mit faculty newsletter vol. xxi no. 1, september/october...

in this issue we feature his initial “From The Faculty Chair” by Tom Kochan(page 4); two reports on international programs for students, MISTI(page 10) and iHouse (page 13); and two pieces on EHS safety concerns(pages 19 and 20).

MITFacultyNewsletter

Vol. XXII No. 1September/October 2009

http://web.mit.edu/fnl

MassachusettsInstitute ofTechnology

continued on page 21

Les Perelman

Teach TalkCommunicatingAcross the Curriculum

EditorialAltering the Cultureof MIT

MIT HAS A LONG HISTORY of inte-grating writing instruction throughoutits undergraduate curriculum. However,strangely in keeping with MIT’s long tra-dition in acoustics and electronics, thehistory of integrating writing and speak-ing into the academic curriculum for thefirst half of the twentieth century resem-bled not somuch a straight line but a sinewave. The pattern has been that efforts tomake writing an integral part of educa-tion in science and technology were fol-lowed by periods in which writing wasthe sole concern of the humanities, par-ticularly literature, and then a new com-munication-intensive (CI) initiativewould arise.

Robert Grosvenor Valentine, whocame toMIT in 1896, not only taught stu-dents to write reflective essays on troutfishing and baseball, but also taught them

Turmoil at StudentSupport Services

THE EDUCATION, DEVELOPMENT,

and creativity of our students is central to auniversity’s mission. In recent decades pres-sures on students have intensified, particu-larly as theyobserve their future employmentandprofessional opportunities contracting.

At MIT and many other institutions,the psychological and mental health ofstudents has increasingly become theprovince of a group of experienced andskilled counselors who take this as theircentral mission. It’s therefore particularlydisturbing to discover that one of MIT’sleaders in these efforts has been dismissedunder questionable circumstances, andapparently without due process or review.

Below the Faculty Newsletter providesa timeline for background, includingfaculty critiques of the events to date. Weexpect these events to be an agenda itemat an upcoming faculty meeting.

continued on page 3

Editorial Subcommittee

continued on page 6

The Koch Institute

AT THIS TIME, ALL U.S. social institu-tions, colleges, and universities are feelingthe pressure of the economic downturn.The convergence of critical trends – suchas declining endowment value; budgetcuts for state-supported institutions dueto lower tax collection; and parentalunemployment reducing student budgets– has created a crisis in higher educationof unprecedented proportions. To someextent, research universities remain some-what buffered by the distribution ofARRA (American Recovery andReinvestment Act of 2009) funds throughthe NIH, NSF, and other R&D agencies.But this buffer is limited and does notcompensate for this critical financialshortfall. Most of the nation’s universitiesare currently engaged in efforts to cutoperating budgets as a response to unam-biguous financial signals.

Vol. XXII No. 1 September/October 2009

2

The MIT FacultyNewsletterEditorial Board

Alice AmsdenUrban Studies & Planning

*John BelcherPhysics

Robert BerwickElectrical Engineering & Computer Science

*Nazli ChoucriPolitical Science

Olivier de WeckAeronautics & Astronautics/Engineering Systems

Ernst G. FrankelMechanical Engineering

Markus BuehlerCivil & Environmental Engineering

Jean E. JacksonAnthropology

Gordon KaufmanManagement Science/Statistics

*Jonathan King (Secretary)Biology

Helen Elaine LeeWriting and Humanistic Studies

Stephen J. LippardChemistry

Seth LloydMechanical Engineering

David H. MarksCivil & Environmental Engineering

*Fred Moavenzadeh (Chair)Civil & Environmental Engineering/Engineering Systems

James OrlinSloan School of Management

Ronald PrinnEarth, Atmospheric & Planetary Sciences

George VergheseElectrical Engineering and Computer Science

Rosalind H. WilliamsScience, Technology, & Society/Writing

David LewisManaging Editor

*Editorial Subcommittee for this issue

AddressMIT Faculty NewsletterBldg. 11-268Cambridge, MA 02139

Websitehttp://web.mit.edu/fnl

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

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

Teach Talk 01 Communicating Across the CurriculumLes Perelman

01 Turmoil at Student Support ServicesEditorial Subcommittee

Editorial 01 Altering the Culture of MIT

From The 04 Testing our Capacity to Govern, Change,Faculty Chair and Be True to our Values

Thomas A. Kochan

05 Teaching this fall? You should know . . .

08 Student Support Services: The Way ForwardPhillip L. Clay

10 MISTI Matches Students with InternationalWork and Research OpportunitiesSuzanne Berger

13 iHouse: An InternationalLiving-Learning CommunityZahir Dossa

14 OpenCourseWare:Working Through Financial ChallengesCecilia d’Oliveira, Steven Lerman

16 New CUP Subcommittee to ImplementHASS Distribution ReformJeffrey S. Ravel

16 New Course Catalog for 2009-2010

17 MIT Fourth in Latest U.S. News Poll

Letters 17 Balancing the EquitiesRobert B. McKersie

18 A Realistic Way to Deal with Global WarmingWilliam F. Schreiber

19 What Goes Around Comes Around:H1N1 and Extended Outage Planning ViewedThrough the Lens of the Blizzard of ’78Susan Leite

20 Death of UCLA ResearcherHeightens Lab Safety AwarenessLou DiBerardinis

25 Tech Talk Ceases Publication: MIT News OfficeLaunches New WebsiteJason Pontin

26 UPOP Positions Students for Professional SuccessSusann Luperfoy

M.I.T. Numbers 28 Undergraduate College Rankingsfrom U.S. News & World Report “America’s Best Colleges” 2010

contents

Photo credit: Page 1, David Lewis

MIT Faculty NewsletterSeptember/October 2009

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MIT is no exception to the generaltrend. The Institute’s efforts to steerthrough these difficult times are summa-rized in the August 16 Preliminary Reportof the Institute Wide Planning Task Force(web.mit.edu/instituteplanning/). This isan important document. We appreciateand commend the time and effort that the90 staff, 85 faculty, and 20 studentmembers devoted to this difficult task.The Report covers a wide range of optionsin a balanced and thoughtful way.All of uswill find proposals that make us hopeful,skeptical, or nervous – as the case may be.The proposals harbor powerful potentialsfor altering the fundamental “culture” ofMIT. It is therefore important, indeednecessary, forMIT faculty to read the pro-posals carefully and stay apprised ofchanges under consideration – not onlyfor their own departments or units, butalso for other parts of the Institute.

To the extent that we can engage in aself-examination process, we will all con-tribute to help steer MIT through thishighly difficult period.This process is nec-essary, but of course difficult, and needsthe full intelligence and experience ofInstitute personnel to ensure a validassessment. We believe that surgery suchas that proposed in the Report is delicateand must be considered in all of its multi-dimensional perspectives. Most impor-tant of all, it is imperative that we explorethe unintended consequences so that weare not caught unaware when the resultsare not what we have intended. It is all tooeasy for the rationale of cost savings tocreate trajectories that will harm,not help,an already tenuous situation. We recog-nize that no one can foresee all of the con-sequences – intended or otherwise – but a

careful reading of the Report points tosome powerful self-defeating impacts.

One of the most contentious sugges-tions pertains to changes in teaching load.This proposal could have a dramatic

impact on MIT’s culture as well as itsfinancial sustainability.

It is common knowledge that MIT is aresearch-driven institute. Faculty, stu-dents, and staff all engage in exploring thefrontiers of knowledge in their respectivefields. It is also well known that faculty andstudents do not consider their work atMIT subject to an arbitrary allocation oftheir time to a variety of activities. Indeed,many surveys have shown that both stu-dents and faculty dedicate a dispropor-tionate amount of their time to their MITactivities. Perhaps unintentionally, butmost certainly inadvertently, the TaskForce Report seems to suggest a newadministrative involvement in the faculty’sown allocation of its time among activitiessuch as teaching, research, advising, etc.This, in itself, is worthy of careful scrutiny.

A related, and seemingly arbitrary,proposal is to increase the teaching load offaculty accompanied by a concomitantreduction of the number of graduate stu-dents. At first glance, this proposalappears economically valid in the shortrun. But it will have severe negative conse-quences that we must not overlook. If theteaching load is increased, then by defini-tion the research activities and the pro-ductivity of the faculty will be reduced.

We base this expected result on the evi-dence provided by several surveys point-ing to the absence of any slack in facultyand students’ time. Indeed, anyone famil-iar with the Institute would find the

notion of “slack” to be at variance withboth dominant values and observablebehavior. Increasing the teaching load ofthe faculty is a worthy proposal, as long aswe all understand its consequences andare willing to reduce time allocated toother activities, most notably research.

To begin with, this is a very serious andfundamental change in the operation ofthe Institute. It should not be ignored noraccepted without significant discussionon its unintended consequences. Moreteachingmeans less research. Less researchmeans lower research volume. Lowerresearch volume means reduced researchcontracts, grants, or other forms of finan-cial resources for the Institute.All of this issimple arithmetic. There is nothing inter-pretive or “ideological” here. Is this adirection that we wish to travel? Can weput the research volume at risk and expectno impact on the Institute’s overallmission? What about the unintendedfinancial consequences?

We encourage debate and discussion,and invite your views on this most impor-tant issue. Please e-mail your submissionto [email protected], or contact any member oftheNewsletter Editorial Board.

Editorial Subcommittee

Altering the Culture of MITcontinued from page 1

One of the most contentious suggestions pertains tochanges in teaching load. This proposal could have adramatic impact on MIT’s culture as well as its financialsustainability.

