Responses An Update on MIT Dangerous Responsibility, … · 2020. 9. 14. · Ruth K. Seidman is Libraries Communication Coordinator. Harvey M. Sapolsky is Professor of Political Science

Vol. XIV No. 2 October/November 2001

From The Faculty Chair — Page 3Task Force on Campus Security — Page 4

Teach Talk — Page 5Museum Loan Network — Page 15

From The Libraries — Page 19Student Leaders Report — Page 21

Also: Quality of Life Survey; Benefits Open Enrollment; M.I.T. Numbers

Contents — Page 2

http://web.mit.edu/fnl

(Continued on Page 13)(Continued on Page 9) (Continued on Page 11)

Responses

In a press conference held onApril 4, 2001, MIT announced itscommitment to make the materials

associated with virtually all its coursesfreely available on the World Wide Webfor non-commercial use (see <http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/nr/2001/ocw.html>). This new initiative, dubbedMIT OpenCourseWare (OCW), reflectsour institutional commitment to sharingknowledge across the globe. This articleis intended to update the faculty on whereOCW now stands, and what the plans arefor this program.

OCW stands in stark contrast to manyinitiatives in the private sector and byother universities that are attempting touse the “intellectual capital” of academiaon the Web as a revenue source. Weenvision OCW not as an alternative tothe intensive, residentially-basededucation we now provide our students.Instead, OCW is much more in thetradition of faculty publishing textbooks.We see OCW as providing a way toshare our thinking about the content of a

An Update on MITOpenCourseWare

Steven R. Lerman

In the flood of commentary after thesavage attacks of September 11th

wise advice has been offered bycolleagues and others about the need forAmericans to restrain their reactions,and especially for the U.S. governmentto be cautious and contained in itsmilitary response. We know that theattackers did not represent Islam.Probably most Afghanis do not supportthe Taliban. We should seek measuredjustice, not blind revenge. If we lash outwe risk creating more misery, morehatred, and more terrorists. It was theinternational community as well as theUnited States that was attacked and thuswe must seek a balanced, internationalresponse.

Dangerous misunderstandings canexist everywhere. I worry that many willnot appreciate the depth of the challengethat has been offered to the Americansecurity forces, the U.S. military, and

DangerousStereotyping

Harvey M. Sapolsky

Since I am (or intend to be) a studentof how language operates, Iapproached the news of

September 11th by that avenue. I wasalmost immediately struck by how farbeyond the capacities of customaryspeech we were forced to move. Eventhe inevitable question seemed clumsy.“Are you OK?” But who was, that day orthe next or the next? “Were you affectedat all?” Who wasn’t? “Did you havefamily at the World Trade Center?” Ah,but what of friends, working associates,ex-students, even passing acquaint-ances? “Did you know any of thecasualties?” And yet what of the missing?

More centrally, what was the deeditself appropriately to be called? Anevent? Too bland. For many of us, PedroMartinez having a good outing againstthe Yankees is an event. And buriedwithin that small word are so many inaptpositive connotations – parties,

Responsibility,Muddle, and Blame

John Hildebidle

MIT Faculty Newsletter Vol. XIV No. 2

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MIT Faculty Newsletter

Editorial Board

*Nazli Choucri(Political Science)Ernst G. Frankel(Ocean Engineering)Jean E. Jackson(Anthropology)Gordon Kaufman(Management Science & Statistics)Daniel S. Kemp(Chemistry)Jonathan King(Biology)*Lawrence M. Lidsky(Nuclear Engineering)Stephen J. Lippard(Chemistry)Fred Moavenzadeh(Civil Engineering)Merritt Roe Smith(Science, Technology, & Society)David Thorburn(Literature)

*Editorial Committee for this issue.

David LewisManaging Editor

Address: MIT Faculty Newsletter, Bldg. N52-419aCambridge, MA 02139; (617) 253-7303.

E-Mail: [email protected]: 617-253-0458Website: http://web.mit.edu/fnl

Subscriptions: $15/year On-Campus$20/year Off-Campus

Contents

Lori Breslow is Senior Lecturer, School ofManagement.Jaime Devereaux is a Senior, Course 16; President,Undergraduate Association.Stephen C. Graves is Professor of Management;Faculty Chair.John Hildebidle is Professor of Literature.Steven R. Lerman is Professor of Civil andEnvironmental Engineering.Dilan Seneviratne is a graduate student, MaterialsScience and Engineering; President, Graduate StudentCouncil.Ruth K. Seidman is Libraries CommunicationCoordinator.Harvey M. Sapolsky is Professor of Political Science.Janet Snover is Special Assistant to the ExecutiveVice President.

Authors

ResponsesDangerous Stereotyping 1Responsibility, Muddle, and Blame 1

An Update on MIT OpenCourseWare 1

From The Faculty ChairOpen Questions 3

Task Force on Campus Security is Formed 4

Teach TalkThe Ecology of LearningSeveral Streams of Research Take a BroadApproach to Understanding the Learning Process 5

Quality of Life Survey Underway 8

Benefits Open Enrollment for 2002 14

Hidden Treasures Come to LightThrough Museum Loan Network 15

From The LibrariesAd Hoc Committee on the Humanities LibraryCalls for World-Class Library for theTwenty-First Century 19

Student Leaders [email protected] 21Cost of Living: Still an Issue for Graduate Students 21

M.I.T. Numbers 12, 24

MIT Faculty Newsletter October/November 2001

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From The Faculty Chair

Open QuestionsStephen C. Graves

(Continued on next page)

September 11th has changed ourworld in ways that arecontinuing to unfold. In the days

to come at MIT, we will face a numberof pressing challenges due to the eventsof September 11th. These challengeswill test some of the core principlesand values that we hold dear. In someinstances we’ll find that key principlesare in conflict. As a faculty we need towork with the administration andstudent body to decide how to addressthese issues and how to find the rightbalance between conflictingviewpoints. In the following I’d like tooutline a few of these issues thatthreaten our commitment to opennesswithin our environment. I invite yourinput and advice.

Open Expression: We cherish theprinciple of free speech. We also havean extremely diverse campuscommunity and a strong commitmentto creating and maintaining aninclusive environment, free of hostilityin any shape or form. One’s right tofree speech can lead to tremendousdiscomfort for others in ourcommunity. Where do we draw theline?

This is an age-old question, but onethat is likely to become increasinglyrelevant in the days ahead. As the waragainst terrorism proceeds, many inour community will have a need anddesire to express their views andemotions. Much like the Vietnam War,we might expect some level ofdivisiveness on campus, as the warescalates and various interest groupsstake out their positions. How do weprovide forums, and other outlets, formembers of our community to express

and demonstrate their views inpeaceful, non-destructive ways? Howdo we do this in a way that preserveseach individual’s right to free speech?And how do we assure tolerance fordiffering viewpoints, and prevent anyhint of hateful speech, targeted atindividuals or ethnic groups?

Open Access: We live and work in aremarkably open campus, in whichone is free to come and go with minimalrestrictions and limitations. There isfree access to most academic andadministrative buildings, many ofwhich are open 24 hours a day. Forsome facilities and events, there arenominal restrictions limiting access tothe MIT community; yet, theenforcement of these restrictions isoften not very apparent nor visible.Delivery trucks have relatively freerun of the campus. Where we do havea need for increased security, we tendto make it not very visible, by design,so as to maintain the illusion of anopen campus.

Similarly, there is fairly open accessto a wealth of information available atMIT. Our libraries are generally opento the public, many seminars andcolloquia are open to the community,and there are minimal restrictions onaccess to much of the informationavailable from our Websites, postedboth by the Institute and by individuals.

In light of the recent events, mightMIT be a possible target for a terroristattack? Might we be an unwittingsource for material or information thatcould be used by terrorists? Certainlythe level of fear and concern about oursafety has risen to a point where someaction is needed. But what amount of

heightened security will the MITcommunity tolerate in exchange forincreased safety? Should we lock upthe buildings? Should we restrictdelivery trucks? Should we requireidentification cards for access tobuildings and events? Should we putprotective restrictions on our Webpages?

Open Research: As do most researchuniversities, MIT is committed toconducting open research, and itsdissemination through the appropriatescholarly channels. Indeed, the MITPolicies and Procedures, section 14.2,states, “Openness requires that as ageneral policy MIT not undertake, onthe campus, classified research orresearch whose results may not bepublished without prior permission. . . .”The MIT Policies and Procedures(section 14.2) goes on to say,“Openness also requires that, once theyare at MIT, foreign faculty, students,and scholars not be singled out forrestriction in their access to MIT’seducational and research activities.”

Yet MIT also has a strongcommitment to national service. Thereundoubtedly will be calls from ourgovernment to our faculty and ourresearch labs to help discover, developand deploy technology to help combatvarious forms of terrorism. Some ofthese requests may entail classifiedresearch and/or impose otherrestrictions on the conduct of theresearch. The MIT Policies andProcedures (section 14.2) providessome leeway for exceptions to therestriction on classified research whenjudged to be in the national interest,


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Open QuestionsGraves, from preceding page

e.g., “ . . .where the immediatedistribution of research results wouldnot be in the best interests of society.”How do we as an institution decidewhat types of “closed” research toconduct on campus, if any? How dowe segregate this research, bothphysically and intellectually, from ournormal fare? How do we trade off theneeds of our nation with ourcommitment to open research and the

The Task Force on CampusSecurity that President CharlesM. Vest appointed on October 1

began to meet the following day andhas formed working groups to addressspecific issues. The charge to the 23-member Task Force is to assist MIT insetting policy and planning for heightenedcampus security and safety for theimmediate and the longer-term future.

As Dr. Vest wrote in his October 9e-mail message to MIT students,faculty, and staff, “During these difficulttimes, all of us are concerned about thesafety and security of our campus. Iwant you to know that we haveenhanced security on campus generallyand are in the process of reviewing allof our security arrangements.” Themessage went on to provide details of

free dissemination of knowledge?What principles or guidelines shouldwe apply to make these judgments?

