions on Iran. “There is noreason to think that if we walk away, wedon’t walk away alone. And the sanctionswill not be effective.” Moniz said he is “reasonably opti-mistic” that all parties to the Iran agree-ment will continue their compliance —including the U.S. He cited the support ofSenator Bob Corker, the Republican chair

MIT Faculty NewsletterMay/June 2017

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of the Foreign Relations Committee, whorecently called for the agreement’s contin-ued enforcement. “I can’t say that there’s no doubt that thisdeal will stick going forward, but I can say thelogic is completely clear and compelling,”Moniz concluded. “And most people, includ-ing those who didn’t agree with the deal,have come to that [conclusion].” If there is continued compliance withthe agreement, Moniz said, the interna-

tional community should go even further,to improve transparency in nuclear pro-grams beyond Iran. “We have got to thinkhard about what do we want to see in Iranand elsewhere in the region and beyond,in terms of nuclear fuel cycles.” In addition to returning to his role as aphysics professor at MIT, Moniz wasrecently named the CEO of the NuclearThreat Initiative (NTI), a nonpartisanorganization founded by former Senator

Sam Nunn and Ted Turner in 2001, dedi-cated to reducing the threat of attackswith weapons of mass destruction anddisruption. In that capacity, he said, he hopes toengage with members of both parties towork toward nuclear nonproliferationand increased support for the IAEA’swork. Lee and Moniz were introduced byJohn Tierney, former U.S. representativefrom Massachusetts and executive direc-tor of Council for a Livable World, whichpromotes policies to reduce and eliminatenuclear weapons. During a question and answer session,Lee and Moniz addressed a range of otherissues as well, including the risks of a cyberattack interfering with the U.S. nuclearcommand and control systems, and Lee’songoing efforts to repeal the 2001Authorization for Use of Military Force(AUMF) resolution passed by Congress. The conference was jointly sponsoredby MIT Radius, American Friends ServiceCommittee, the Future of Life Instituteand Massachusetts Peace Action, whosenuclear abolition working group ischaired by MIT professor of biologyJonathan King.

Reprinted with permission of MIT News(http://news.mit.edu/)

U.S. Representative Barbara Lee and Former Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz

MIT Faculty NewsletterVol. XXIX No. 5

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self-examination and reflection by hearingdirectly from the students who make MITsuch a unique and dynamic place. The survey closed in early March andwas answered by 4,541 students, for anoverall response rate of 42%. In general,students report being satisfied at MIT,work hard to succeed inside and outsidethe classroom, and sometimes find it diffi-cult to manage all they have to do. Inmany areas, the 2017 results look similaror better than 2013, for both undergradu-ate and graduate students. To view the entire survey instrumentand to explore question-by-questionresults, please visit: web.mit.edu/ir/surveys/sql.html. Below are some of the broad-levelsurvey findings, organized by topic area.

SatisfactionIt is difficult to measure every aspect of astudent’s quality of life, so as a simplemeasure, we directly ask students how sat-isfied they are being a student at MIT.According to the survey, 91% of studentsreported being somewhat or very satisfied(92% for undergraduates; 90% for gradu-ate students). The 2017 results lookedsimilar to the 2013 results. See Figure 1.When students were asked, “If you coulddecide all over again whether to be astudent at MIT, what would you decide?”3% responded that they would choose notto come to MIT, 81% said they wouldcome to MIT, and the remaining 16%reported having second thoughts. Just 20% of students expressed beingvery satisfied with their ability to balanceacademics and other aspects of life, 47%somewhat satisfied. Both undergraduateand graduate students tended to rate theiroverall academic experience higher thantheir overall student life experience. SeeFigure 2.

WorkloadTo further explore workload balanceissues, the survey asked students to ratetheir current academic workload at MIT

and how it compared to prior educationalsettings. Fifty-four percent of studentssaid their current academic and researchworkload was “About right” (60% forgraduate students and 47% for under-graduate students). Two percent said “Toolight” or “Much too light.” The 2013 and2017 results looked similar. See Figure 3.Fifty-six percent of undergraduate stu-dents rated their workload as muchheavier than high school, compared to22% of graduate students who rated theirworkload much heavier than college.