MIT Faculty NewsletterVol. XXII No. 1

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I WOULD LIKE TO USE this Newslettercolumn to share some impressions gainedin my first three months in the role asyour faculty chair about the unique con-stellation of roles and processes that con-stitute the MIT governance system. Indoing so I want to challenge us all to usethis system to good effect in addressingthe problems and opportunities we face inways that are true to the values we hold asa university community. I outlined someof these issues in my recent e-mail lettersto the faculty, so this column is essentiallyan update on where we stand and how I’dlike to see our governance processesengage these issues in the months ahead.

Finalizing and Implementing theInstitute-wide Planning Task ForceRecommendationsWe have in hand a broad set of Task Forcerecommendations for changing the wayMIT delivers education, conductsresearch, manages human resources andoperations, and relates to the world. Wehave to demonstrate we can discuss,decide, and implement the ideas that havemerit in a timely fashion.Doing so will setMIT apart from all other universities thatare experiencing similar budgetary crises.We should be proud of the fact that MIThas chosen to directly engage over 200faculty, staff, and students (including over80 faculty) in the generation of the 204recommendations included in the TaskForce report.

We are now in themidst of an intensiveand extensive effort to get communityfeedback on the recommendations. As Iwrite this, plans are underway for twocommunity-wide open forums and mul-

tiple decentralized briefing sessions in thedorms, across departments, with studentleadership groups, and at faculty meet-ings. Now is the time for each of us toweigh in, ask the tough questions, and

raise concerns where we believe the rec-ommendations might have dysfunctionalconsequences. Where we see potentialproblems, we should be proactive in pro-posing alternatives to the recommenda-tions that would better serve the Institutein the short and long run. Just saying no toall change is neither an option nor theMIT way.

These inputs will inform the draftingof the final Task Force report. Then thehard work of implementation will begin.I’ve asked each of our standing facultycommittees to clear time on their busycalendars to take up those recommenda-tions that fall within their charters, andthere aremany that do so. I also amurgingour administration colleagues who areresponsible for deciding and/or imple-menting specific recommendations tomake an extra effort to consult with thestanding faculty committees with whichthey work. In cases where changes wouldhave significant effects on faculty butthere is no standing committee, such as

the recommendations for changes incompensation and benefits, new waysneed to be created to get faculty input. Inthis specific case, the Vice President forHuman Resources and the Executive Vice

President and Treasurer are working witha faculty advisory committee to reviewoptions.

Some might worry this will slow downthe change process. Based on my ownprofessional experience I believe other-wise: Engagement of the stakeholders,properly managed, leads to both betterquality and broader ownership of deci-sions reached and therefore increases thelikelihood that the changes will be imple-mented in a timely fashion and achievetheir intended results. My prediction willbe put to the test. Let’s all work hard toprove it’s right!

Resolving the S^3 IssuesOther articles in this Newsletter chroniclethe series of development and deep con-cerns that surfaced out of the layoff andintended restructuring of Student SupportServices. As I noted in my earlier letter:

“...steps are now underway to address someof these concerns. The Chancellor and I

Thomas A. KochanFrom The Faculty ChairTesting our Capacity to Govern, Change,and Be True to our Values

We are now in the midst of an intensive and extensiveeffort to get community feedback on therecommendations [of the Institute-wide Planning TaskForce]. . . .plans are underway for two community-wideopen forums and multiple decentralized briefing sessionsin the dorms, across departments, with studentleadership groups, and at faculty meetings.


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have created a joint faculty-administrationtask force co-chaired by Professor EricGrimson and Vice Chancellor StevenLerman and charged it to take a clean sheetof paper approach to analyzing and recom-mending how to structure and deliverstudent counseling services within currentbudgetary realities. The task force willreport to us by October 30th. In addition, Ihave asked two of MIT’s leading humanresource and organizational scholars,Professors Lotte Bailyn and RobertMcKersie, to work with Vice President ofHuman Resources Alison Alden to reviewthe experiences with layoffs and redeploy-ment efforts over this first year of budgetcuts, including but not limited to the layoffin the counseling unit, and to offer sugges-tions for how to better manage theseprocesses going forward.”

The two groups we set up have doneexcellent work in a very short time frame.Lotte, Bob, and Alison are finalizing recom-mendations to (1) make sure all unitsexplore alternatives before turning to layoffs,

(2) carry out and communicate layoffs inways that are true to our values and respectthe dignity of those affected, and(3) strengthen redeployment/placement ofthose laid off in job openings occurring inother parts of the Institute.

The Task Force is hard at work. It hasalready taken steps to ensure our studentcounseling needs are met during thisinterim period.

I know that some question the makeup of the Task Force because it includesadministration leaders from the Divisionof Student Life and the Chancellor’soffice. But the Task Force also has strongfaculty representation and the adminis-trative representatives are exactly thepeople who will need to implement theultimate recommendations. I see this as amodel of howwe can work together to getnew things done – through direct engage-ment of the faculty and administrativeleaders with deep interests and sharedresponsibility for governingMIT. I’ve seenjoint sub-groups like this work in industry(and in some very tough labor-manage-

ment settings). This is a test of our uniquecollaborative governance process. I’mconfident it will work.

Finally, let me offer a personal perspec-tive on how I hope to carry out myresponsibilities as your faculty chair. I’velearned in these first three months thatthis is a unique role, one that requiresengaging in strong, frank, and determinedadvocacy of faculty interests while at thesame time working collaboratively and inpartnership with other Institute leaders tomeet our shared responsibilities to theoverall MIT community. I can only hopeto find the right balance of advocacy fordeeply held values and collaboration insolving problems, if all of us take a similarapproach to engaging the challenges andopportunities we face. Let’s keep at it!

As always, Iwelcome comments on thesethoughts either via e-mail or via the com-ments section on the faculty resource pageWebsite:mit.edu/faculty/discussions/.

Thomas A. Kochan is a Professor ofManagement and Faculty Chair([email protected]).

Teaching this fall? You should know …

the faculty regulates examinations and assignments for all subjects.

Check the Web at wweebb..mmiitt..eedduu// ffaaccuullttyy// tteerrmmrreeggss for the complete regulations.Questions: Contact Faculty Chair Tom Kochan at x3-6689 or [email protected].

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

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

• required work, including the number and kinds of assignments;• an approximate schedule of tests and due dates for major projects;• whether or not there will be a final examination; and• grading criteria.

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

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

No Testing During the Last Week of ClassesTests after Friday, December 4, 2009 must be scheduled in the Finals Period.

*It is important to define your expectations and academic integrity to your students at the beginning of each semester.


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Chronology of S^3 Events

S^3 Description and HistoryS^3 is an acronym for Student SupportServices, presently under the Dean forStudent Life. It has gone under othernames in the past, e.g. Counseling andSupport Services (CSS). It is an importantsupport service for students, for example,see the following description at studentlife.mit.edu/dsl/s3 .

….asking for help ...can be hard. Whetherclasses aren’t going well, problems arise athome, or romantic relationships areimploding, it’s tough to think of sitting witha stranger and telling them the personaldetails of your life. Student SupportServices, S^3 is a low-key, safe place thatmakes asking for help a little easier. Adiverse staff is available to you for confiden-tial conversation and support. We can helpyou in other ways too – Take a look!

As of June 2009, S^3 had six Associateand Assistant Deans, an Assistant Dean forDisability Services, and two administrativeassistants. This number included two Co-Directors, Associate Dean ArnoldHenderson and Associate Dean JacquelineSimonis. Dean Simonis was the most seniormember of the staff, having been a coun-selor at MIT for 23 years and holding a doc-torate in Counseling and Administrationfrom Harvard.

Before 2000, S^3 was under the Officeof the Dean of Students andUndergraduate Education (ODSUE). Atthat point, ODSUE was divided betweenthe Dean of Undergraduate Education(DUE) and the Dean for Student Life(DSL), and S^3 was put under DSL.

S^3 Reporting in 2000According to the former Dean of ODSUE,Rosalind Williams:

“When the separation [of ODSUE intoDUE and DSL] was made in 2000, Ibelieved that the separation was in theorya good arrangement, but from the start Iworried and wondered about placing thestudent counseling and support officeunder the DSL. Some people in the officeargued strongly that it should be underthe DUE.”

Subsequent Questions about S^3Reporting 2004-2006Professor Tom Greytak was chair of theCommittee on Academic Performance(CAP) from 2004 to 2006. In this capacityhe worked closely with S^3 and withDean Simonis.

“I recognized that there were managementissues between S^3 and those to whom itreported in DSL. S^3 is deeply involvedwith the academic difficulties of students. Ithas a close working relationship with thefaculty on the CAP and with individualfaculty members throughout the Institute.Thus it seemed to me that S^3 was ill placedin DSL which is more concerned with otheraspects of the students’ lives. Some other lineof management and support, perhaps inDUE, appeared to be more appropriate. Ibrought up this issue during the search for anew dean for DUE and the search for a newdean for graduate education. After SteveLerman was chosen for the latter position, Idiscussed the issue with him in person onJune 19, 2008.”

Monday June 22, 2009On this date, Dean Simonis was laid off.She:

“…went to a scheduled meeting … Jackiewas told that her position had been elimi-nated for financial reasons, that she wasbeing laid off, and that her last day at workwas that day. She was told that she wasexpected to be available to coordinate thetransfer of her responsibilities while workingfrom her home. She was not allowed tospeak with her colleagues in private, nor toreturn to work in her office…”.

This text is from a letter to former chairsof the MIT faculty and the MacVicarFellows dated July 9, 2009 (see below).