I have laid out a series of questionsthat I expect we will see as we moveforward in this difficult and uncertaintime. All of these questions focusaround the current way we conductour business at MIT, namely in anenvironment that is open, inclusive,and transparent. For sure I don’t have

the many steps that already have beentaken and others that are being planned.

Issues that the Task Force will reviewinclude protection of campus people,facilities, and environment as well asprotection against dangerous orinappropriate release of informationand materials.

Chaired by Executive Vice PresidentJohn R. Curry, the Task Force hasbeen asked to present initial recom-mendations in November. Specificareas to be addressed by the TaskForce’s working groups includebiological, nuclear, and chemicalhazards; access and openness of thecampus; and information policies andprivacy issues.

In addition to administrators andstudent representatives, eight faculty

members are serving on the Task Force.They include Vice President forInformation Systems James D. Bruce;Chancellor Phillip L. Clay; Chair ofthe Faculty Stephen C. Graves; VicePresident and Dean for Research DavidJ. Litster; Dean for UndergraduateEducation Robert P. Redwine;Professor Richard J. Samuels; InstituteProfessor Sheila E. Widnall; andProfessor Patrick H. Winston.

If you hear of concerns that youbelieve the Task Force should consider,please send them in an e-mail messageto [email protected] and theywill be forwarded to the appropriateworking group, office, or individualfor follow up.✥[Janet Snover can be reached [email protected]]

the answers. In my role as facultychair, I’ll work to assure that the facultyhas a strong voice in addressing thesequestions in whatever form they mightarise. Indeed, the answers to thesequestions must come from the faculty,who need to work with theadministration and the student body tofind the right path forward for MIT.✥[Stephen C. Graves can be reached [email protected]]

Task Force on Campus Security is FormedJanet Snover

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The Ecology of LearningSeveral Streams of Research Take a

Broad Approach to Understanding the Learning ProcessLori Breslow

This is the third in a series ofarticles begun last spring on thecontributions of educational

research to the improvement of teachingand learning. Each article has attemptedto tie the findings of scholarship tospecific actions that can be taken withinthe classroom and the lab, as well as themore informal settings in which teachingand learning take place.

The first article described researchinto the differences between expert andnovice learners, and offeredrecommendations for how those findingscould be used to help student novicesacquire the habits of mind and work thatcharacterize professional expertise. Thesecond article looked at a theory oflearning known as constructivism, so-called because its fundamentalassumption is that learners construct theirown knowledge through a process of“meaning making” that entails acquiringand using the concepts of a discipline.One of constructivism’s most fruitfulfindings is that a student’s priorknowledge plays a pivotal role in howhe/she learns, a realization that hasimportant implications for thepresentation of new ideas in theclassroom.

In this final article, I want to describetwo streams of research that have becomeparticularly prominent over the last 10to 20 years. One of these perspectives,championed primarily by developmentalpsychologists, examines how theelements of the environment can support– or impede – learning. (The environmentbeing defined as something as containedas an instructor working with one or two

students, up to and including the cultureto which that instructor and his/herstudents belong.) A second school ofthought, coined “situated learning,”holds that to learn means not only tomaster the facts and concepts of a givenfield – its explicit knowledge – but alsoto master the ways of seeing, interpreting,and knowing that are practiced byprofessionals in that field.

What is common to both these views,first of all, is the premise that the contextin which learning takes place exerts anenormous influence on learners and theireducational development. Second, thesescholars see learning as a socialphenomenon – a process firmly rootedin the way human beings interact withone another – rather than simplysomething that goes on in the head of anindividual learner. Finally, they definelearning as ecological, by which theymean it can only be done by and withinadaptive, open, complex systems.Individuals are complex, open systems;so are classrooms and universities. Atevery level of analysis (individuals,classrooms, universities) one must lookat how the elements comprising thesystem operate both individually andinterdependently, and work towardsstructuring those elements so that thesystem can function optimally.

Let me describe in more detail whateach of these schools of thought canteach us about teaching.

Development in ContextDevelopment in Context is the title of

an influential book in the field ofpsychology that appeared in 1993.Composed of chapters written by some

of the leading scholars in the field,Development in Context described amajor shift in the way development andlearning was being studied andconceptualized. Specifically, theresearchers working within thisparadigm see human development asthe result of transactions betweenindividuals and their physical and socio/cultural environments. In theirintroduction to the book, editors RobertH. Wozniak and Kurt W. Fischer arguethat, “how we perceive the world, act onobjects, interact with people, andgenerate symbols . . . must be understoodas the joint product of the physical andsocial situations that individuals findthemselves in and the personalcharacteristics that individuals bring withthem to these situations.” (p. xii).

This perspective, which has its rootsin the scholarship of such seminalthinkers as John Dewey, Jean Piaget,Lev Semenovich Vgotsky, and KurtLewin, has powerful implications forhow teaching is conducted and learningachieved. In an earlier Teach Talk, Idescribed one stream of research thatcan be seen as rooted within thistheoretical framework: Educationalresearchers who have studied thedifference between what they call “deep”and “superficial” learning maintain thatdeep learning – generally thought of aslearning that goes beyond rotememorization to a fuller understandingof concepts and ideas – results fromfundamental decisions instructors makeabout how their courses will operate (forexample, the kind of assignments and



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exams given). (Please see “WhenStudents Learn,” Teach Talk, Oct./Nov.1996, <http://web.mit.edu/tll/published/teach_talk.htm>.)

At the risk of becoming overlytheoretical, I would like to focus on onepiece of research reported in a chapter inDevelopment in Context entitled “TheDynamics of Competence: How ContextContributes Directly to Skill” by Fischer,Elaine Rotenberg, Daniel Bullock, andPamela Rya (pp. 93-117). As the titleindicates, Fischer and his colleagues setout to tackle an understanding of the roleof context in competency: that is, howan individual acquires and perfects his/her ability to do something – whetherthat something is writing an essay,carrying out a scientific experiment, orplaying the guitar. (Competence isdefined “most simply as the upper limiton the developmental level of behavior”(p. 97). I believe the findings of thisstudy have direct applicability to whatuniversity-level instructors do (or don’tdo) in their classroom and in theirinteractions with students outside ofclass.

To reveal the bottom line: Theexperiments led Fischer and hiscolleagues to conclude that competenceis not simply an internal capability of aparticular individual, but “arises fromthe collaboration between person andcontext, with competence changing asthe context changes.” They go on to write:

“People are especially important inthis collaboration, molding the contextto support particular kinds of actionsand thoughts in those they interactwith. The effects of this sort of socialsupport are dramatic, producing sharpshifts in competence levels inindividual children. Competence risesabruptly with the provision of supportand drops dramatically when thesupport is removed .”[italics mine] (p.93).

The authors performed a series ofexperiments in which they askedchildren, adolescents, and, in oneexperiment, adults to undertake someaction. One experiment asked childrento act out and tell stories. Another askedthem to sort blocks into boxes. A thirdrequired adolescents and adults toexplain how they made decisions abouta complex problem. Within eachexperiment, the researchers varied thedegree and type of social support theexperimenter provided for the task. Forexample, in the experiment in whichchildren told stories, if support was low,the child was simply asked to tell thestory. If more support was madeavailable, the experimenter might modelthe behavior he/she was asking the childto do. (While the experimenters providedprompts, they never actually intervenedin the subject’s demonstration of theskill.) The subject’s capability was thenassessed using a pretested, statisticallyanalyzed scale that described in detailthe various levels of ability for thatparticular skill. In experiments involvinghundreds of subjects, the researchshowed that in contexts where there wasrelatively little support, subjectsdemonstrated what the researchers call“functional-level competence” (i.e.,relatively low); however, in situationswhere support was stronger, thesubjects produced “optimal-levelcompetence.”

Functional and optimal levels ofcompetence provide the end points forwhat the authors call “the developmentalrange,” and they maintain that it is withinthis range that short-term growth in skillsoccurs with instruction, practice, andcontextual variation each affecting theprocess. Reporting on experiments with14- through 28-year-olds, they state thedevelopmental range does not end withchildhood but extends at least until thelate twenties as young adults are faced

with the challenge of learning to employhigh-level abstract reasoning. Finally,the authors hypothesize there areadvantages to delaying the completemastery of a skill, and that the existenceof a developmental range in which thelearner moves back and forth throughfunctional and optimal levels isbeneficial to the learning process. At thelower level, for example, the learner cansearch for and experiment with a varietyof ways to structure adaptive behaviors,rather than settling on one too soon. Onthe other hand, functioning at the optimallevel gives him/her the opportunity topractice higher-level capabilities thathave proven to be successful. “Thedevelopmental-range phenomenonprovides a way of having both advantagesat the same time by separating the twolevels,” the authors write (pp. 112-113).

There are several obvious lessons thatcan be extrapolated from these studies.First, they complement a slew ofeducational research that shows studentsdo better in a highly supportiveenvironment. (Please note that “highlysupportive” is not synonymous with“easy.”) In the Fischer studies, methodsof support included modeling desiredoutcomes (as, for example, when anadult acted out and explained the kind ofstory he/she wanted the child to create),or providing key elements of the desiredoutcome. These same techniques caneasily be adapted to a university-levelclassroom.

Second, the idea of working within thestudents’ developmental range and notrushing optimal-level competence hasinteresting implications. For example, Ionce observed a highly effective 18.02recitation instructor pose a question tothe class, and then bypass students whom,he later confided in me, he sensed hadthe correct answer. Rather, he called onstudents in whom he was less confident.

The Ecology of LearningBreslow, from preceding page



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“If the right answer comes out tooquickly,” he explained, “students oftendon’t see why the wrong answer won’twork.”

“Besides,” he continued, “sometimesI’m surprised, and a totally new way ofapproaching the problem, which neveroccurred to me before, comes to thesurface if we don’t go to the ‘correct’answer immediately.”