Despite the demands that come withan MIT education, students noted thatthey felt self-driven and motivated towork through academic pressures. Whenasked the extent to which they agreed ordisagreed with the statement, “Even if Ifeel overwhelmed by my academic work-load, I can rise to the challenge,” 83%somewhat or strongly agreed. A higherproportion of students strongly agreedwith this statement in 2017 compared to2013, for both graduate and undergradu-ate students. See Figure 4.

Student Quality of Life Surveycontinued from page 1

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Figure 1

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The survey asked two questions aboutthe academic environment at MIT andhow it relates to student well-being: hasthe academic environment negativelyimpacted the respondent’s mental andemotional well-being, and has it nega-tively impacted the mental and emotionalwell-being of other students they know.Twenty-three percent of undergraduatestudents and 16% of graduate studentsstrongly agreed that the academic envi-ronment negatively impacted the mentaland emotional well-being of studentsthey knew. A lower percentage (8-9%)strongly agreed that their own well-beingwas negatively impacted. See Figure 5(next page).

Campus Climate & SupportAnother goal of the survey was to gainstudent perspectives on campus climateand the support available to them. From alist of 10 different dimensions, studentswere asked to rate the general climate atMIT using a six-point scale. At one end ofthe scale was one word (e.g., Dangerous),and at the other end was another word(e.g., Safe). Figure 6 (next page) shows themean score for each word pairing, sepa-rately for undergraduate students andgraduate students. We observe that for thewording pairing Stressful: Calm, studentswere more likely to select “Stressful” than“Calm.” During the analysis of this particularsection, we saw notable differences bystudent type. Graduate students weremore likely than undergraduates to select“Competitive” for the word pairCompetitive: Non-competitive. Similarly,undergraduates were more likely to select“Collaborative” for the word pair Non-collaborative: Collaborative. Undergraduate students were morelikely than graduate students to select“Harmful to mental health” for the wordpair Harmful to mental health: Beneficialto mental health. Specifically, two-thirdsof undergraduate students selected apoint on the “harmful to mental health”side of the scale, compared to 52% ofgraduate students.

The survey also sought to gauge howsupported students felt inside and outsideof the classroom. For the statement,“Faculty members treat me fairly,” 52% ofstudents answered “strongly agree,” upfrom 42% in 2013. A higher percentage ofstudents agreed that MIT providedneeded academic support, than supportto succeed outside of academics (77%

versus 55%). Both measures were up from2013. The MIT administration’s respon-siveness to student concerns also faredbetter between the two survey years. SeeFigure 7 (page 19). In 2017, 23% of stu-dents strongly agreed with the statement,compared to 14% in 2013.

44%

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Figure 3

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Figure 4

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Student Quality of Life Surveycontinued from preceding page

44%

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Figure 5

Safe

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Mean score of scale ranging from -3 (left axis) to +3 (right axis)

GraduateUndergraduate

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Figure 6

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Feeling Overwhelmed, Isolated & StressedAnother section of the survey revolvedaround sources of student stress, the waysstudents manage their stress, and their fre-quency of feeling overwhelmed and iso-lated. When asked how often they feltoverwhelmed by all they had to do duringthe current school year, more than halfsaid “Often” or “Very often,” similar tofindings in 2013. See Figure 8. On average,students were less likely to say they felt iso-lated than feeling overwhelmed. Eightpercent said they felt isolated “Very often”;nearly a quarter said “Never.” The survey included a bank of ques-tions asking students about potentialsources of stress during the current aca-demic year. For each of the 27 items in thebank, students rated the item on a four-point scale, ranging from “Not a source ofstress” to “Very stressful.” Interestingly,both undergraduate and graduate stu-dents expressed the same top stressors. The top stressor was “Managing myworkload,” where 87% of undergraduatesand 81% of graduate students rated itmoderately or very stressful. This was fol-lowed by “Balancing multiple commit-ments” (84% undergraduate, 73%graduate), “Expectation to perform aswell as my peers” (57% undergraduate,61% graduate), and “Concerns about lifeafter MIT” (56% undergraduate, 50%graduate).