Friday June 26, 2009Upon learning of these developments, inhis role as Faculty Chair, Tom Kochanbegan a series of meetings with concernedfaculty and leaders from the administra-tion to learn more about the facts and dif-ferent perspectives involved in thissituation.

Thursday July 2, 2009A letter is sent to Chancellor PhillipClay, with copies to the President, theProvost, the Dean for Student Life(Dean Colombo), and the Chair of theFaculty (Thomas Kochan). The letterwas signed by the Chair of theCommittee on Academic Performance,Professor David Pesetsky, the entirefaculty membership of CAP from 2008-9 and 2009-2010, and three formerchairs of the CAP (one of whom is alsoa current member of the committee).The letter says in part:

“…In her 23-year career at MIT’s S^3,Dean Simonis was a builder of the veryoffice from which she was just laid off. Theacademic careers (and even lives) of innu-merable MIT students have been saved andput back on track thanks to her work.

These recent actions that affect S^3 havecreated a tentativeness within the StudentSupport Office and the overall supportsystem for our students. We do not believethat CAP can properly fulfill its duties to thefaculty in collaboration with a StudentSupport Office in such a state.

Upon careful consideration, we thereforerespectfully ask for the following actions:

1. The suspension of those aspects of theDSL reorganization that involve S^3, andthe provisional restoration of the previousadministrative structure.

Turmoil at S^3continued from page 1


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2. The restoration of Dean Simonis to herposition at MIT, including her reinstate-ment as Co-Director of S^3. …”

The letter concluded with

“…In our many years here, MIT has beenknown as a place where faculty and admin-istration work together collegially to opti-mize our students’ experience, and whereprofessional staff, like Jackie Simonis, canexpect to be honored for their decades-longcontributions to our students’ quality of life.We feel compelled to act to preserve thatculture in the face of actions that, intendedor not, can only undermine it….

“Though we understand the necessity ofrestructuring and reevaluation throughoutthe Institute, it has always been said thatthis can and must be done without puttingthe Institute’s core mission at risk. In diffi-cult times such as these, we expect an actualincrease in student need for the services pro-vided by S^3, and a corresponding increasein the demands on committees such as CAP.We believe that the events that prompt thisletter do put the Institute’s core mission atrisk, and therefore look forward to a speedyresolution of our concerns.”

Thursday July 9, 2009A letter is sent to former chairs of the MITfaculty and the MacVicar Fellows signedby (in alphabetical order) Paul Gray,Thomas Greytak, Robert Jaffe, DavidPesetsky, Margery Resnick, and Art Smith,which said in part:

“…A broad study of counseling at MIT isexactly what many of us had been advocat-ing for some time. However, we do notunderstand how it can make sense toembark on such a study after completelyreorganizing the very unit whose futurestructure is the supposed topic of the study(in effect pushing it another layer deeperinto the organizational chart of the office ofthe Dean for Student Life) and after dismiss-ing one of two leaders of the office, whoseinsights should be critical input to such a

study. Both decisions were apparently madewithout any faculty input whatsoever. Wealso take note of the fact that DeanColombo’s message [to Greytak on June 22,stating that he (Colombo) had initiated anevaluation of S^3] does not mention eitherthe restructuring or the layoff, despite thefact that both must have been planned longbefore this message, and were literally inprogress at the time it was sent….”

Tuesday July 14, 2009Chair of the Faculty Thomas Kochaninvites members of the CAP, former chairsof the MIT faculty, and the MacVicarFellows to an informal luncheon meetingat the Faculty Club, to discuss the issuesraised in that letter and in the letter to theMacVicar Fellows of July 9 and to reporton his discussions with administrationleaders on ways to address the range ofissues raised by the S^3 restructuring andthe layoff process.

Wednesday July 15, 2009Kochan convenes a joint meeting of con-cerned faculty with Chancellor Clay,Dean Lerman, and Dean Columbo todiscuss the issues and options foraddressing them. All parties at themeeting acknowledge the seriousness ofthe issues and the concerns raised by thefaculty. Chancellor Clay states that in ret-rospect the faculty should have been con-sulted before starting the restructuring ofS^3. A tentative agreement is made forthe Faculty Chair and Chancellor tojointly create and charge a faculty-admin-istration task force to study and recom-mend how to best structure studentcounseling services. All options are to beopen for consideration.

Thursday July 16, 2009Kochan, Chancellor Clay, and Dean Lermanmeet and agree on the charge, membership,and timeline for the task force.

Wednesday July 29, 2009The Chair of the Faculty sends an email tothe members of the faculty who attended

the July 14 informal meeting at theFaculty Club, which announces the for-mation of the S^3 Task Force, andincludes its charge.

Thursday August 6, 2009Professor John Belcher, a member from2006-2009 of the Committee on StudentLife (CSL), the standing faculty advisorybody to the Dean for Student Life, sendsan e-mail to the Chair of the Faculty andthe faculty who met at the Faculty Clubon July 14, which says in part:

“…I particularly emphasize this withrespect to Dean Colombo, who is relativelynew to the Institute. My opinion, based onmy experience as a member of theCommittee on Student Life since he[Colombo] first arrived, which has metevery two to four weeks, is that DeanColombo should not be making this kind ofdecision about S^3 without input fromfaculty. He had ready access to that input,through his own standing faculty advisorybody, if he had chosen to consult it.…….

“Every faculty member whose opinion Irespect has nothing but praise for the wayS^3 functioned, as it was constituted, and Ithink you are far from resolving the legiti-mate issues and questions that have beenraised about the events of the last few weeks,or about what the long-term consequencesof these events will be to the morale andfunctioning of this group. Whatever thisTask Force does, it is crucial that S^3emerge as a highly functional team, and thefaculty are going to want to be convincedthat this is going to happen.…”

Wednesday August 26, 2009The S^3 Task Force met for the first timeon this date.

Wednesday September 9, 2009The members of the CAP and of theMacVicar Fellows, and others, who meton Tuesday July 14, meet again to hear aprogress report on the situation.


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Phillip L. ClayStudent Support Services: The Way Forward

BUDGET REDUCTIONS, CHANGES

required to bring staffing in line withresources, a commitment to excellence,and a goal of keeping MIT as a wonderfulplace to study and work combine to chal-lenge us. This spring and summer, theDean for Student Life (DSL) [CostantinoColombo] announced layoffs in his areato meet required budget reduction targets.A total of 18 positions were eliminated.The layoff of staff, including some long-serving colleagues, was difficult andpainful for all involved. The DSL layoffsincluded one position in Student SupportServices (S^3). S^3 assists students bydirecting them to appropriate MITresources for academic assistance, forsupport for residential life, and for crisismanagement. While the office also sup-ports faculty committees and works withhousemasters and MIT Medical, themajority of its work is directly with indi-vidual students.

In the 2008 search for the new Deanfor Student Life, I asked the search com-mittee to seek insight into the needs of thedivision and identify areas where the newdean might want to focus attention. Thereport of the search committee and dis-cussions with faculty pointed to S^3 asone area where the new dean shouldfocus. This was not to suggest that S^3was not doing a good job. The office hasenjoyed strong support from faculty andstudents. The concerns called out missedopportunities for student support anddiffering views about S^3’s scope, report-ing arrangements, and the coordinationof its services with other units, includingthe Office of the Dean for UndergraduateEducation and the Medical Department.

Soon after Dean Colombo arrived, hewas required to meet the serious,Institute-wide budget cuts, even while headdressed areas for improvement. Thissummer, the dean announced budget cuts

for S^3 and proposed a review that wouldaddress the concerns raised about theoffice. He also announced an interimreorganization.

Several highly respected faculty col-leagues with a long record of working onstudent issues expressed to me deepapprehension and disappointment overthe layoff and the interim reorganization.First, they were surprised that the changeswere made without more consultation.Some of them disagreed with the layoff ofa particular individual. They were con-cerned that the interim reorganizationwould degrade services to students and,finally, they were also concerned that thestories they had heard about the layoffprocess were inconsistent with Instituteculture and procedures. In recent weeks,my colleagues and I have communicatedwith many faculty about these concerns.In addressing these concerns, I haveengaged deeply with the Chair of theFaculty who has played an active role byfostering communications and conveninginterested parties.

I learned a lot. I acknowledge the deepand genuine feelings of concern the

faculty expressed. I understand the basisof their concern. I also feel that in hind-sight, even with the review of S^3 pro-vided by the search committee, we shouldhave consulted more broadly about the

reorganization of student services beforemaking even interim changes. The inputfrom faculty in the search process, asdescribed above, was insufficient, andwhile we had planned to bring stakehold-ers into the more wide-reaching processof reviewing S^3, the intent was inade-quately communicated. We certainly didnot intend to degrade S^3, but we nowunderstand how reasonable people mightperceive that this could be an unintendedconsequence.

Before addressing the substantiveissues related to S^3, let me first speak tothe concerns expressed about layoffs. Allof the layoffs in student life were theresult of budget reductions. The Deanmade difficult decisions that includedlayoffs of staff that had been at theInstitute for many years. The layoffs, at alllevels, were initiated and conductedaccording to Institute policies and proce-dures, in consultation with, and with thefull participation by, MIT HumanResources. The process is consistent withMIT culture and values.

Academic and administrative man-agers necessarily have broad discretion in

Several highly respected faculty colleagues with a longrecord of working on student issues expressed to medeep apprehension and disappointment over the layoff[in Student Support Services] and the interimreorganization.