I imagine Fisher and his colleagueswould applaud this instructor’s approach.Their investigation into how skills aredeveloped and competency reached hasyielded some interesting insights intowhat we are trying to accomplish.

Situated LearningThe idea behind the concept of

“situated learning” is, in some ways, sosimple and commonsensical that Iwonder why it took so long to bearticulated. The person who coined theterm, John Seely Brown, Xerox’s chiefscientist and director of its Palo AltoResearch Center, begins this explanationof it by citing an insight by thepsychologist Jerome Bruner.

Bruner realized that when we talk ofteaching a discipline, we are usuallyreferring to the facts, concepts, laws,equations, etc., that have been commonlyrecognized as belonging to thatdiscipline. Bruner called this materialthe “explicit knowledge” of the field.But being recognized as a practitioner ina given field, Brown writes, “involves alot more than getting all the answersright at the end of each chapter.”(“Growing Up Digital: How the WebChanges Work, Education, and the WaysPeople Learn,” Change, March/April2000, p. 15.)

Learning to be a physicist or chemicalengineer or university professor, Brunermaintained, means thinking, working,seeing, interacting as a member of thatprofession. It means approaching aproblem as a physicist or engineer or

academic does; it means, in fact, beingable to discern an interesting problemfrom an uninteresting one. It entailsrecognizing what counts as “evidence”to solve the problem, and who or what isconsidered authoritative in the field. Itmeans understanding what skills arevalued by the profession, how hierarchyand dominance are defined, and whatcatapults practitioners to the top of thefield. All these things Bruner defined asthe “tacit knowledge [of a professional]community” (Brown, p. 15).

The key word for Brown and othersworking within this frame of referenceis community, for situated learning positsthat learning not only refers to gainingcommand of explicit knowledge, butalso means being socialized andenculturated into a particular“community of practice.” Communitiesof practice emerge as people developand share ways of doing things, includingapproaching and solving problems,interpreting information, etc., so thatthere are both social and historical aspectsto the notion of communities of practice.Members of a community of practicehave learned ways of operating that havebeen created by many people interactingover a period of time, and, in doing so,their own individual identities havebeen forged.

The term “community of practice”itself was first used in a book calledSituated Learning (1991) written byEtienne Wenger and Jean Lave. Wengerwent on to write Communities ofPractice: Learning, Meaning andIdentity (1997). In an excerpt from thatbook, he writes, “Communities ofpractice are an integral part of our dailylives. They are so informal and sopervasive that they rarely come intoexplicit focus, but for the same reasons,they are also quite familiar.” (quoted in“Communities of Practice,” Training,February 1997, p. 38). What I would like

to put forth here, is as teachers we needto bring the elements of the communitiesof practice in which we work into“explicit focus,” so that we can mobilizeall necessary resources to help ourstudents become outstanding membersof the professional communities theywill soon enter.

For example, in the first of thesearticles on educational research, I arguedone way to make our students betterproblem solvers is to explicitly lay outthe process by which problems aresolved. Similarly, although I am not anadvocate of relying solely on lectures inthe classroom, one of their advantages isthey allow students to see how aprofessional in the field approaches,organizes, and connects ideas related toa particular concept in the discipline. Asanother example, when I am talking to agroup about oral presentation skills, Iwill often step out of my role as teacher/presenter to comment directly on what Ijust did (“so notice how I used ananecdote to recapture your attention”),becoming, in effect, my own Greekchorus. All these techniques can helpstudents uncover the mysteries of howprofessionals engage in their work andmake the implicit explicit.

Similarly, Wenger writes thatcommunities of practice include “whatis said and what is left unsaid; what isrepresented and what is assumed”(Training, p. 38). In observing teachingat MIT, a common error I see is that theinstructor assumes the students alreadyknow some concept he/she defines asbasic to the field. Eric Mazur, the Harvardphysics professor who has developed anovel teaching technique he calls “peerinstruction,” explains this phenomenonwell. “I keep being surprised,” Mazuradmits, “by how difficult certainfundamental concepts can be. In fact, Inoticed that for us teachers some of




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these very fundamental concepts aresecond nature. They’re so second naturethat we can not explain them very wellany more. They’re obvious; they’re clearwithout any words.” (Thinking Together:Collaborative Learning in Science,videotape produced by HarvardUniversity, 1992). What Mazur isarticulating, is the frustration of onewho has long been socialized into aparticular field trying to put himselfback into the position of the novice. Thisis not an easy proposition, but it isnecessary for successful teaching.

I am not suggesting that every student

who takes 8.01 or 8.02, for example,should be trained to become aprofessional physicist. What I am sayingis that along with the “knowing what,”there are certain kinds of “knowing how”we need to teach, and we should thinkcarefully about how we can bring thatkind of knowledge into the classroom. (Idon’t wish to give the wrong impression:I have observed many MIT faculty doingthis already and doing it exceptionallywell.) I am also suggesting that the waysin which we engage with students, bothintellectually and interpersonally,teaches subtle lessons that we need to be

aware of lest we pass on attributes thatwill be less than useful in their futureprofessional lives.

This finally brings me back to thepremise with which I started this piece:That teaching is fundamentally acomplex social process that encompassesmore than information transfer. Knowingwhat some of the research has uncoveredabout that perspective on teaching will,hopefully, allow us to harness strategiesand techniques in order to further oureducational goals.✥[Lori Breslow can be reached [email protected]]

A major survey is underway onquality of life issues for MITfaculty and staff, being

conducted under the auspices of the MITCouncil on Family and Work. Launchedin mid-October, the survey is availableonline at <http://web.mit.edu/surveys/qualityoflife> and all faculty membersare urged to respond before the deadlineof November 2nd.

The MIT Council on Family and Workhas developed the survey as part of abroad assessment of the MITcommunity’s needs and issues withregard to integrating a fulfilling andproductive professional life with afulfilling personal and/or family life.

In his letter encouraging fullparticipation from the faculty, PresidentVest wrote:

“Two years ago, I reestablished theMIT Council on Family and Work andrequested advice on how to make MIT abetter place to work and study. Our goalis to provide an environment thatpromotes personal and professionalgrowth for everyone. . . .The Council on

Family and Work is about to begin anassessment of the quality of life at MIT,and I urge you to participate. This surveywill give us an understanding of thefactors affecting the well-being of facultyand staff and will help the Council toformulate its recommendations.”

The survey project is being guided bythe Council’s Quality of Life Task Force,co-chaired by Roy Welsch, professor,Statistics and Management Science,Sloan School of Management, and VickyDiadiuk, assistant director, Operations,Microsystems Technology Labs, incollaboration with the consulting firmWFD, Inc.

The survey takes approximately 20 -30 minutes to complete. Participation iscompletely voluntary, and theinformation provided will be strictlyconfidential. No one from MIT will seeindividual survey results; WFD, Inc.will analyze the data and provide resultsin summary form. Following a period ofdata gathering and analysis, results andrecommendations will be presented tothe Council by WFD, Inc. in early 2002.

Anyone having difficulty with anyaspect of the survey or seeking furtherinformation can send an e-mail [email protected] or call the surveyhelp line at 617-452-4971 from off-campus, 2-4971 from on-campus.

Co-chairs of the Council on Familyand Work are Claude Canizares,associate provost, and Rae Simpson, co-administrator, Family Resource Center.Other members of the Council’s Qualityof Life Task Force are: Prof. R. JohnHansman, Jr., (Aeronautics andAstronautics); Assoc. Prof. Terry W.Knight, (Architecture); Elizabeth A.Reed, director, Office of Career Servicesand Preprofessional Advising; Prof.Lotte Bailyn, (Sloan School ofManagement); Noramay J. Cadena,Mechanical Engineering, Class of 2003;Regina Caines, director, AffirmativeAction/EEOC & Diversity Programs;Christopher D. Coldren, postdoctoralfellow, (Biology); Ellen Williams,executive director, Gender EquityProject; and Joyce D. Yaffee, director,Human Resources, (Lincoln Laboratory).✥


Quality of Life Survey Underway

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law enforcement agencies. It is theirresponsibility to protect Americans andAmerican national interests fromattack. The September 11th murder ofmore than 6,000 innocent people andthe destruction of very visible symbolsof American influence that day can notand will not go unpunished. Our forceshave enormous resources and greatingenuity, nearly all of which will nowbe devoted to this cause.

I worry also about the mis-understandings of America’s likelyresponse to the Trade Center andPentagon attacks that are becomingpart of the discussion on this campusand others. We all should appreciateother cultures. We all should be tolerantof the ethnic and religious differencesthat exist among us. And as we seek tounderstand and appreciate groupcultures we must avoid the trap ofdismissing some cultures as not worthyof our consideration. I speak herespecifically of those in the U.S.military, a group that too often hasbeen denied fair appraisal in theacademic community. Now, more thanever, we would do well to achieve afuller understanding of our country’scontemporary military culture, thecharacter of the senior leadership, andthe requirements of military operations.We should know about life in otherlands, but we should also know aboutthe institutions that guard our own.

For example, I find it incredible thatsome believe that the Americanmilitary is about to “carpet bomb” anycountry. I also find it incredible thatsome think that, because America wasdirectly attacked, concerns about“collateral damage” will disappearfrom the thinking of our militaryplanners. American forces fight by therules of war that do not allow the

intentional targeting of civilians orconduct of indiscriminate anddisproportional attacks. Our forces areprofessionally led and highlydisciplined. They will not be usingtheir vast capabilities for destructionto lay waste to villages, to kill theinnocent, or to destroy another culture.

Many in the universities have had

their views of the military shaped bythe Vietnam War. In the chargedrhetoric of the antiwar movement ofthe time American forces were oftenportrayed as baby killers enjoying thedestruction of Vietnam. No doubt therewere atrocities conducted by our forces.Evil, ignorant, and untrained peopleare found in every military. Wars givethem opportunities to do terrible thingsunder the cover of patriotism. In truththere was probably less criminalbehavior on the part of American forcesin Vietnam than in the Second WorldWar or the Korean War. But it can notbe denied that there was some.