Health & Well-BeingAnother important component of thesurvey looked at health and well-beingissues, asking students to respond to ques-tions about their sleep habits, emotionalhealth, and ability to find time to engage infun activities. Seventy-three percent of stu-dents described their overall physical healthas good or excellent, while 65% said thesame about their overall mental and emo-tional health. Undergraduate and graduatestudent responses looked similar on thesemeasures. See Figure 9 (next page). When asked on how many of the pastseven days students got enough sleep sothat they felt rested when they woke up,22% of students said fewer than three daysper week (26% for undergraduate stu-

dents and 18% for graduate students).This is much improved from 2013, where37% of students said fewer than three daysper week. See Figure 10 (next page). Seventy-eight percent of studentssomewhat or strongly agreed with thestatement, “I know where to get help

when I am not feeling well,” compared to75% in 2013. In the hopes of learning ifstudents are engaging in activities that areenjoyable, we asked how many days in thepast week they did something fun; 70% ofstudents responded three or more days.

32%

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The MIT administration is responsive to student concerns.

Figure 7

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Within the current school year, how often have you felt overwhelmed by all you had to do?

Figure 8

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In the coming months, we will conduct a more thorough analysis of this survey, with particular focus on the open-ended questionsasked on the survey. Questions about this survey or other surveys run at MIT can be directed to mit-surveys@mit.edu.

Student Quality of Life Surveycontinued from preceding page

48%

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On howmany of the past 7 days did you get enough sleepso that you felt rested when you woke up?

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Figure 10

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Lesley Millar-NicholsonTechnology Licensing Office and You

IT’S BEEN NEARLY A YEAR since Iarrived at MIT from Urbana-Champaign,having spent a decade leading the technol-ogy transfer office at the University ofIllinois’ beautiful flagship campus. Theopportunity to come to MIT to providestrategic leadership in the area of technol-ogy transfer and intellectual property (IP)management was ideal for me and myfamily. My wife, our nine-year-old daughterand I are now settled into the Sudburycountryside. I am also beginning to find myfeet in the Kendall Square environment. I thought it timely to share a littleabout myself and my vision of how theTechnology Licensing Office (TLO) cansupport faculty and students alike in thework to amplify MIT’s global impactthrough the transfer of innovation fromthe lab to the marketplace. The TLO’s rolein ensuring the efficient and effectivetransfer of MIT’s scientific discoveries tostartups and established firms has neverbeen more important than now. In my 16 years at the University ofIllinois, I learned what it takes to create anecosystem to serve entrepreneurial facultyand students when you don’t have easyaccess to capital, mentoring, and the otherresources necessary to build, sustain, andgrow a vibrant innovation ecosystem. Wedid however, over the course of manyyears, manage to create a highly successfulset of resources, facilities, and programs tosupport not only the University, but alsothe surrounding community. I was alsofortunate to participate, on behalf ofIllinois as IP lead, in some significant uni-versity/industry partnerships. With thatbackdrop in mind, I’d like to share withyou my perspective on the MIT TLO, its

responsibilities to the MIT community,and the ways that I envision we will shapetechnology transfer operations in thefuture to enhance our services to you. In case you are not familiar with thework of the TLO, our purpose, in keepingwith MIT’s mission to advance knowl-edge, is to help identify, protect, marketand license MIT’s intellectual propertyand assist its transfer into society for thepublic good. The IP we manage may bepatentable and/or copyrightable and maybe jointly owned by other research or cor-porate entities. The TLO is also responsi-ble for managing and licensing the MIT

trademarks and use of MIT’s name bythird parties. We assist faculty in the trans-fer of materials and tangible propertyfrom other institutions into MIT labs, aswell as from MIT to corporate and otherresearch organizations. We also work withfaculty in finding the most appropriate

open source licenses for distribution ofsoftware. Administratively, the TLOreports to the Associate Provost with adotted line relationship to the VicePresident for Research for the purpose ofsigning licenses. The TLO has IP compliance responsi-bilities stemming from MIT’s and LincolnLaboratory’s use of federal, state, corpo-rate, or other funding, and we mustappropriately manage any IP flowingfrom that research. (See figures belowwhich display funding from which IP mayarise.) However, our work also involvesmany additional activities.