9

personnel matters. In making decisionsabout layoffs, they do not usually consultopenly with other interested partiesoutside of the area; and, consistent withthese practices, in making decisions aboutlayoffs in S^3, we did not consult withfaculty, students, or other parties. It is fun-damental that personnel decisions arekept confidential before and after they aremade. Employees have the appropriateexpectation that managers will not dis-close information regarding their employ-ment with others, except when it isnecessary to advise those in the line ofsupervision or other very limited circum-stances. Given this commitment, wesimply cannot comment on any specificpersonnel decision. MIT has an estab-lished internal grievance procedure thatallows any employee who feels unfairlytreated to raise such concerns in writing;those concerns are then investigated thor-oughly and objectively. Those reviewprocesses also contain a commitment toconfidentiality to the extent possible. Thisexpectation of privacy and confidentialityapplies not only to the employee who maybe the subject of a decision, but also tothose other community members whomight participate in a review. Theemployee also has the right to raise anyconcerns externally through legal pro-ceedings. If a complaint is submitted, wewill respond appropriately.

I feel confident that establishedprocesses were followed and layoff deci-sions were based on legitimate reasons.However, in a process of self study, theChair of the Faculty and I decided thatseveral steps should be taken to addressthe concerns expressed by the faculty.First, there has been an exchange of infor-mation with a small group of respectedfaculty to better understand the layoffprocess that has been in place this pastyear. At MIT, we always strive to improveour processes and in this spirit, AlisonAlden, MIT’s Vice President for HumanResources, has been shepherding thisexamination.

More central to S^3, we have begun aprocess designed to review the unit. TheChair of the Faculty and I have appointed

and charged a task force to determine howS^3 should best be organized to providethe best resources for our students. Asdescribed in more detail below, the goals ofthe task force review are to recommend:(1) ways to improve the operations in S^3and (2) how to best position the functionsof S^3 within the MIT organizationalstructure to improve coordination amongoffices, faculty, and other stakeholders thatwork with S^3 in serving students whoneed academic, social, and mental healthsupport. The interim reorganization hasbeen rolled back.

We have reaffirmed that S^3 performsseveral critical functions. It serves as thelocus of support for academic issues,including providing input to theCommittee on Academic Performance(CAP) decision process. It providesstudent advising and counseling and is aresource for faculty who are trying toassist individual students. The office alsoassists housemasters in supporting stu-dents in our residence halls who experi-ence academic or other problems. S^3 isan important part of the health supportstructure for students, often serving as agateway for students who are thenreferred to Mental Health Service at MITMedical for further care. Its continuedsuccess is important to MIT.

While the office has served us well, thisreview will determine how to improveS^3’s coordination with other studentsupport activities so that it can better serveMIT’s students and faculty. PositioningS^3 for greatest effectiveness is particularlyimportant as offices across the Instituteface further budget reductions.

Specifically, the Chair of the Facultyand I charged the S^3 task force to reviewand assess the following:

1. Student Support Services’ scope of serv-ices, organization, and reporting rela-tionships.

2. Coordination of services provided byS^3 and other offices in DSL, DUE, andthe Medical Department.

3. S^3’s communication with faculty onindividual cases and on policies andprocedures for student support.

4. Relationships and communicationswith various stakeholders – CAP,Committee on Student Life (CSL),other elements of the Division ofStudent Life, the Office of the Dean forGraduate Education, housemasters,students, and any others deemed rele-vant by the committee.

5. S^3’s outreach and prevention activities.

The task force will be co-chaired byProfessor William “Eric” E. Grimson andVice Chancellor Steven “Steve” L. Lerman.Other members include Dr. Alan E. Siegel,Chief, Mental Health Services at MITMedical, Deans Costantino “Chris”Colombo and Daniel “Dan” E. Hastings,Professors David Pesetsky and Ann E. C.McCants, Dean Blanche E. Staton, SeniorAssociate Dean for Graduate Students,and two student members: Elizabeth A.Denys (2012) and Ying Zhang (HST). Thetask force will present its report to us byOctober 30, 2009.

In carrying out its work, the task forcewill consult faculty, staff, and studentstakeholders. The task force will bemindful of the need to empower staff andfaculty to collaborate more effectively insupport of students in the environmentof diminished resources. We also wantour student service organizations toincrease their focus on outreach and pre-vention as well as their response tostudent problems.

We cannot avoid the unfortunate factthat MIT will face further budget reduc-tions. No unit or office at MIT can beexempted from consideration for furthercuts. Human Resources will continue toreview its processes to ensure that theseprocesses continue to be fair and humane.Insight from the task force will help usutilize our resources effectively. The taskforce will illuminate how we support stu-dents, reinforcing the efficacy of S^3 andother units, so that we will be able to pre-serve our tradition of deep and strongsupport for the outstanding students whocome to MIT. None of us will be satisfiedwith anything less.

Phillip L. Clay is Chancellor ([email protected]).


10

Suzanne BergerMISTI Matches Students with InternationalWork and Research Opportunities

THIS MONTH THE CLASS OF 2013

started classes at MIT and I thought backto my own freshman year in a Midwesterncollege. At the time, the outside world wasa distant and troublesome speck on thehorizon: my uncle had fought in the warin the Pacific; my relatives had died in theholocaust in Europe. The Cold War sepa-rated us from large stretches of the globe.My own greatest aspiration with respectto foreign countries was to make asummer trip to France. The only cars wesaw on the streets, and the only productsin the stores, were American. Today, byany economic or cultural or political stan-dard one can conceive, the world is awholly different place.

The globalization of the economy, therise of major new industrial societies inAsia, the technological revolution that fol-lowed the silicon chip – all these havetotally altered the international horizon ofour students and faculty. The quality oftheir lives as citizens and as professionalswill depend critically on understandingsocieties outside their own. Success todayas an engineer or a scientist or a managertakes the ability to access and create knowl-edge outside of national borders. It requiresknowing how to build networks with col-leagues in centers of rapid growth andinnovation across the world. Educatingstudents capable of learning and leading inglobal projects is the main objective ofMISTI, the MIT International Science andTechnology Initiatives. In 2009, MISTI sentover 400 undergraduates and graduate stu-dents to internships and research labsaround the world. MISTI also providedclose to $500,000 to MIT faculty for inter-national projects and collaborations.

MISTI’s approach to internationaleducation builds on MIT’s distinctive tra-

ditions of combining classroom learningand hands-on experience in UROPs,cooperative programs with industry,practice schools, and internships. In con-trast to other universities’ international-ization programs that mainly involvestudy abroad, MISTI matches individualstudents with work or research opportu-nities in their own fields. The internshipslast three months to a year, and many ofthe students who go for a summer end upreturning again for another stay. MISTIdraws students from all over the Institute:47% from the School of Engineering; 29%from the School of Science; 11% fromArchitecture and Planning; 7% from theSchool of Humanities, Arts, and SocialSciences; and 6% from Management.

An increasing number of MISTI proj-ects are entry-level ones that offer second-and third-year students who might notyet be ready for a company or research labassignment a chance to work abroad.These entry projects often involve teamsof students adapting OCW(OpenCourseWare) materials for univer-

sities and high schools – in western China,India, Italy, and Germany. Students return

from these experiences interested in doingmore. Scot Frank (EECS ’09), for example,first worked on setting up OCW and iLabtest equipment at a Chinese universityand later returned to China as an internwith a Shanghai-based startup. Inspiredby the experience of learning Chinese toprepare for MISTI, Frank and two fellowstudents created Lingt Editor, software forclassroom-based language learning. Theircompany was recently featured as the“coolest college start-up” by Inc.Magazine.

Here are a few other current examples– from the more than 3000 studentsMISTI has placed since it began bysending a handful of interns to Japan atthe end of the eighties:

• Chemical Engineering student NathaliaRodriguez worked on gene therapy formuscular dystrophy at Genopole, aFrench biotech cluster;• Matthew Zedler, a MechanicalEngineering graduate, examinedChinese auto growth and energy at

MISTI’s approach to international education builds onMIT’s distinctive traditions of combining classroomlearning and hands-on experience in UROPs,cooperative programs with industry, practice schools, andinternships. In contrast to other universities’internationalization programs that mainly involve studyabroad, MISTI matches individual students with work orresearch opportunities in their own fields.


11

Cambridge Energy Research Associatesin Beijing;• Physics major Jason Bryslawskyj designedsuperconducting magnetic bearings forelectric motors at Siemens in Germany.He wrote two patents at Siemens;• Ammar Ammar, an EECS undergrad,designed and tested a Google/YouTubeproject at Google Israel;• Civil and Environmental Engineeringstudent Dina Poteau worked on waterstress detection at the Technion in Haifa;• Math major Elizabeth Theurer workedat Global InfraSys, an energy consultingfirm in Gurgaon;• Mechanical Engineering student RachelLicht tested oil reservoirs for Total, aFrench energy company;• Chemical Engineering majorChristopher Love designed geothermaland solar thermal energy plants atENEL, in Pisa, Italy;• Brain and Cognitive Science majorShirin Kasturia explored healthcaretechnologies for the disabled atInnovaciones SocioSanitarias, Valencia,Spain;

• Management undergrad Ken Lopezworked on a Braille screen atTecnologico de Monterrey in Cordoba,Mexico;

• Alexander Patrikalakis returned forseveral internships to Ricoh, in Japan,developing software for videoconferenc-ing and 3D virtual realities.

Because international experienceshould be a core part of education – not afrill or an extra or a vacation trip for thosewhose families can afford it – MISTImakes these opportunities available at noadditional cost to students. To participatein MISTI, however, a student must make aserious investment in learning about the

country in which he or she wishes tointern. For entry-level MISTI activities,this involves at least one semester ofcourse work on the country. For students

seeking to be placed as regular interns,language courses are also required. MISTIstudents also participate in sessions led byMISTI staff on how to hit the groundrunning once they arrive and learn every-thing from how to buy train tickets, howto stay healthy, and how to work with col-leagues.