According to the military, the centralproblem of the Vietnam War was itsconception and management by ournational leadership, civilian andmilitary. These officials involved the

military in a civil war, tried to hide thecosts from the American people, andallowed the enemy to have sanctuariesfrom which to fight the war. The wartook a toll on the military, affectinggreatly its morale, public standing,and faith in its own leaders. Much ofthe military’s reflection back onVietnam has focused on the need to

retain public support during any futurewar.

Political leaders sought to reducedissent about the use of force byeliminating the draft. Since 1972, theU.S. has relied on volunteers formilitary personnel. Only those whochoose to serve, serve. But beforeagreeing to the end of the draft themilitary, concerned that politiciansfreed from the potential wrath of draft-age youth and their parents would bogthe nation down in long, costly wars,insisted that the future military bestructured so that reserves would haveto be called to active service in anysignificant conflict. This meant thatpoliticians could not just commit theregular forces, the professionals, to afight. Instead, they would have to call

Dangerous StereotypingSapolsky, from Page 1


And as we seek to understand and appreciate groupcultures we must avoid the trap of dismissing somecultures as not worthy of our consideration. I speakhere specifically of those in the U.S. military, agroup that too often has been denied fair appraisalin the academic community. Now, more than ever,we would do well to achieve a fuller understandingof our country’s contemporary military culture . . . .We should know about life in other lands, but weshould also know about the institutions that guardour own.


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up at least some National Guard andthe Reserve units to active duty to joinin the war, an action that was avoidedin the Vietnam War. Future wars wouldrequire the pressing into nationalservice of married, career-oriented35-year-old reservists as well as therecruitment of unmarried 18-year-oldvolunteers eager for foreign adventure.Wars would have to have and maintainpublic support in order for the reservesto be called.

The military also wanted to be givenonly missions with clear goals andexplicit exit strategies. There was nodesire to face again an involvement indecade-long wars that our nationalleaders could not decide whether towin or lose. Of course, ambiguity ispart of international relations. Leadersoften act to deal with immediateproblems without wanting to revealfully their plans or knowing fully whereevents will take them. Promises aboutquick, focused missions with happyoutcomes are easier to make than tokeep. Moreover, in our political system,civilians will always win the debateswith the military about where and whenforce will be used. But we should keepin mind that our military is usuallyquite cautious about advocating theuse of force internationally, knowingthat it is more difficult to contain andterminate wars than to start them.

The concern for avoiding casualtiesso visible in recent American militarydeployments is the result of severalfactors. First, the United States haslong husbanded its soldiers. The richerand more democratic it became themore intensive the nation’s desire tosubstitute capital (technology) for labor(soldiers) in fighting wars. We aregetting better and better at protecting

our personnel. Note the developmentof precision guided and stand offweapons and the growing interest inunmanned aerial vehicles. Second, thereliance on volunteers and reservistsmakes finding replacements forcasualties especially difficult. Thinkabout the problems of recruiting

volunteers or of reinstitutingconscription as casualities mount.Third, most of our troop commitmentsover the last decade involved sometype of humanitarian intervention, notthe testing of vital national interests.When the mission is charitable it ishard to explain back home theresistance of locals or the orders thatresult in deaths of our soldiers.

The concern for casualties, however,extends beyond saving our soldiers.The American public expects thetechnologies that limit our casualtiesto be used in ways that also avoidinjury or death among innocentcivilians. It does not enhance thepopularity of our use of force to bebrutal and uncaring in its application.This belief now even extends to someextent to opposing soldiers, who are

Dangerous StereotypingSapolsky, from preceding page

often described as unwilling victimsof cruel leaders. Because of the publicattitudes, body counts havedisappeared as the military’s reportedmeasure of operational success. Insteadthe spokespeople talk only about thenumber of weapons and vehiclesdestroyed.

No one knows how this war willunfold. The enemy is elusive and islikely to hide amid a larger civilianpopulation with which we have noquarrel. Wars have a way of increasingpassions and dulling the senses. Muchof the dynamics may depend on theactions of our opponents. With furtherattacks on our civilians and our nationalsymbols, restraints may fall. But whenwe are sending the American militaryto fight a war, we should have a betterunderstanding of the American militarythan some among us seem to possess.We should know our enemies and themany perfectly law-abiding groups thatshare our land, but we should alsomake the effort to know our protectorsas well.✥[Harvey Sapolsky can be reached [email protected]]

Leaders often act to deal with immediate problemswithout wanting to reveal fully their plans or knowingfully where events will take them. Promises aboutquick, focused missions with happy outcomes areeasier to make than to keep. Moreover, in ourpolitical system, civilians will always win the debateswith the military about where and when force will beused. But we should keep in mind that our militaryis usually quite cautious about advocating the use offorce internationally, knowing that it is more difficultto contain and terminate wars than to start them.


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weddings, visits from children, all areevents. Then perhaps disaster – surelya firm step away from the positive. Butsomehow on a wrong path. “Disasters”are tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes,not produced by human agency (doinsurance companies still refer to “actsof God?”). As the photographs beganto haunt newspaper front pages, theimmediate agents were all too evidentlyhuman. And as the face of Osama binLaden became the new press-demon(supplanting Ho Chi Minh, MuhimarKhaddafi, Saddam Hussein, theAyatollah Khomeini, TimothyMcVeigh, each of whom had his turn),agency was once more the issue.

Catastrophe? Too broad perhaps.Attack? Yes, but it led us too readilydown the analogy trail to Pearl Harbor,a sad and incorrect and probablybaneful route. In the end, the date itselfcame to serve.

It may seem trivial, to anguish thusover terminologies. But words are closecousins of metaphors, and metaphor isperilously close to a necessity of (psychic)health. A contemporary essayist, ChrisArthur, asserts that “Metaphors are thebones of language which give it thestrength to carry so much flesh ofmeaning. . . . Without the ability tocompare that they afford, how couldwe withstand the endless hurricane ofthings, of happenings, which timeceaselessly bombards us with?”

A scholarly friend, AndrewDelbanco of Columbia University, haswritten an entire book about theinability of our contemporary world tocome up with a fully agreed-uponimage of evil. He called his book TheDeath of Satan. We have, the bookargues, abandoned all of the “archaic”and not-wholly religious images of the

source of evil, but (tragically, evenfatally perhaps) not the desire todemonize.

To put aside questions of verbiagethrew us directly into a harderpuzzlement. On the night of September11, as I put her to bed, my daughterasked the anguished question, “How

could anyone do this?” A few dayslater her history class was divided, atrandom, into three groups. One group– hers, as it turned out – had to write anexplanation of the action from theperspective of a terrorist. One grouphad to take the position of non-terroristMuslims. And the third had to speak inthe mind and voice of the families ofvictims. “Was that hard?” I wondered.“Not really. The group that had thehardest time were the kids who had tobe Muslims. They just didn’t knowenough.” I daresay that was one of themajor purposes of the exercise. Wehave begun to use – or, in allprobability, misuse – words that arenew to us, like jihad.

And our leaders promise to trackdown and punish those responsible.But who in the end was responsible?Was it, at least to some degree, theCIA (as sometime trainers of theTaliban) or the State Department (asthe promoters of what is perceived asa biased pro-Israeli, anti-Arab policy)

or the military (who so proudlylaunched those scud missiles on Iraq)or George Bush, Sr., who ordered thelaunch, or the security guards at Loganwho failed to screen out the hijackers,or the state government which seemsnot to have put any particular thoughtor energy into Logan security, or thewhole Security Infrastructure, whichsurely ought to have caught wind ofsuch a long-standing and complex plotin time to forestall it? Or even thedesigners of jet-liners which were, wewere shocked to realize, so easilyconceived as flying bombs? Or thecitizenry at large, which had allowedso much to be done in its name?

Responsibility,Muddle, and BlameHildebidle, from Page 1


It may seem trivial, to anguish thus over terminologies. Butwords are close cousins of metaphors, and metaphor isperilously close to a necessity of (psychic) health. . . .To putaside questions of verbiage threw us directly into a harderpuzzlement. On the night of September 11, as I put her to bed,my daughter asked the anguished question, “How couldanyone do this?” A few days later her history class wasdivided, at random, into three groups. One group – hers, asit turned out – had to write an explanation of the action fromthe perspective of a terrorist. One group had to take theposition of non-terrorist Muslims. And the third had to speakin the mind and voice of the families of victims.


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The train of possibilities seemedendless, and seemed so often to leadback to our own doorstep. I evenproposed to a cyberpal of mine, whoteaches at a “polytechnical institute,”that there had to be something amisswith the engineering of the towers, toallow them to collapse. “The towerswere engineering marvels. It’s thehuman soul that needs work,” hereplied. Did I mention he was schooledby the Jesuits?

All our understandings baffled, ourpowerlessness is deepened. And welong to lash out – many of us are doingso, mindlessly, misdirectedly, atHispanics and Sikhs and anyone whois perceived to “look Arab.” In goodJohn Wayne fashion, we call up thereserves, send out the fleet, plan an“appropriate response” (whichsomehow must translate into military:

yet one more linguistic problem). Nomatter, really, if we mix in pb & j withthe bombs; our “strike against ourenemy” places us in a position ofequality, in psychic and in moral terms,with those whom we would prefer tothink of as sinister enemies. Bombsand guns, gelignite and guerilla attacks,are the favored tactics of thedisempowered everywhere. And areScud missiles that much preferable,on the ethical plane? Ah, but the sadtruth is that, even now, after millenniaof carnage, war sells. Consider“Saving Private Ryan” or “Band ofBrothers.” Or “Pearl Harbor.”Culturally, we haven’t muchoutgrown “Sands of Iwo Jima.” Whyare we so surprised that thedispossessed living in desperatepoverty in the wilds of Afghanistanaren’t any more level-headed?