We are proud to be part of the vibrantMIT innovation ecosystem and supportmany world renowned entrepreneurialprograms such as the Deshpande Centerfor Technological Innovation, SandboxInnovation Fund Program, and the

Research Expenditures By Primary Sponsor (in Millions)* Fiscal Year 2016 Total: $728.11

Lincoln Laboratory Program Funding By Mission Area (in Millions)* Fiscal Year 2016 Total: $973

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MIT Faculty NewsletterVol. XXIX No. 5

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Venture Mentoring Service. The TLO’sgoals also align closely with those of theMIT Innovation Initiative, as we work tomove innovative ideas from conception toimpact. In addition, over 700 companiesengage with faculty and students on proj-ects at MIT, and licensing officers spendnearly half of their time working with theOffice of Sponsored Programs (OSP) tonegotiate IP terms and undertake thereview of background IP for industry, andfoundation sponsored contracts. We alsowork with the Industrial Liaison Program(ILP) to create and strengthen relation-ships between MIT and corporations. Inrecent months, the TLO, OSP, and ILPhave been working closely together toidentify more creative and flexible ways toengage with corporate sponsors. Ourlicensing officers also engage and provideIP related assistance to several Institutewide programs such as the MIT EnergyInitiative, the Koch Institute, the MasdarInstitute of Science and TechnologyPolicy, and SMART (the Singapore-MITAlliance for Research and Technology,that was MIT’s first research centeroutside Cambridge). More recently, theTLO was involved in finessing a new IPportfolio approach created for the novelpublic-private consortium AdvancedFunctional Fabrics for America (AFFOA),which was led by MIT. Most typically, faculty, researchers, orstudents will come to the TLO (located at255 Main Street, Kendall Square) tosubmit a new technology for considera-tion and ultimately for licensing to a thirdparty that will invest further fundingtoward the development of the technol-ogy, which then can be sold to customers.Our focus is impact, not income, andrevenue derived from licensing is sharedwith inventors, research units, and MIT,after patent and other operational costsare recovered.

Evolution of the TLOSince July 2016, I have been talking withmany stakeholders in the MIT commu-nity and working with the TLO staff toidentify ways in which we can improve thesupport we provide to the MIT commu-nity. Given the volume of researchfunding at MIT and the resulting thrilling

scientific discoveries, it will be no surpriseto you that the TLO has seen a 40%increase in technology disclosuresreceived in the last 10 years (see the table).In that same period, we have had over2,000 U.S. patents issued, and signed1,000 licenses and options to companies,including licenses to over 190 startupcompanies. Some of our licensees arelocated within walking distance of theMIT campus. Many startups are embed-ded in local incubators, and we hopefuture startup licensees will also be part ofthe newly launched Engine. Of MIT’sentire U.S. patent portfolio of 2,661patents, over 50% are licensed, which is avery high proportion in comparison toour peers. (Both of these figures are ofMarch 2017 and will change constantlybased on new patents being issued eachmonth and licenses executed.) Such success takes significant effort,and building on such success takes candidreflection on what has been working andwhat needs to be improved. Behind thedirect engagement with faculty and stu-

dents sits a very capable but stretchedTLO administrative infrastructure. Withyour help over the course of the next fewyears, I would like to make some adjust-ments to both our internal operations andour engagement with the community weserve in order to ensure that we not onlystay relevant but also evolve as the entire

innovation economy evolves. The follow-ing are a few of the areas that we havealready identified for improvement. Iwelcome your feedback on these andother areas.• Increased transparency in decisionmaking, and in sharing the rationale forlegal and financial deal terms

• Improved communication, both in con-sistency and provision of materials aboutIP management

• Improved TLO Website (due to launchin July 2017), including a future inventorportal

• Increased visibility of the TLO as aresource for the MIT communitythrough more systematic and easy-to-access/use educational offerings on IPrelated topics, such as videos, Web-basedseminars, and provision of data tofaculty on their portfolios, market, andIP landscape analysis