Perhaps the most important part ofthese sessions is preparing students to dis-cover that the same problem can betackled in many different ways. A labworking on a project in France may have avery different problem-solving approachfrom an MIT lab. What looks like peoplewasting time drinking coffee and chattingmay actually be the team exchanging ideasabout next steps. If colleagues at work arepolite, but non-committal, how do youget into the project? How can you figureout who makes the decisions in the organ-ization and how ideas move ahead?“Teaching students not only about othercountries, but about how to collaboratewith peers abroad, is a primary mission ofthe School of Humanities, Arts, and SocialSciences,” says Dean Deborah Fitzgerald.MISTI is located in the Center forInternational Studies in SHASS.

The underlying idea in requiring stu-dents to learn about a country’s culture,language, history, and politics as prereq-uisite for an internship, is that contextmatters. Erica Fuchs, a MISTI alumnawho had internships in Germany andChina and today is an assistant professorat Carnegie Mellon in the Department ofEngineering and Public Policy, explained

continued on next page

By preparing our students to work, lead, and thrive incultures around the globe, MISTI equips them withcrucial skills for tackling the world’s great challenges.

–Susan Hockfield, President of MIT

400

300

200

100

01995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009

1983-1994

Year

Num

ber of In

terns

MISTI Annual Internship Placements


12

how critical it was for her research to seethe ways in which the same technologyplays out in different national settings.She looked at optoelectronic designsbeing developed for telecommunications

and computing industries. The sponsor-ing companies for the research on whichher dissertation was based wanted tounderstand the economic viability of aprocess technology called “monolithicintegration.” Many of the firms were off-shoring manufacturing, and Fuchsthought that location might matter forhow efficient and profitable the new tech-nology was. With funds from MISTI, shecompared the newly established plants inChina with ones in the U.S. She discov-ered that the new monolithically-inte-grated technology was the mosteconomically competitive technologywhen manufacturing occurred in theU.S., but the monolithically-integrateddesign could not compete in the U.S. ordeveloping East Asia against the old tech-nology produced offshore. Fuchs says: “Iwould never have known the importanceof manufacturing location for technology

competitiveness if I hadn’t spent theextensive time I did through MISTI onthe manufacturing shop floors of devel-oping East Asia. I continue to emphasizethe importance of this on-the-groundexperience with all of my students today.”As we talk with students returning fromthe internships, their insights about the

connections between context and sciencesuggest that a unique form of learning istaking place.

EECS Department Head Eric Grimsonobserved that “to compete in today’sworld, students have to appreciate globalperspectives, global markets, different cul-tures, national priorities, nuances of com-munication in different languages, eventhe impact of social and religious normson commercial and technological behav-ior.” EECS has been one of the most activedepartments in developing internationalinternships in collaboration with MISTI.

The MISTI Global Seed Fundsprogram provides yet another avenue forstudents to participate in global learningand knowledge creation. The programstarted last year with funding from theOffice of the Provost for the international-ization of MIT research and education.Building on the model of the MIT-France

Seed Fund, the program provides supportfor MIT faculty to launch internationalprojects and research anywhere in theworld and encourages them to involvestudents in the projects.

Of the 104 proposals received for theinaugural 2008 round, 27 were awarded$457,400 in funding. Faculty and researchscientists from 26 departments across theInstitute submitted proposals for projectsin 42 countries. All awardees includedundergraduate, graduate, or post-doctoralstudent participation.

Teams are using the grant money tojump-start international research projectsand collaboration with faculty andstudent counterparts abroad. Funds coverinternational travel, meeting, and work-shop costs to facilitate the projects. MISTIprovides cultural preparation for studentsbefore their departure.

Today MISTI has 10 country pro-grams: China, France, Germany, India,Israel, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Spain and –the latest – Brazil. New programs forSwitzerland and for Africa are in theworks. Each one of the country pro-grams has a faculty member who servesas director and a full-time staff memberas coordinator. Faculty leadership hasbeen critical to the development ofMISTI, and is drawn from departmentsacross the Institute. Financing these pro-grams involves a significant effort sincefunds have to be found for the studentsand for staff salaries. Today about aquarter of MISTI funds come from theInstitute budget, and the rest is raisedfrom gifts from alumni, corporations,and foundation grants. In a time of eco-nomic crisis and tough decisions aboutMIT’s priorities, some might wonderwhether international learning is anactivity we can afford. When we thinkabout the shifts in the internationaleconomy, the emergence of high-powered centers of knowledge creationaround the world, and the lives of ourstudents over the next quarter-century, itseems like a necessity.

MISTI Matches StudentsBerger, from preceding page

2009 MISTI Placements by Country

India

49

Germany

96

China

53

Japan

33

Israel

32

Spain

47

Mexico

23

France

79Italy

32

Suzanne Berger is a Professor of PoliticalScience and Director of MISTI([email protected]).


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Zahir DossaiHouse: An International Living-Learning Community

THE INTERNATIONAL HOUSE FOR

Global Leadership, or iHouse, is a living-learning community consisting of 21undergraduate students passionate aboutinternational development. iHouse wasestablished on the vision that a commu-nity promoting a combination of academ-ics, project-based learning, mentorshipopportunities, and leadership skills devel-opment is necessary at MIT to foster thenext generation of global leaders solvinginternational problems. Our mission istherefore to complement the academicofferings in international development atMIT with the principles, tools, networks,and experiences necessary for undergrad-uates to become leaders in internationaldevelopment.

To fulfill this mission, we have created aclose-knit, collaborative community thatpromotes the international development-related programs that MIT offers, encour-ages project-based learning, exposesstudents to various opportunities thatenhance leadership skills, and provides astrong mentorship network for students.

iHouse is a student-governed livinggroup that is guided by the Chancellor-appointed faculty advisory council, whichis headed by Ford Professor and formerMIT Faculty Chair Bish Sanyal. The pro-gramming for iHouse was developed bythe Housemasters of New House, SandraHarris and Professor Wesley Harris,Donna Denoncourt (Associate Dean ofResidential Life), and the iHouse ProgramCoordinator, Zahir Dossa (a PhDCandidate in the Department of UrbanStudies and Planning). iHouse promotesthe academic offerings of MIT in interna-tional development. Residents are

required to participate in at least twointernational development courses, withMISTI and D-Lab being the mostpopular. [See page 11 for an in depth lookat MISTI.] Beyond the courses in interna-tional development that MIT offers, thereis a strong emphasis on project-basedlearning. This is furthered through theiHouse Freshman Advising Seminar, inwhich all entering iHouse freshmenenroll, and international service leader-ship projects, which all iHouse residentsare required to conduct.

The Freshman Advising Seminar, facil-itated by Professors Wes Harris and LeonTrilling and designed by Professor DianeDavis, Laura Sampath (Manager of theInternational Development Initiative),and myself, introduces freshmen to amethodology for approaching communi-ties to identify, understand, and solveproblems in an international develop-ment context. This year, by workingextensively with a local Cape Verdeancommunity, students will learn to use avariety of social science and engineeringtools, methods, and techniques to clarifyinternational development problems withan applied problem-solving approach. Byteaching a more effective and impactfulmethod of approaching communities,understanding problems, and structuringsolutions, this course prepares studentsfor their international service leadershipproject. The Public Service Center worksclosely with iHouse residents in develop-ing and planning their international proj-ects, which are funded by the 484 PhiAlpha Foundation. Students are currentlyleading community service projects incountries such as China, Ghana, Israel,

India, Paraguay, the Philippines, andSouth Africa.

Leadership skills development and amentorship network are two other essen-tial aspects of iHouse. With funding fromthe Alumni Fund Grant, iHouse will belaunching a leadership developmentmodule in spring 2010, that teaches stu-dents how to manage international proj-ects – something students havecomplained they are unprepared for. Weare collaborating with the SloanLeadership Center, Global Education andCareer Development Office, and AlumniAssociation to launch this initiative. TheAlumni Association is also being utilizedto develop a strong mentorship networkbetween alums who are internationaldevelopment practitioners and iHouseresidents. A peer-to-peer mentoring alsooccurs between MIT undergraduates,SPURS/Humphrey Fellows, and SloanFellows through the iHouse SpeakerSeries. This Speaker Series features MITstudents involved in international devel-opment and creates a stage for students toshare ideas and discuss challenges.

Through this multi-faceted approachto develop global leaders in internationaldevelopment, iHouse brings together adiverse group of students, from variouscountries, majors, and backgrounds tocreate a living-learning community. Thisliving-learning community fosters collab-oration between iHouse residents andcoordination with various departmentsand partners at MIT to further opportu-nities in international development.

Zahir Dossa is a graduate student in theDepartment of Urban Studies and Planning([email protected]).


14

Cecilia d’OliveiraSteven Lerman

OpenCourseWare: Working ThroughFinancial Challenges

MIT OPENCOURSEWARE (OCW) IS

widely acknowledged both around theworld and here on campus as a tremen-dously successful act of intellectual phi-lanthropy by the MIT community.Evaluation research shows that about 60million people have used OCW for abroad spectrum of teaching and learningpurposes, and more than 90% of themfind the materials well suited to theirneeds.

OCW has also proven to be an enor-mously valuable resource for the MITcommunity. Over half of incoming fresh-men are aware of OCW prior to choosingMIT, and a third of those cite OCW as asignificant influence in their choice ofschool. Ninety-four percent of students atMIT access the site, and half of alumnisurveyed use the site for one or more edu-cational purposes.