Osama bin Laden, as opponent, hasthe advantage of being almost invisible(Tony Blair and NATO aver the proofis persuasive; but it is not just Missourithat is, or ought to be, a “show me”place). Are we in fact the villains, forhaving a life that is so enticing and yetseems so unfair to the disempoweredand dispossessed of the world? Did weas a nation grow fat and complacent,and forget that the old Dylan song,“With God on Our Side” was bitterlyironic? I apologize if my Calvinist,self-lacerating upbringing comes tothe fore. But I have this eerie feelingthat it is, in fact, a problem of language.Even of pronouns. There is so much “us/them” thinking going on. Perhaps thereis the fundamental engineering problem– how to rebuild an overarching “we.”✥[John Hildebidle can be reached [email protected]]

Responsibility,Muddle, and BlameHildebidle, from Page 1

M.I.T. Numbers

Source: Office of the Provost

Department of Defense20%

Department of Energy16%

Health and HumanServices

18%NASA7%

NSF11%

Other Federal2%

Industry20%

Foundations andNon-Profits

3%

State, Local & ForeignGovernment

2% Internal1%

○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○

Research ExpendituresFY2001


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modern curriculum in all the areas inwhich MIT excels. Users of this site mayinclude other academics around theworld and individual learners who maynot have access to high qualityeducational materials. As facultymembers, our participation in OCW isentirely voluntary, and we will have thefinal say on what goes into OCW for thecourses we teach.

Following the announcement of OCWlast April, the Provost appointed theMIT OCW Implementation Task Force.Chaired by Professor Dick Yue anddrawing on the assistance of Booz-Allen& Hamilton Consultants, this groupstudied the organization and imple-mentation of MIT OCW. This teaminterviewed administrators and facultyacross the Institute to understand whatwe collectively wanted from OCW, andmore importantly, what we didn’t want.

The Task Force also designedpreliminary processes of how OCWmight operate. These processes for theproduction of Websites for our coursesdrew upon benchmarks from otheracademic institutions and productionorganizations.

Among the many recommendationsthis study group made is the idea thatOCW should not be a monolithic,centralized organization. Instead, basedon what we heard from the faculty, OCWshould be a hybrid organization, with asubstantial portion of its staff located inthe academic departments. The facultyappeared comfortable with the idea thatfunctions such as management of theoverall initiative, computer systemsoperations, and individuals withspecialized skills such as graphic design,should be centralized. However, the day-to-day people in the OCW organizationwho help the faculty create Websites fortheir respective courses should residewithin the departments they serve. The

OCW organization now being createdwill be developed from this guidingprinciple.

The Implementation Task Forcerecommended that OCW be managedby a full-time Executive Director to berecruited through a national search. Thisindividual will report to the Office of theProvost and would have a FacultyAdvisory Board appointed by theProvost.

A group of us also worked with theMIT senior administration and theDevelopment Office on securing funding

for the first phase of OCW. In late June,MIT announced that we receivedapproval for grants of $11 million forthe first 27 months of the OCW initiative(see <http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/nr/2001/ocw.html>). The grants comeequally from the Andrew W. MellonFoundation and the William and FloraHewlett Foundation. In addition, MIThas committed $1 million over the nexttwo years for the support of OCW. Thesefunds should be sufficient for the ramp-up of the program to the point at whichthe OCW organization can create newWebsites for 500 courses per year, thesteady state production level for MIT.

Concurrent with the successful fundingof the first part of OCW, in July the

Provost appointed an MIT OCW InterimManagement Board (IMB), which Ichair. The IMB is charged with themission of searching for a permanentExecutive Director for OCW and ofsetting the OCW program in motion.The Board includes Marc Kastner (headof Physics), Vijay Kumar (assistantprovost and head of AcademicComputing), Ann Wolpert (director ofLibraries) and Dick Yue (associate deanof Engineering). This group selected anoutside recruiting firm, Isaacson-Miller,to assist it in the search for the Executive

Director. As of the writing of this articlein early October 2001, we are beginningthe round of initial interviews withselected candidates.

Now that a national search for anExecutive Director is under way, we arebeginning the second task. The InterimManagement Board decided to create aTransition Project Team to launch apreliminary pilot phase of OCW. Thegoal of this early phase is to investigatethe processes that will be required forthe successful production of the finalOCW Website. The team, co-lead byKyung Han (a former Booz-Allenconsultant who worked with theImplementation Task Force) and Laura


Lerman, from Page 1


Among the many recommendations this study groupmade is the idea that OCW should not be a monolithic,centralized organization. Instead, based on what weheard from the faculty, OCW should be a hybridorganization, with a substantial portion of its stafflocated in the academic departments. . . . The OCWorganization now being created will be developedfrom this guiding principle.


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Koller (a research staff member at theCenter for Educational ComputingInitiatives) will design a set of drafttemplates for OCW course materialsthat will accommodate the diverse rangeof pedagogical styles in use at MIT.They will also develop a preliminary setof production processes for convertingsource materials provided by facultymembers to OCW compatible formats.These processes will be designed tomaximize the usefulness of theconverted materials in the regularteaching of MIT courses so thatprofessors see direct benefits fromparticipating in OCW.

The Transition Project Team willinitially work intensively with a fewMIT academic departments to begin theprocess of converting a portion of those

departments’ course materials to thepreliminary OCW format and placingthose materials on an interim OCW Webserver. The team will include individualsassigned specifically to these pilotdepartments, as well as departmentalpersonnel already in place who might beavailable to assist the Team under OCWfunding. At the end of this phase, wehope to have materials from roughly 30courses on the pilot OCW Web server.The majority of the course materialswill be the result of working with one ortwo academic departments and aselection of diverse courses from aroundthe Institute.

Over the next semester, OCW willtransition from its current, temporarystaff and oversight structure to apermanent part of MIT. This will involve

Benefits-eligible members of theMIT community who want tomake changes to their Benefits

selections for 2002 can do so during theOpen Enrollment period, which runsfrom November 1-15, 2001. Informationabout this year’s Benefits choices, aswell as the methods for requestingchanges, will be provided in the PersonalEnrollment Guide, which will bedistributed by interdepartmental mailbetween October 29 and October 31.The Guide also will contain the schedulefor the Benefits fairs.

Faculty members who don’t want tomake any changes to their Benefitschoices don’t have to do anything.However, those who wish to change

their health, dental, or other coveragescan do so either by using the employeeself-service option on the Web or byphoning an interactive voice responsesystem, both of which are linked to MIT’sSAP system. (As noted in the last issueof the Faculty Newsletter, a personalWeb certificate is needed in order touse the self-service option on the Web.)[To acquire or update your Webcertificate, see <http://web.mit.edu/is/help/cert>.]

Based on the experience of clientsduring last year’s Benefits OpenEnrollment period, the Human Resourcesdepartment has made some servicechanges for this year. For example, moreHR staff will be available to answer

questions, and the Benefits Office hourswill be extended (to 8 am to 6 pm) duringthe expected peak days of OpenEnrollment. (Those are November 1, 2,14, and 15.) In addition, there will be adedicated help line for people who usethe phone enrollment system. (Last year,phone system calls came into the samephone line as regular Benefits Officebusiness.)

Other improvements are that the newinteractive voice response system,called TALX, can accept employeeand dependent names, and that thesystem generates a confirmationnumber.✥[Janet Snover can be reached [email protected]]


Lerman, from preceding page

a substantial effort to recruit the bestpeople we can find to the initiative andto develop a service-oriented approachto working with the faculty. The task ofcreating a highly visible Website thatdraws together the materials withvirtually all of MIT’s course offerings isa considerable one. However, the senseamong the vast majority of the facultywith whom I have spoken is that it isentirely consistent with MIT’s long-standing approach to using thecontributions of the faculty and newtechnology for broad, societal benefit.We have every reason to be proud ofMIT for committing itself to this “highroad” approach to educationaltechnology.✥[Steven R. Lerman can be reached [email protected]]

Benefits Open Enrollment for 2002Janet Snover

○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○


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Vibrant compositions of LatinAmerica art will be broughttogether in Lawrence, Kansas

this coming year. The Spencer Museumof Art at the University of Kansas (KU)awaits the arrival of an excellent selectionof nineteenth- and twentieth-centuryLatin American works of art frommuseums as far away as Los Angeles,Brooklyn, Denver, and Austin. Theseloaned pieces will significantly augmentthe Spencer’s permanent collection andenhance the University’s Latin AmericanStudies program. One might be surprisedto discover that MIT had its hand inbringing these works, which include apainting by famous Mexican artist JoseClemente Orozco, to America’sheartland.

Based at the Institute since 1995, theMuseum Loan Network (MLN) is thefirst comprehensive national collection-sharing program in the country. Throughthe Network’s facilitation, “treasures”hidden in one museum’s basement cometo light in another. These underutilizedobjects are exposed to communities thatmight not otherwise have the opportunityto experience them. “Since its inception,”states MLN Director Lori Gross, “theMLN has dedicated its energies tohelping institutions share the great wealthof art and objects of cultural heritagewith audiences nationwide.” The MLNindeed serves as a network, connectingmuseums to museums, and museums tocommunities.

Works borrowed from one museumfill gaps in another’s collection. TheSpencer, for instance, had no previoustradition of collecting Latin Americanart despite a strong Latin AmericanStudies program at KU. With the loanedsculpture and painting, Spencer’sdirector, Andrea Norris, related that “not

only will students in LatinAmerican art have originalmaterial for research, allKU students and theSpencer’s general audiencewill be able to experiencethe history of art with thisadded Latin Americandimension.”

To help realizecollaborations amonginstitutions, the MLN hasestablished a series of grantprograms that supportevery step of the lendingprocess, including plan-ning, research, program-ming, publications,shipping, and installation.In addition to funding theactual lending of art andhistorical objects, the MLNawards grants to museumswho wish to survey theirown collections and addthem to the MLN’s onlinedirectory of objects. This searchabledatabase serves, in effect, as a sharedpermanent collection for museumsnationwide.