Technology Licensing Office and YouMillar-Nicholson, from preceding page

0100200300400500600700800

2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014 2016

Disc

losu

res

Fiscal Year

Disclosures by Fiscal Year, 2007-2016

Technology Disclosures to the TLO

MIT Faculty NewsletterMay/June 2017

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• Lower transactional costs, throughinvestment in infrastructure, including anew IP database and improved financialsystems

• Improved invention disclosure process andpatent management to ensure high qualitypatents to enable commercialization

• Improved access to our technologies forpotential licensees, including a moreuser friendly technology database andexpanded ready-to-sign licenses

We have already begun to take steps insome of these areas, but we also need theassistance of the MIT research community.For example, to improve our invention dis-closure process and management of thepatent portfolios we need to make someadjustments to our current procedures,such as reinforcing the need to have inven-tors submit their technologies well beforethey make a public disclosure and providesufficient information for the licensingofficer to ascertain, in consultation with theinventor, how and through whom the tech-

nology might be commercialized. Toachieve this, we will be making some minoradjustments to our technology disclosureforms to gather additional information

about the technology from inventors. Wealso need all MIT inventors to have com-pleted an Invention and ProprietaryInformation Agreement. In addition, in thenext six months, we will, following someimprovements to the current beta system,be making a switch to an online-only tech-nology disclosure process The TLO has a vital role to play inmoving MIT discoveries from idea toinvestment to impact. We rely on our rela-tionship with faculty and the MIT com-munity to be able to continue in this role.

Whether through open source assistance,patenting and licensing work, copyrightand trademark matters, transfer of materi-als, negotiation of IP terms in corporate

sponsored research, or general guidanceand information on IP matters (to namebut a few), I hope that in the coming yearsthe value that the TLO can add to thevibrant innovation environment at MITwill become even more apparent. Iwelcome your comments, not only aboutthe efforts above, but also generally onyour interactions with the TLO. Please feelfree to contact me at lesleymn@mit.edu.

The TLO has a vital role to play in moving MITdiscoveries from idea to investment to impact. We relyon our relationship with faculty and the MIT communityto be able to continue in this role.

Lesley Millar-Nicholson is Director, MITTechnology Licensing Office(lesleymn@mit.edu).

MIT Faculty NewsletterVol. XXIX No. 5

M.I.T. Numbersfrom the 2017 Student Quality of Life Survey

Source: Office of the Provost/Institutional Research

23%

18%

19%

57%

37%

37%

35%

37%

46%

40%

31%

32%

37%

45%

31%

44%

31%

39%

30%

32%

12%

72%

76%

70%

32%

51%

43%

44%

41%

26%

32%

40%

39%

33%

24%

37%

23%

29%

17%

15%

9%

4%

StronglyDisagree

SomewhatDisagree

Neutral SomewhatAgree

StronglyAgree

100% 80% 60% 40% 20% 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

I have friends at MIT.

I am proud to be a student at MIT.I feel that a diversified student body is important for MIT's continued

academic excellence.Students at MIT treat one another with respect.

Faculty members treat me fairly.

I feel that I belong at MIT.I feel that the climate and opportunities for female students at MIT are at

least as good as those for male students.I have enough opportunities to explore a wide variety of academic

interests.Students take pride in how stressed out they are at MIT.

My department creates a collegial and supportive environment.I feel that the climate and opportunities for LBGTQ identified students at

MIT are at least as good as those for non-LBGTQ identified students.I feel that the climate and opportunities for students of a racial minority at

MIT are at least as good as those for non-minority students.I have a good relationship with my advisor(s).

I feel engaged with the MIT community.

I spend a significant amount of time on extracurricular activities.I feel that the academic environment negatively impacts the mental and

emotional well being of students I know.I feel that the climate and opportunities for international students at MIT

are at least as good as those for non-international students.I feel I would be welcomed into any extra-curricular activity I choose to be

a part of at MIT.I have to work harder than some of my peers to be taken seriously.

I feel that the academic environment negatively impacts my mental and emotional well being.

I believe that others think I do not belong at MIT.

Please indicate your level of agreement ordisagreement with the following statements:Undergraduate responses sorted in descending order

by somewhat + strongly agree