Eighty-four percent of MIT facultysurveyed access the site in developingtheir courses. One-third of faculty whocontribute to OCW report the processimproves their course materials; a similarnumber developed greater comfort withteaching on the Web; and one-third alsoreport that publication of their course’smaterials on OCW has improved theirprofessional standing in their field [OCWfaculty and student surveys, 2005-2008].

The initial publication of virtually theentire MIT curriculum, completed inNovember 2007 with the publication ofOCW’s 1,800th course, set a standard forsharing of open educational resources andinspired a global movement. More than250 universities have committed to openlypublishing course content in the OCWmodel and there are now more than 100

live sites and materials from over 9,000courses available. MIT is clearly recog-

nized as the global leader in what hascome to be called the Open EducationalResources movement.

The Cost Side of the EquationLess well known is the effort and associ-ated expense (nearly $4 million per year)required to maintain the relevance andvibrancy of OCW – with new courses,updates to existing courses, and otherimprovements to the Website – and to dis-tribute the content worldwide.

The level of effort required to maintainand improve the OCW publication is notreadily apparent. At first glance, OCW mayappear incidental, a simple posting ofmaterials already prepared for MIT stu-dents on an open platform. However, thefact is that the materials used internally atMIT exist in a wide variety of formats andinclude significant amounts of content thatfor copyright or privacy reasons cannot beincluded in the external publication.

To collect and reformat the materials,clear restricted content, and ensure aquality publication without significantimpact on faculty time requires a dedi-cated OCW publication staff. Three OCWpublication managers and five department

liaisons currently provide primary supportfor participating faculty across MIT, a staff

size that has kept the time commitment ofpublishing a course below five hours formost faculty [OCW 2007 faculty survey].This team allows MIT to publish OCWcourse materials at both high volume andhigh quality, maintaining a landmarkopen educational resource.

To date, this effort has been funded bya combination of grant funding (41% ofFY 2009 expenditures and 72% of totalOCW expenditures since inception),Institute funds (49% in FY2009 and 22%of total to date), and donations and otherrevenue (10% in FY2009 and 6% of totalto date).

In the next two years the grant fundingthat has supported OCW since its earlieststages will run out, and foundations gen-erally do not provide new funding tosupport ongoing operations. Meanwhile,Institute funding has become tighter withthe financial downturn, and like all unitsat MIT, OCW is under pressure to furtherreduce its reliance on the General InstituteBudget. In the current economic climate,it is increasingly difficult to attract corpo-rate support. Accordingly, OCW mustdevelop new ways of financially sustainingthe program.

More than 250 universities have committed to openlypublishing course content in the OCW model and thereare now more than 100 live sites and materials fromover 9,000 courses available. MIT is clearly recognizedas the global leader in what has come to be called theOpen Educational Resources movement.


15

A Multi-Pronged Approach toFinancial SustainabilityOCW has been hard at work to ensurelong-term financial sustainability. Keycomponents of the effort include reduc-ing our costs, increasing donations, andimplementing approaches to enhancingthe revenue we generate to supportOCW.

On the cost cutting front, OCWreduced its base operating budget by$500,000, or 12% from the original FY2009 of $4.1 million. In the wake of theeconomic downturn, OCW reducedspending by cutting certain staff posi-tions, reducing technology expenses, andshaving costs in many other areas. Key ele-ments of technology savings includedtaking advantage of free video hosting onYouTube for the expanding collection ofhighly popular video materials, movingvideo production in-house, and renegoti-ating contracts with some of our technol-ogy service providers.

OCW already has a modest butgrowing online visitor donation program,which generated just under $150,000 lastfiscal year, an increase of more than 50%over the prior year. Additional improve-ments and experiments with newapproaches for online fundraising anddonor stewardship are in the works.

In FY 2010, OCW will be pilotingother fundraising approaches, including a“Course Champions” campaign targetedat individual donors of $5,000 per yearand a corporate underwriting program inthe style of National Public Radio. Moretraditional fundraising is also part of thesustainability plan. The ResourceDevelopment Office has recentlyappointed a leadership gifts officer whowill be providing part-time support toOCW for major gift solicitation.

OCW already derives modest income– about $30,000 per year – from referrallinks to Amazon.com. Over the last sixmonths, an ad hoc Working Group offaculty and senior administrators hasbeen exploring much more significantopportunities for generating new rev-enues. Proposals for generating revenuebased on OCW are also reflected in the

Institute-wide Planning Task ForceReport (ideabank.mit.edu). These ideasinclude various types of certificate,credit, or degree-granting distance edu-cation programs that rely on the OCW

materials. At this writing, a pro bonoteam from management consultantsBain & Company is helping us assess theWorking Group’s ideas in terms of theirpotential for financial return, alignmentwith OCW’s core principles as well asthe perceptions of OCW’s stakeholdersand users, and the cost of implementingthose ideas. We expect that a similar con-sideration of the ideas from theInstitute-wide Planning Task Force willoccur.

Staying Ahead of the (Learning) CurveSustaining the value of OCW and MIT’sleadership position in open educationrequires more than just “keeping the lightson.” As new technologies develop and userexpectations shift and grow, a digitalresource like OCW will become increas-ingly less valuable if it does not innovateand grow along with these expectations.This requires updating materials on thesite and adding new features that provideeven greater global benefit. To ensure ben-efits here at MIT, OCW must also remainrelatively up to date with the curriculumused in the classroom.

From 2003 to 2007, at the rate ofaround 400 courses a year, OCW pub-lished a “snapshot” of nearly everyInstitute course as it was taught in a par-ticular semester by a particular facultymember. Since completing the initial pub-lication, OCW has scaled back its effortand staffing and now publishes 130

updated versions of previously publishedcourses and 70 new courses each year.Altogether, OCW has updated 600 previ-ously published courses to date. In addi-tion, OCW has added innovative new

features such as the Highlights for HighSchool section, which seeks to inspire thestudy of science, technology, engineering,and mathematics subjects at the second-ary level. OCW is also actively exploringthe use of social media (such asFacebook), mobile platforms (such as theiPhone), and partnerships with for-profitand non-profit groups that will extend thereach and impact of OCW.

No single sustainability approach willfully meet OCW’s future funding needs,but the goal is that by FY 2012, a combi-nation of cost containment, fundraisingefforts, and new revenue streams willprovide the support needed to sustainOCW as a premier open educationalresource for MIT and the world far intothe future. Part of making OCW success-ful in the future will be balancing the needto fund the core program as it currentlyexists with the opportunities to furtherexpand and enhance the value of thematerials we openly provide.

OCW will be holding a series of facultyforums later this academic year to discussthe present and future of OCW. We inviteideas from the community about the bestway to sustain, and ideally enhance,OpenCourseWare.

No single sustainability approach will fully meet OCW’sfuture funding needs, but the goal is that by FY 2012, acombination of cost containment, fundraising efforts, andnew revenue streams will provide the support needed tosustain OCW as a premier open educational resourcefor MIT and the world far into the future.

Cecilia d’Oliveira is Executive Director,OpenCourseWare ([email protected]);Steven Lerman is Vice Chancellor, Dean forGraduate Education, and Chair, OCW FacultyAdvisory Committee ([email protected]).


16

Jeffrey S. RavelNew CUP Subcommittee to ImplementHASS Distribution Reform

AT ITS MEET I NG ON May 20, theInstitute faculty voted to simplify theHumanities, Arts, and Social Sciences(HASS) Requirement, one of the GeneralInstitute Requirements (GIRs) for all MITundergraduates. The faculty motion man-dates a change in the distribution compo-nent of the Requirement from the currentfive-category distribution to one that con-sists of one subject each from three cate-gories – humanities, arts, and socialsciences. The faculty vote specifies that thechange to the Distribution Requirementmust be implemented no later than fall2011, and preferably by fall 2010.

Important aspects of the HASSRequirement remain the same: studentsmust complete eight HASS subjects, threeto four of which must form a concentra-tion in a HASS discipline. The HASSRequirement will continue to overlapwith another GIR, the CommunicationRequirement, because all MIT under-graduates must complete two CI-H sub-jects that also count towards theeight-subject HASS requirement prior tograduation.

In the same vote, the faculty approvedthe creation of a new subcommittee of theCommittee on the UndergraduateProgram (CUP) to oversee the HASSRequirement. The subcommittee willfocus this year on the reform of the HASSDistribution Requirement. It will alsomonitor the ongoing efforts to create aprogram focused on first-year undergrad-uates, known as the First Year FocusProgram. The May 20 faculty motion callsfor the CUP to recommend to the facultyno later than AY 2014-2015 whether allstudents should be required to take oneFirst Year Focus subject in partial fulfill-ment of the HASS Requirement.

The newly formed CUP subcommit-tee will work closely with groups acrossMIT to consider the implications of thenew HASS Distribution Requirement.The fall 2010 implementation goalimposes a strict timeline on these efforts.To facilitate its work, the subcommitteehas asked all departments and sectionsthat teach subjects with HASS-D andHASS-E designations to provide a pre-liminary classification of these subjects

into the three new distribution categories.The departments have also been asked tosubmit a rationale for their classificationschemes. The subcommittee will deter-mine the official distribution designationof each HASS subject after carefullyreviewing department and section input.

In addition to classification, the sub-committee will also recommend whichstudents should be subject to the newHASS distribution categories beginningin fall 2010. The subcommittee is consid-ering whether to make the new HASSDistribution Requirement retroactive forundergraduates who entered MIT prior tofall 2010. If students who entered theInstitute prior to fall 2010 are not subjectto the new rules, the Institute will need tokeep a robust roster of current HASS-Dsubjects on offer for several more years.