Over the years, the MLN has awardednumerous grants to university museumsand galleries. These loans providesignificant didactic opportunities foracademic communities. Professors andstudents alike often take active roles inthese projects. In 1998, the Herbert F.Johnson Museum of Art of CornellUniversity was awarded a travel grant toinvestigate works of art at the YaleUniversity Art Gallery, which holds aworld-renowned collection of ItalianRenaissance painting. Cornell art historyprofessor Claudia Lazzaro accompaniedthe assistant curator on this research

trip. Their successful excursion resultedin an MLN implementation grant, andfour fourteenth- and fifteenth-centuryItalian paintings were loaned to theJohnson for long-term exhibition. Theseworks, integrated into the museum’spermanent collection, are utilized inCornell’s art history curriculum. Lazarrosaid that having these four pieces “willcreate an interaction with the works inthe existing collection” and enablestudents to make important comparisons.

So how did the Museum Loan Networkfind its home at MIT? Launched in 1995,the MLN is administered by MIT’sOffice of the Arts and funded by theJohn S. and James L. Knight Foundationand The Pew Charitable Trusts. Because

Hidden Treasures Come to LightThrough Museum Loan Network

Newsletter Staff


Cover of the MLN’s NewsletterMuseum Loan Network News: 2000-2001


- 16 -

of its strong commitment to the arts andexcellence in science and technology,MIT was chosen as the MLN’sadministrative site. “This innovativenational project fits naturally and well inour environment, which nurtures anddraws strength from both technologyand the arts,” said President Vest at theprogram’s inception.

Because of the Institute’s exceptionalcomputer consulting resources at theEducational Media Creation Center(EMCC), the online components of theMLN program have developed swiftlyand with much sophistication. The MLNDirectory currently lists over 6,000objects available for loan and continuesto grow each day. Any U.S. museummay access this illustrated database,located on the MLN Website, free ofcharge. On the publicly-accessible partof the MLN site, time and space put norestraints on viewers who wish toexperience an exhibition from a distanceor after it has been dismantled. To date,the MLN has presented nine online

virtual 3-D exhibitions based oncollaborations and installations fundedby the MLN, ranging from tours ofBuddhist sculpture to explorations ofAfrican art.

Tremendous encouragement andsupport have been given to the MLNfrom members of MIT’s thriving artscommunity. Alan Brody, associateprovost for the Arts, remarks, “theNetwork has pioneered and nurturednew methods of collaboration amongmuseums across the country, wideningthe public’s access to rarely-seen worksof art and facilitating exchanges notonly of objects but of ideas. It is theembodiment of an idea about what greatmuseums, large and small, can be; ofmutual respect; and of service to allcommunities. In this way, the arts canonce again serve as a model forenterprises in science and technology.”

In 1999, The Chronicle of HigherEducation deemed the MLN“matchmaker to the art world.” But asBrody notes the MLN “is more than

simply a vehicle of exchange ofcollections.” Indeed the Network’sinterest in cooperation is wide-ranging.“We believe interdisciplinary colla-boration can yield new ideas and makethem accessible to many more people,promoting community dialogue,” LoriGross explains. “Both museums and theobjects they hold can be catalysts forthis collaborative process.”


Continued from preceding page

Channing Gilson, Computer Joy Stick Controller, United States,1984, California State Polytechnic University, Pomona

Graduate students played anintegral role in the WilliamsCollege Museum of Art’s(WMCA) exhibition of Africanart in 1998. With worksborrowed from the out-standing collection of Africanart at the Brooklyn Museumof Art, Tradition and Transitionshowcased pieces from bothmuseums’ holdings. Theexhibition explored the notionof another culture’s fixed“tradition,” which has oftenfailed to acknowledge the fluidnature of an object’s meaning.From the research and adviceof students in the WilliamsCollege Graduate Program inthe History of Art and theirprofessors, the WMCAgenerated labels and galleryguides that addressed theseissues and significantly, asAssociate Curator VivianPatterson reported, “provokedthought relevant to the displayand interpretation of objectsfrom a non-Western culture.”



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To explore and expand upon this idea,the MLN organized a series of three“think tanks” entitled Museum asCatalyst for InterdisciplinaryCollaboration, two of which convenedat MIT over the past year. Participantsincluded educators, visual andperformance artists, scientists, actors,dancers, museum professionals,librarians, philanthropists, historians,and composers. This extraordinaryassemblage of leaders honing in on sucha pertinent topic was bound to yielddynamic results. “In these think tankswe’ve been able to push the edges a bitand hopefully go back into the real worldand create models that work,” says Gross.

MIT was the ideal host environmentfor such a gathering. At the secondsession last October, participantsattended MIT’s 50th AnniversaryCelebration of the School of Humanitiesand Social Science. The colloquiumAsking the Right Questions served as athought-provoking springboard fordialogue at that meeting. The ground-breaking conversations begun at thesethree convenings will be published in adocument later this fall.

But the outcomes of these sessionsweren’t just talk. One very concreteresult was a pilot collaboration forgedbetween the MLN and the AmericanComposers Forum, called Museums,Composers, and Communities. Thisproject looks to composers to helpchange the ways in which museumsinteract with their communities andthe ways in which patrons relate toexhibits. On MLN travel grants,composers lend their uniqueperspective as they journey alongsidemuseum staff visiting potentiallending institutions. MLNimplementation grantees can applyfor funds to support a composer-in-residence who creates an originalpiece of music reflecting the spirit ofthe exhibition and the museum’s localcommunity.

So sounds, not only sights, of LatinAmerica will be coming to the SpencerMuseum of Art this year. The museumhas selected composer and pianistGabriela Lena Frank to collaboratewith the KU music, history, and artdepartments to create educationalprogramming for the exhibit and prepare

new musical works for presentation tothe university and surroundingcommunity. Director Andrea Norrissays, “We are still envisioning andexploring possibilities and wonderingabout the complexities of writing anoriginal work and then getting itperformed. As the composer projectthrusts us into new territory, we find thestretch invigorating.”

To date, the MLN has awarded$3.3 million to 168 museums in 48 statesand territories across the country. It isindeed a comprehensive resource, whichon MIT’s behalf is making a significantimpact on the museum world andcommunities well beyond.



Loans facilitated through the MLN provide new opportunities forresearch and study. In one particularly innovative match, theMemorial Art Gallery (MAG) of the University of Rochesterborrowed 31 objects from five New England museums for anexhibition focused on a singular painting from its own collection –John Singleton Copley’s unfinished portrait of Colonial silversmithJohn Hurd. Using artifacts from Hurd’s life and times, the MAGcreated an interdisciplinary exhibition that presents a historicaland cultural context for the painting. With the MLN funds, themuseum published a scholarly catalogue and organized acorresponding symposium that explored the genius of both men, aswell as the impact of the American Revolution on daily life inColonial America.

Pablo Curatella Manes, El Guitarrista,Argentinean, 1921, Jack S. Blanton Museum,The University of Texas at Austin, Archer

M. Huntington Museum Fund, 1982



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If you would like to find out moreabout the MLN, see a complete list ofMLN-funded projects, or take a virtualtour of an exhibition, please visit their

Know of a museum looking to borrow a 1950s power lawnmower? Or how about a computer joy stickcontroller from 1984? Museums across the country need search no further than the MLN Directory to findexcellent examples of twentieth-century industrial design. In 1999, the California State PolytechnicUniversity Pomona was awarded a survey grant to identify objects available for loan from the university’sChanning Gilson Collection of industrial design. The selected works cover a wide-range of appliances,furniture, and other objects created by many of the twentieth century’s foremost designers. These include,among others, a Harry Bertoia lounge chair, a 1942 Henry Dreyfuss Hoover vacuum cleaner, and a 1950sToastmaster toaster by Jean Reinecke. Ben Davis, former instructor at MIT’s Media Lab and researchassociate at CECI, points out that the MLN directory functions as a digital broker – making a myriad ofthings, like the accessibility of these excellently-designed utensils, possible. He says, “ The MLN from itsinception has been a digital brokerage that triples as a digital thinking tool and a digital collaborative tool.”

Website at <http://loanet.mit.edu>. Ifyou would like to request a copy of theiryearly newsletter, MLN News, whichhighlights grantee projects, or the

forthcoming Museum as Catalyst forInterdisciplinary Collaboration:Beginning a Conversation, please call252-1888 or e-mail [email protected].✥

A view of Tradition and Transition: African Art from the Brooklyn Museum of Art


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From The Libraries

An Ad Hoc Committee on theHumanities Library has beenmeeting since November 2000

to consider the broad condition of theHumanities Library at MIT. Thecommittee was convened by PhilipKhoury, dean of the School ofHumanities, Arts, and Social Sciences,after consultation with Chancellor LarryBacow and Director of Libraries AnnWolpert. Despite its rather focused-sounding name, the Humanities Librarysupports the intellectual life of theInstitute beyond the specific needs ofHumanities faculty and students. Thecomposition of the Ad Hoc Committeewas thus designed to provide facultyrepresentation from a variety of thedisciplines represented within theSchool of Humanities, Arts, and SocialSciences.

The committee’s mission was toconsider the broad condition of theHumanities Library and specifically, thevirtues and limitations of its location inBuilding 14. Members of the committeewere: Elizabeth Wood, Committee Chair(History), Sally Haslanger (Linguisticsand Philosophy), Margery Resnick,Liaison to Faculty Committee on theLibrary System (Foreign Languages andLiteratures), David Thornburn(Literature), Theresa A. Tobin (Head ofthe Humanities Library), and AnnWolpert (Director of Libraries).

In August 2001 the committee issuedits report, a copy of which is now availableon the Web at <http://libraries.mit.edu/humlib/>. The methodology developedby the committee for its work focused onwide and inclusive consultation withinterested constituencies. The committeeheld discussions with colleagues andwith both undergraduate and graduate

Ad Hoc Committee on the Humanities Library Calls forWorld-Class Library for the Twenty-First Century

Ruth K. Seidman

students in the School of Humanities,Arts, and Social Sciences (SHASS). Inaddition to these extensive informalcontacts, the committee also admini-stered a Web-based online survey ofSHASS faculty and graduate students.The survey instrument and results areappended to the report.