More information on the subcommit-tee’s work will be available by the end ofthe fall semester. All comments and ques-tions can be directed to me as the sub-committee chair.

Jeffrey S. Ravel is an Associate Professor ofHistory ([email protected]).

New Course Catalog for 2009-2010

TO HELP REDUCE PAPER consump-tion at MIT, beginning this year theReference Publications Office is changingthe way it produces the MIT CourseCatalog. The main change – removingMIT subject descriptions from the printcatalog – will reduce its bulk by one-halfand save some two million pages, or fourtons of paper, each year.

A majority of catalog users should belittle affected by this change. Indeed,survey results indicate that two-thirds ofthe MIT community currently prefer toobtain MIT subject information online.For these users, updated subject informa-

tion will continue to be available via theSubject Listing and Schedule maintainedby the Registrar’s Office: student.mit.edu/catalog/index.cgi.

There are others, however – especiallyamong the faculty and staff who adviseundergraduates and facilitate student reg-istration and enrollment – who havedepended on the convenience of a paper-bound volume. To meet their needs, asmall print run of MIT SubjectDescriptions, containing the subjectinformation current as of July 1, 2009, isavailable for limited campus distribution.Faculty and staff who want a copy should

first check with their departmental aca-demic office. Copies are also available atthe Reference Publications Office, andanyone on campus can pick one up atE28-100, from 9 am to 2 pm, while sup-plies last.

In addition, the PDF files used toproduce this volume are available fordownload on the catalog Website(web.mit.edu/catalog/subjects.html).They are also available on the catalog CD.

General information on how to obtainthe MIT Course Catalog is available atweb.mit.edu/referencepubs/catalog/getacopy.html.


17

MIT Fourth in Latest U.S. News Poll

MIT REMAINED FOURTH (tied withCalTech, Stanford, and the University ofPennsylvania) in the latest U.S. News &World Report undergraduate national uni-versities rankings, announced in the mag-azine’s “America’s Best Colleges” issuepublished in late August. The Institutealso maintained its place as the numberone undergraduate engineering school inthe country.

MIT remained second (tied with theUniversity of California at Berkeley) to theUniversity of Pennsylvania in the under-graduate business school category, whileHarvard, Princeton, and Yale were rankedfirst to third, respectively, in the nationaluniversities rankings, the same as in the2009 rankings.

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

• Peer assessment (25%)• Faculty resources (20%)• Graduation and retention rate (20%)• Student selectivity (15%)• Financial resources (10%)• Alumni giving (5%)• Graduation rate performance (5%)

U.S. News also rated individual engi-neering and business departments. [Notethat not all programs are rated each year.]Several of the Institute’s programs in theseareas were ranked in the top five. They are:

Engineering• Aerospace/Aeronautical/Astronomical (1st)• Biomedical/Biomedical Engineering (5th)• Chemical Engineering (1st)• Civil Engineering (5th) [tied withPurdue]• Computer Engineering (1st)

• Electrical/Electronic/Communications (1st)• Materials (1st)• Mechanical Engineering (1st)

Business• Entrepreneurship (5th) [tied withIndiana University]• Finance (5th)• Management Information Systems (1st)• Productions/OperationsManagement (1st)• Quantitative Analysis (1st)• Supply Chain (1st)

Data was taken from the 2010 editionof the U.S. News & World Report’s“America’s Best Colleges.”

See “MIT Numbers” (back page) forthe top 10 rated schools.

Balancing the Equities

letters

To The Faculty Newsletter:

THE RECENT LETTER ON the stateof the Institute from President SusanHockfield has gotten me thinking aboutfairness in the sacrifice of various stake-holders as we adjust to new budget reali-ties. Executive compensation is the topicof concern and conversation today and itis timely to take a look inside MIT.

In her letter President Hockfieldmentions that about 100 employees (allnon faculty) have been laid off acrossthe Institute. For these individuals thisis a big hit to their economic status andwellbeing.

Now for a thought exercise: Why werethese employees let go? Answer: the MITendowment has declined significantly.And who was responsible for this hap-

pening? Certainly the state of theeconomy is a main culprit, but also themanagers of the endowment bear someresponsibility.

This prompts a series of questions:

• Were our fund mangers exercising anyindependent judgment or just followingthe lead of other fund managers whowere riding the bubble as it grew biggerand bigger?

• Given the fact that many of the holdingsin the MIT portfolio are not liquid andhard to “mark to market,” is it possiblethat the pricing of these assets wasinevitably inflated? Prudence wouldsuggest that such assets should beassessed in a very cautious way when

computing the value of the endowmentand when rewarding its managers.

• In view of the large bonuses that werepaid to MIT’s fund managers (forexample, in one recent year income tothe lead fund manager topped $1.5million) can we now say in hindsightthat there may have been over payment?

The most important question goingforward is whether the compensation poli-cies for the stewards of our assets are struc-tured in a way that rewards them for truelong-term appreciation and not what in theshort term are only capital gains on paper.

Robert B. McKersieProf Emeritus Sloan School of Management


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William F. SchreiberA Realistic Way to Deal with Global Warming

GLOBAL WARMING, CAUSED BY A

ring of greenhouse gases (mainly carbondioxide) surrounding the earth, is, accord-ing to experts working on this problem, athreat to the future ability of our planet tosupport human life. As such, it is the mainproblem facing mankind, even exceedingthe economic and political issues that fillthe news on TV, in the newspapers, andon the Internet every day. Thus the ques-tion is how to reduce, or at least not toincrease, the quantity of such gases,hoping that the current gases will slowlydissipate into outer space.

Human societies require a growingamount of energy every day. This energycannot continue to be obtained by the useof fossil fuels such as petroleum and coal,as their use produces the greenhouse gases.Actually, all the energy available to us isderived from sunlight; both from the sunshining every day as well as the stored fossilfuels produced by sunlight that reachedEarth eons ago. That sunlight supportedthe growth of vegetation that eventuallydied and decayed, sinking undergroundand becoming oil, coal, and “natural” gas.

It is, however, possible to producepower from sunlight without generatinggreenhouse gases. One way to do this is byusing the sunlight to heat water suffi-ciently to make steam, using the steam topump water up behind a convenientlylocated dam (man-made dams with waterstorage facilities can be constructed virtu-

ally anywhere) and then letting the waterdown to drive a hydroelectric generatormaking electricity. With electricity, onecan carry out almost any human functionby the use of battery-powered cars, trucks,electrically driven trains, and buses.

There are a number of really “clean”power-generating methods, such as windand wave power and some schemes forextracting power from deep below theEarth’s surface. Nuclear power is oftenmentioned as well, but reactors havenoxious residues and it takes power toproduce nuclear fuel.

My first publication on this subjectappeared in the MIT Faculty Newsletter in2007 [“Is it Time for a New ManhattanProject?” Vol. XX No. 1, September/October 2007]. In that paper, I emphasizedthat what was needed was a complete solu-tion to every part of the problem:

1. The foreign policy problem due to theability of major petroleum producersto withhold supplies;

2. Global warming made visible bymelting ice and rising sea levels, andthe arguments of those pushing pooralternative solutions (such as ethanol, aloser from day one). It takes moreenergy to produce ethanol than it pro-vides and greenhouse gases are stillproduced when ethanol is used.

Many other alternative solutions havebeen proposed, but none that is bothaffordable and complete. In particular,unless we can find a fuel that can be usedwith the same technology as petroleumis used today (but without noxious

residues – clearly impossible) we shallhave to rebuild our entire energy struc-ture. While this surely will be veryexpensive, it is useful to take a long-termview of the problem and concentrate onthe eventual operating cost.

3. Sunlight is free. If all our power wasderived from sunlight, then we couldliterally see the light at the end of thetunnel.

The general idea is to collect sun poweron giant steerable mirrors in geostation-ary orbit. The mirrors are inexpensivelyconstructed as thin plastic balloons, oneof the concave surfaces of which is alu-minum-coated, the internal pressureadjusting the focal length. A mirror abouta mile in diameter would collect about thesame amount of power as a typical powerplant on earth; and the technology toredirect the light to a fixed position onearth is already used in communicationsatellites.

Actually, all the energy available to us is derived fromsunlight; both from the sun shining every day as well asthe stored fossil fuels produced by sunlight that reachedEarth eons ago.

William F. Schreiber is Professor ofMechanical Engineering, Emeritus([email protected]).

Editor’s Note: At press time we learned ofthe sudden death of Prof. Schreiber onSeptember 21. This article was his last professional contribution. For a remembrancesee: wwwwww..ppiiwwoorrlldd..ccoomm//aarrttiiccllee//eeccrrmm--ffoouunnddeerr--ddrr--wwiilllliiaamm--ff--sscchhrreeiibbeerr--ppaasssseess--aawwaayy--ppii--nneewwss//11..


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Susan LeiteWhat Goes Around Comes Around:H1N1 and Extended Outage Planning ViewedThrough the Lens of the Blizzard of ’78

A Week of Snow Days“JUST AS IT WAS ABOUT TO BEG IN,the spring term was abruptly abortedTuesday by the area’s worst blizzard inalmost a century….Thus students missedthe first week of classes whether they liked itor not.” Thus began an article in theFebruary 10, 1978 edition of The Tech[Vol. 98, No. 2, p.1], one of a series thatchronicled the challenges of continuity ofoperations across the Institute and anunwavering spirit of volunteerism duringtimes of need, undaunted by the Blizzardof ’78. A second article in that same issuespotlighted the volunteer efforts of 60Baker House residents who aided theNational Guard in reaching snowboundresidents of various Cambridge neighbor-hoods [Vol. 98, No. 2, p. 5].