Findings and RecommendationsThe committee found that the libraries

at MIT have a central place in theintellectual life of the Institute. Nearlyall the respondents who participated ininterviews and surveys expressed a beliefthat MIT’s standing as a world-classinstitution depends on the quality of theInstitute’s libraries.

Four principle recommendations aremade by the committee in its report. Therecommendations focus on guaranteeingthat resources be made available toensure a world-class liberal arts libraryfor MIT for the twenty-first century, thatthe space in Building 14 be renovated,that Humanities and Social Sciencedisciplines be granted full parity withthe other schools in the development oflibrary resources, and that decision-making on all library changes beaccomplished in a way that is both openand inclusive.

The report points out that theHumanities Library is a basic resourcefor the entire MIT community, and thatstrengthening the role of the HumanitiesLibrary in serendipitous as well asstructured learning is important to all ofMIT. The committee notes that theInstitute competes for students with otheruniversities that clearly have world-classlibraries. In the words of the committee,“MIT should have a humanities libraryappropriate to the minds and ambitionsof MIT students.”

The report goes on to say that thecurriculum at MIT is rich in humanities,arts, and social sciences, and that abackground in these fields is essentialfor a first-rate education. It asserts thatthe Humanities Library must be of aquality to support this principle. Inaddition, in taking SHASS courses,students share “opportunities forintellectual growth, serendipitouslearning, and enriched student life.Facilities in or near the HumanitiesLibrary should be made available toenhance the social context of learning.”

The report reminds the Institute thatthe Hayden library building is now over50 years old. “Financial resources mustbe found to reverse the deterioration ofthis building.” Basic needs identified bythe committee include increasing in-library shelf capacity to reduce the needfor off-campus storage of books andperiodicals, and creating small groupstudy areas, teaching spaces, carrels,lockers, consultation areas, and servicespaces. The report points out that “thetransformation of the Music Libraryserves as a model for creative renovation”to bring the library into the twenty-firstcentury.

In calling for equal priority for theSchool of Humanities, Arts, and SocialSciences in planning and fund-raisingwith Science, Architecture, Engineering,and Management, the report notes thatMIT supports graduate programs inComparative Media Studies; Economics;Linguistics; Philosophy; PoliticalScience; and Science, Technology, andSociety. While acknowledging thatMIT’s Humanities collections need notfully serve the research aims ofHumanities faculty, the committee does



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suggest that the Humanities Libraryshould provide the necessary study spaceand collections to support the graduateprograms of SHASS. The report makesthe point that graduate students in scienceand engineering have both library andlaboratory space and that SHASS studentsshould be given comparable support. Amaster plan for the future of all thelibraries at MIT should include recognitionof the centrality of the Humanities Libraryin the life of the Institute.

Finally, the report calls for an openand inclusive decision-making processwith faculty involvement in decisionson the location of libraries and any majorlibrary changes that are underconsideration, and observes that thefindings and recommendations of thecommittee are in substantial accord withrecommendations about MIT librariesoffered by the UndergraduateAssociation, the Graduate StudentCouncil, and the Faculty Committee onthe Library System.

Highlights of the Web SurveyQuestions included in the Web survey

were intended to elicit broad informationabout the SHASS community’s use oflibraries. Respondents were asked suchquestions as: what on-campus librarylocations the respondents use, and forwhat purpose; what characteristics areimportant in the current HumanitiesLibrary, and in any future library; how

the collections are assessed for teachingand for research needs; what changeswould assist teaching; and what arepreferences for the physicalconfiguration of the libraries. There wasample opportunity for additionalcomments.

Of the 156 full-time SHASS faculty,47 responded. One interesting finding isthat 60% of respondents say that theyfrequently come to the library to browsethe collection. This speaks to the

importance of having enough room inthe library to house materials on site,rather than in a storage facility. Ninety-seven percent of respondents viewedopen stacks for books as essential orvery important in the current library,and 73% considered this essential orvery important in any new or renovatedHumanities Library. Respondentsexpressed support for developing theelectronic collections in addition to, notinstead of print collections.

Appreciation was expressed forcertain aesthetic features of thecurrent Humanities Library. Naturallighting, high ceilings, and the riverview are highly valued. For a newlibrary, “comfortable reading areas”received the highest rating.Respondents also mentioned thesymbolism of a fine HumanitiesLibrary and its important role inbuilding a sense of community.

Respondents differed significantly onthe importance of Building 14 remainingthe location for the Humanities Library.Some felt it very important and othersnot at all. However, being in a centrallocation on the campus, as is Building14, was seen by many as important.

Future DirectionsThe report will be valuable as the

Libraries and the Institute move forwardin developing plans for space changes,whether they be renovations or newconstruction. Ann Wolpert, director ofLibraries, said: “We welcome the supportof the faculty and we take the reportseriously. We look forward to workingwith the faculty in implementing theserecommendations.”

Humanities Library staff members arealso using the results of the survey formore immediate planning. Although thesurvey emphasized the use of libraryspace rather than an evaluation of libraryservices, some useful information wasobtained that will be helpful in settingpriorities and making plans. In addition,from a communications point of view,library staff noted that some surveyresponses indicated the desire for “new”services that in fact are already available.This points out the need for the Librariesto do a better job of letting the communityknow about existing services, such asterm loans and techniques for accessingelectronic material from off campus.

The Ad Hoc Committee on theHumanities Library has taken athoughtful and thorough look at the spacerequirements for MIT’s libraries insupport of humanities, arts, and socialsciences in the twenty-first century.Addressing these and other urgentfacilities needs is a high priority for theMIT Libraries.✥[Ruth K. Seidman can be reached [email protected]]

Ad Hoc Committee Calls forWorld-Class LibrarySeidman, from preceding page

Basic needs identified by the committee includeincreasing in-library shelf capacity to reduce theneed for off-campus storage of books andperiodicals, and creating small group study areas,teaching spaces, carrels, lockers, consultationareas and service spaces.


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Student Leaders Report

Undergraduate Association

[email protected] Devereaux

Graduate Student Council

Cost of Living: Still an Issuefor Graduate Students

Dilan Seneviratne

(Continued on next page) (Continued on Page 23)

When I sat down to write this, I looked at the pastStudent Leader Reports to prevent myself frombeing redundant. I soon realized that I couldn’t not

be redundant. There is certainly a theme that is raised inalmost every one – the MIT community. I thought for a whileabout what that statement even means. Why is everyonealways saying it? People around campus – students, alumni,faculty, administrators – are constantly stressing the importanceof “community at MIT” and sometimes the lack of it. It isimportant for all of us to take a step back and think about whatwe, as a whole, are trying to achieve. MIT is already acommunity, though maybe not the one everyone wants. Everyperson who comes to campus (and even some who don’t) playan integral part in making MIT what it is. There are also manysubcommunities within the whole. From the studentperspective we have living groups, sports teams, extracurricularactivities, departments, and classes. Many of thesecommunities are very strong and this is what students so oftentry to protect.

It seems that many of us – myself included – think that thereneeds to be a sense of broader community at MIT. While thisis not news, I think it is worthwhile to take a moment and thinkabout what that implies. MIT as a whole has to embrace theidea. To make a functional community at MIT there needs tobe a sense that we are all moving in the same direction. At thispoint, I believe, we face a large disconnection between whatoccurs on campus and what we are trying to achieve.

I don’t mean to imply that there is no sense of communityas a whole. In fact, in response to the tragic events ofSeptember 11th, I saw one of the most impressive displays ofcommunity at MIT since I have been here. Seeing so manyfaculty and staff reach out to help students in their classes, atthe Killian Court event and afterward, really made me realizewhat MIT can do when it faces a clearly defined challenge.Looking out over Killian Court I truly felt like a part of agreater whole. I would like to take this opportunity to thank allof you for helping with the events and for being there forstudents to talk to – students really took notice of the effortsthat were made. But things are more difficult with broader,less defined challenges.

In difficult times communities seem to be able to cometogether to strengthen themselves. As hard as it is to look

The past two months have been full of ups and downs.It started off brightly with new students arriving oncampus. The normally high interest level for recruiting

MIT graduates was markedly low this year as evidenced bythe rather subdued Career Fair; economic downturn andevents of September 11th contributing largely to this. Then,recently, there was the official opening of the 125-bed NW30“Warehouse” building for graduate housing. This was not aneasy time for anyone. I would, nonetheless, like to commendthe leadership of Chancellor Phil Clay, Executive Vice-President John Curry, and Secretary of the Corporation KathrynWilmore. Their efforts in bringing together the whole MITcommunity at a highly emotional time and making everyonefeel safe at MIT were exceptional.

As we look forward and move on there are a number ofpressing graduate student issues which we need to address.Key of them all is stipends. High cost of living continues to beof paramount importance.

Cost of living for MIT students in the Cambridge, Boston,and Somerville areas have skyrocketed over the past fiveyears. Rents alone have increased between 10% and 35%(depending on type of housing unit: 1-bedroom, 2-bedroom,etc.) every year for the past three years. In addition, generalcosts have increased much faster than the national rate ofinflation (3%), and cost of MIT medical insurance has beenincreasing at 10%.

In comparison, however, stipends, have only increased by6.8% last year and between 7% and 15% (in the School ofScience, bringing it to the same level across the Institute) thisyear. Graduate students are in a situation where they acquireloans in order to get through graduate school. After paying forrent there is less than half the stipend left for feeding, medical,book supplies, and transportation (for off campus, wherenearly 70% of the students currently reside) which is hardlysufficient.

MIT’s Financial Aid Office estimates that the cost of livingfor an MIT graduate student to be about $2000/month. Theaverage stipend at MIT is $1336/month after taxes (for firstyear RAs) and $1440 /month after taxes (senior students andPh.D. candidates).


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[email protected], from preceding page

positively at the results that stemmedfrom such tragic events, I found myselfthinking how lucky the freshmen werefor getting a chance to experience sucha large sense of MIT community at suchan early point in their MIT careers. Ihope that it instilled in them the sensethat they can go to administrators andfaculty for help or to talk aboutsomething that they care about, evenwhen there is not the sense of urgencythat was prompted earlier this month.

After a few weeks, another muchsmaller issue occurred for theundergraduate students of this campus.Several meal plan proposals came tostudents for feedback. Each of theproposals had two main characteristics– they were expensive and they weremandatory (at least to a degree). I thinkall of us realize how important food is atMIT. I know that one of my mainmotivations to get to my early morningFriday class was the snacks and orangejuice. While a mandatory meal planmight sound like a great idea to some –people eating together in dining halls,no worries if someone forgot to putmoney on their card – it did not take intoaccount the many other effects onexisting student life that a meal plancould have. People who work extra hoursto pay for their living expenses, thosewith restricted dietary needs, the cookingcommunities throughout campus, theFSILGs and people who would justrather eat out than on campus, felt thattheir communities and practices werebeing threatened. Others couldn’tcomprehend how a set level of incomewould motivate a vendor to providegood food and service. The decisionthat “mandatory” was an unchangeablepart of the plan was not made withstudent input, nor were students awarethat this was coming. After many

meetings, a campus-wide petition andlost sleep, it was announced that theprocess would be revisited with morestudents and they could entertain otheroptions besides mandatory meal plans.While no decisions have yet been made,at least student input – rather thanfeedback – is being taken into account.

The freshman class has now livedthrough their first example of thedivision between students and thenebulous mass known as “theadministration” that they have beenhearing about since they got here. Eachtime decisions are made and studentsare left out of the process until time forfeedback, a larger and larger level ofmistrust grows. I am not trying to pointfingers in this column. I know much ofwhat happens is misunderstood and partof a general lack of communicationthroughout MIT. While I understandhow these problems arise, it is imperativethat we work to make the process better.It is important that whether it is a changein student life or a change in education,when decisions affect students thereshould be ample input as well asfeedback. Students recognize theseeffects early because they can relate anychange to their daily lives. This is alsotrue in the case of faculty. Whendecisions are made regarding teachingor advising, it is the faculty who bestknow how it will affect their lives andwork. If “community building”decisions continue to be made withoutthe input of key players, the distrust willcontinue to mount from all sides andthis will place a further divide in whatwe are really trying to achieve.

A community needs to be aware ofand engaged in issues and decisions thataffect its members. In general, I don’tthink students are well informed aboutissues that affect the faculty at MIT.

While some of you may find it difficultto understand why students feel sostrongly about certain ideas, we oftenfind it difficult to see where youropinions and ideas stem from. We arenot fully aware of the pressures ofresearch, writing, teaching, and tenure.We may not know about the otherobligations you have to industry, yourfamilies, or other organizations. In orderfor a broader sense of community toform, we each need a little bit ofknowledge about the various groupsinvolved.

Overall, MIT has committed itself tocreating a greater sense of community.The Task Force on Student Life andLearning established that MIT isworking towards an educational triad ofresearch, academics, and community. Ifthis is truly the direction that MIT ismoving in, it has to be developed bymembers of all of the groups at MIT.Students will not partake in valuableresearch without the help of the faculty.Academics is also a two-way street.Community cannot be imposed, butrather it has to be developed. This ishard to grasp when so many changes arebeing made to the current community inan attempt to create a different one.

Please take the time to talk to studentsto find out what they are concernedabout and to listen to their perspectives.Even if you don’t agree, you can offeryour ideas with an explanation as towhy you might not agree. At the veryleast, both sets of ideas will be out on thetable for discussion. I think many peoplewould agree that when you putspecialists in a room together they canoften hash out a product that is betterthan any one that was developed by anindividual.✥[Jaime Devereaux can be reached [email protected]]


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Cost of Living: Still anIssue for Graduate Students

Seneviratne, from Page 23

The senior administration is aware ofthe housing problems. The recentopening of NW30 is a welcome additionto the MIT graduate housing option.Even though the rent at this newresidence is no more affordable thanthe off-campus market, being part ofthe MIT graduate housing system willhopefully not lead to skyrocketing rentsas witnessed in the off-campus market.The anticipated opening next Augustof the Sydney-Pacific residence willadd a further 650 graduate beds to theMIT housing system, making it nearly42% of graduate students who will behoused on-campus (including GRTs).While this will relieve some of thepressure on the tight Cambridge andSomerville housing markets, this is byno means sufficient.

The financial loss of the MIT housingsystem is a burden that theadministration is no longer ready tocarry. Last year, Executive Vice-President Curry and former ChancellorBacow introduced a plan geared towardsachieving self-sustainability of thehousing system. The plan (which isalready in effect) involves increasingon-campus rents by as much as 5% ayear for the next five years.Compounding this increase over thefive years will constitute a significantchunk of the graduate students’stipend.

Then, there is the cost of feeding. Theprice of meals in the MIT dining system(Lobdell, Networks, and Walker) havereached levels higher than neighboringcafes and restaurants (Au Bon Pain,Rebecca’s, Thailand Cafe). Given thatgraduate students spend a large part oftheir time on campus, and dine in thenearest available facilities (i.e., the

Lobdells and the Rebeccas), anothersignificant part of the stipend is spentfeeding on campus. Deducting the rentand the cost of meals leaves a deficit interms of pocket money for purchasingstudy items (text books, stationery, etc.)and for entertainment. Other institutionssimilar to MIT, like Stanford andNorthwestern, for example, offersignificantly higher stipends not onlyto adequately cover rent and feeding,but also to leave behind more pocketmoney for students. Just this year,Stanford adopted a special stipend tosupplement the cost of rent for studentsliving outside their campusaccommodation.

An analysis of the cost of living andstipends at other institutions competingwith MIT was carried out by the GSC(Graduate Student Council) lastacademic year. Details are available at< h t t p : / / g s c . m i t . e d u /cost_of_living.html>. In thatcomparison, MIT comes one-before-last, trailing the likes of Berkeley,Stanford, Cornell, Penn State,University of Michigan/Ann Arbor, andothers. Even with MIT’s increasedstipend this year, MIT is still at thebottom of the table compared withunadjusted stipends of the other schoolsfrom two years ago. Every otherinstitution has since increased their ownstipend levels. We are in the process ofupdating these figures to reflect thechanges at the other institutions sincethis analysis was conducted. Anotherconsideration that was not factored intothe above analysis is the subsidy ofhealth insurance, which many of theother institutions provide. Theseinstitutions relieve their students of thecosts of health insurance by offering

free (or in many other cases subsidized)health and dental insurance as a benefitto their graduate students. This putsMIT further down the cost-of-livinganalysis ladder.

Occupying a spot close to the bottomof this ladder translates to a lower qualityof life for graduate students at MITcompared with other institutions. Thismakes it harder for MIT to attract thebest and brightest graduate students.The GSC is advocating for increases instipend rates and subsidized MIT healthand dental insurance for graduatestudents, which will bring MIT to levelscomparable with other institutions.Medical insurance coverage and stipendincreases are actively endorsed byDr. Isaac M. Colbert, dean for GraduateStudents, and Dr. Larry Benedict, deanfor Student Life. In addition, the GSC isworking closely with the outgoing andincoming VP and Dean for ResearchDavid Litster and Alice Gast,respectively.

The current situation is critical andrequires firm action. A lot of courage isrequired on the part of the senioradministration and you, the faculty, inmoving forward with these issues. Wealso look forward to your comments,criticisms, and suggestions. Your activeparticipation on this matter will becrucial. This will prove your genuineconcern about the quality of life of yourgraduate students. It will also ease theproblems of recruiting enough talentedstudents. It’s the best and the brightestthat help MIT maintain its competitiveedge. Let’s make sure that quality oflife is not an obstacle towardsmaintaining that edge!✥[Dilan Seneviratne can be reached [email protected]]


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M.I.T. Numbers

ResearchExpenditures

1997-2001

MAJOR SPONSOR 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001

Department of Defense $82,256,830 $80,000,418 $80,805,979 $86,744,020 $80,494,203Department of Energy $85,278,459 $82,045,839 $71,613,204 $64,157,549 $64,402,560Health and Human Services $60,353,472 $62,596,036 $62,145,921 $70,614,062 $75,234,197NASA $43,383,539 $35,706,931 $33,331,682 $29,050,187 $26,970,230NSF $40,889,479 $41,364,798 $40,546,248 $42,185,465 $44,036,858Other Federal $8,123,282 $9,987,713 $8,347,357 $8,872,099 $8,642,670Total Federal $320,285,061 $311,701,735 $296,790,389 $301,623,383 $299,780,717Industry $55,790,372 $58,688,571 $61,623,382 $61,510,438 $80,310,841Foundations and non Profiits $7,724,289 $12,746,186 $11,444,435 $8,849,853 $11,727,774State Local & Foreign government $3,732,112 $2,686,121 $3,412,712 $6,985,532 $9,653,225Internal $347,722 $532,005 $2,776,393 $5,018,499 $5,950,659Grand Total $387,879,557 $386,354,618 $376,047,311 $383,987,703 $407,423,216In constant (2001) dollars $427,381,476 $418,243,953 $400,158,523 $397,143,275 $407,423,216

Source: Office of the Provost

450,000,000

400,000,000

350,000,000

300,000,000

250,000,000

200,000,000

150,000,000

100,000,000

50,000,000

01997 1998 1999 2000 2001

0Department of Defense

NSF

State Local & Foreign Govt.

Department of Energy

Other Federal

Internal

Health and Human Services

Industry

NASA

Foundations & Non-Profits

Documents

Responses An Update on MIT Dangerous Responsibility, … · 2020. 9. 14. · Ruth K. Seidman is Libraries Communication Coordinator. Harvey M. Sapolsky is Professor of Political Science