To read these and the succeeding arti-cles – over 30 years after their initial pub-lication – is to see the printed words as areflecting pool of the challenges currentlyfacing the Institute in light of heightenedconcerns over the predicted H1N1 fluresurgence in the coming months, thegeneral financial pressures reaching allcorners of the Institute, and the movingtarget of when the next catastrophicnatural disaster will strike.

Yet, among these angst-ridden ripples,appear glints of the ingenuity and good-will that emerge when the MITCommunity uses its considerable humanassets to fulfill a need, whether it is conti-nuity of our own operations or providingassistance to the greater community. Inthe event of a major emergency the ques-tion is not whether MIT will find a way toprevail, for this Institute was founded onthe concept of using Mind and Hand to

prevail over the challenges impedingmankind’s betterment. This drivingpassion also explains why the Institutenever truly sleeps, never completely closes,and why any Institute emergency pre-

paredness campaign must empowerdepartments not only to care for them-selves, but potentially to care for others ifneed arises.

The Institute as Biological OrganismOur Institute is an ecosystem of research,educational, and residential life functionsfacilitated by a web of infrastructure,information, and administrative services.As much as MIT may feel like a small cityunto itself, the Institute’s ties to themacrocosm of global research collabora-tions, external funding entities, recruiters,and the local Cambridge and Boston gov-ernments serves as a reminder that theeffects of suspending campus activities donot remain neatly enclosed within ourcampus borders. Consider how theseexternal responses to a public healthemergency or natural disaster might affectyour group(s):

• The Massachusetts and/or CambridgeDepartment of Public Health may

command the use of MIT and Harvardfacilities to set up an EmergencyDispensing Site (EDS) or InfluenzaSpecialty Care Unit (ISCU) if area hospi-tals and clinics reach carrying capacity;

• Faculty, staff, or students may be calledupon – or may volunteer – to lend theirexpertise;

• MIT Community members returningfrom abroad may encounter difficultiesresuming on-campus activities if federalor state authorities institute travel bans;

• Day care, school, and communityprogram closures may force staff andstudents to adopt alternative measures tocare for family members; or

• One or more buildings might experi-ence a catastrophic failure as a second-ary result of a natural disaster, ordelivery of essential services may bejeopardized by an ongoing public healthemergency that critically strains campusstaffing levels. One’s ability to circulateabout campus does not guarantee thatall of the customary services will beavailable as usual.

As much as MIT may feel like a small city unto itself, theInstitute’s ties to the macrocosm of global researchcollaborations, external funding entities, recruiters, andthe local Cambridge and Boston governments serves asa reminder that the effects of suspending campusactivities do not remain neatly enclosed within ourcampus borders.



20

Even if the Institute is not broadlyimpacted, a local event such as a burst pipe ina Core Facility has the potential to jeopardizenot only the work of Institute researchers,but any of hundreds of external collabora-tors who send materials to these CoreFacilities or otherwise use their services.

A critical thinker might question thelikelihood or duration of any of thesecommunity-wide impacts. In January1978, then-Governor Michael Dukakisdeclared a state of emergency and travelban that spanned several days from theinitial storm on January 20. From thischallenge rose positive accounts of thededicated Facilities workers who, alongwith student volunteers, maintaineddelivery of essential services and snowremoval, and how Dining Services andstudents enabled the MacGregor HouseDining Hall to operate without disrup-tion. From this challenge too rose physicallosses as the J.B. Carr Indoor TennisFacility, or the “Tennis Bubble,” experi-enced a catastrophic roof collapse at a costexceeding $60,000 – in 1978 dollars – anda building outage that lasted severalmonths [The Tech, Vol. 97, No. 63, p. 1].

A critical thinker may also question theanecdotes presented here from The Tech,MIT’s student-run newspaper. While itmay not represent all of the myriadstudent views across MIT, as a publicationin press since 1881, The Tech has beenchronicler, from a student account, of theevents that have shaped the Institute’shistory. On a day-to-day basis, how manyof us stop to consider that students com-prise at least 50% of the campus popula-tion? To view the Institute as a biologicalorganism is to see the students as itslifeblood. They are the current and futuregraduate students, faculty members,employees, donors, entrepreneurs, collab-orators, and joint patent-holders withMIT. The faculty at MIT attracts the stu-dents, the potential for boundless learningand innovation keeps students here, andthe students’ desire to give back to theInstitute results in a remarkable web of

Death of UCLA Researcher Heightens Lab Safety Awareness

Lou DiBerardinis

THE TRAG IC ACCI DENTAL DEATH LAST W I NTER of UCLA researcherSheharbano (Sheri) Sangji after an accident in her laboratory, has promptedfaculty and administration at universities across the United States to review andre-emphasize the responsibilities of faculty for researchers and students whowork in their labs. On December 23, 2008, Sangji was performing a fairlycommon procedure with a pyrophoric material when some accidentally spilledon to her polyester sweater and ignited. Over 40% of her body was burned andshe died 19 days later. A subsequent investigation by California OSHA lead tocitations and fines for inadequate training, improper use of protective clothing,failure to correct safety violations noted on the October 2008 inspection per-formed by UCLA’s EHS (Environmental Health and Safety) Office, and non-exis-tent records of training on the specific procedure being performed. Currentlycriminal and civil charges are being considered against the PI for wrongful death.

Labs are extremely diverse spaces that may contain many different types ofpotentially hazardous materials or equipment. At MIT all personnel who work withpotentially hazardous materials or equipment are required to take the appropriatesafety training provided by the EHS Office in either Web form or live. LabSpecific Training, which covers unique issues for each lab, is provided by somecombination of the PI, his/her lab EHS Representative, or the department, lab orcenter’s EHS Coordinator. This is required to be given by each lab as newpeople arrive or whenever a new procedure, hazardous material or equipment isintroduced.

The Institute’s Committee on Toxic Chemicals, chaired by Professor RickDanheiser, has and will continue to review MIT’s policies with respect to chemi-cal use and recommend changes. Policies on the selection and use of lab coatsand protective eye wear have recently been revised and are now being imple-mented.

Faculty should do the following:

• Review the safe use of hazardous materials and/or equipment with your lab group.• Make sure everyone in your group (including you) has completed all therequired EHS training. You, your department, lab, or center’s EHSCoordinator or your lab EHS Representative can access the Institute’s data-base to determine status of training.• Enforce the use of protective clothing and eye protection when required inyour lab.

The following information may be helpful to you:

EHS Office Website: wweebb..mmiitt..eedduu//eennvviirroonnmmeenntt//PI Assessment Report: wweebb..mmiitt..eedduu//eennvviirroonnmmeenntt//ttrraaiinniinngg//rreeppoorrttss..hhttmmllList of DLC Coordinators: wweebb..mmiitt..eedduu//eennvviirroonnmmeenntt//ttrraaiinniinngg//ddllcc__ccoooorrddiinnaattoorrss..hhttmmllEHS Training Site: wweebb..mmiitt..eedduu//eennvviirroonnmmeenntt//ttrraaiinniinngg//iinnddeexx..hhttmmllWhat PIs Need to Do: wweebb..mmiitt..eedduu//eennvviirroonnmmeenntt//eehhss//ttooppiicc//nneeww__ppii..hhttmmllCTC members: wweebb..mmiitt..eedduu//ccoommmmiitttteeeess//pprreessiiddeenntt//RRoosstteerrss//ttooxxiicccchheemmiiccaallss..ppddff

What Goes Around Comes AroundLeite, from preceding page


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intellectual recycling and reinvention.They may not be conscious of it, but ourstudents are an integral and permanentpart of the MIT ecosystem. Our policiesand plans – including those for continuityof operations – affect them as much as usin concrete and abstract terms.

The Janus IronyRoman mythology depicts Janus, the rulerof time and transitions, as having twoheads facing in opposite directions. Janusgoverned physical and temporal passages,and is the namesake of January, that tran-sition from the old year to the new. Howironic that MIT’s own transition betweensemesters – January IAP – was marked bythe worst snowstorm in nearly a century,and delayed the start of the spring ’78semester. When, in this issue [p. 4],Professor Thomas Kochan writes of thecooperation necessary to address class sus-pension and make-up policies in light of amajor Institute emergency, his statementevokes the February 14, 1978 front-pageheadline of The Tech: “Faculty May Cancel4-day Breaks” [Vol. 98, No. 3, p. 1]. Thatarticle reported on the four spring termdays lost to the Blizzard. Then-Chancellor

Paul Gray ’54 was to meet with Chair ofthe MIT Faculty Robert Hulsizer, Dean forStudent Affairs Carola Eisenberg andProvost Walter Eisenblith on February 15,1978 to discuss a menu of options thatincluded using the Washington’s Birthdayand Patriot’s Day holidays; Saturdays;Spring Break; or extending the term. Howuncanny that the same continuity of oper-ations questions that arise now in thecontext of H1N1 resurgence surfacedthen. The students wrote about it.

Over 30 years later, the specter ofrecovering lost teaching and researchtime remains a critical concern. Moderntechnology may aid MIT’s plan toprevail, but technology does not obviatethe need for the human factor of clearand responsive policy-making. How willthe policies developed in the comingmonths affect the Institute in threedecades? The emergency preparednessand resilience planning measures takenat the department level may feel local ortemporary, but they have ripple effectsspanning geography and time, for whichwords and numbers fail.

Recent Faculty Newsletter articles fea-tured two MIT building outages as focal

points for continuity of operations ques-tions for academic, research and adminis-trative departments to consider. Whensizing up the true impact on MIT of theBlizzard of ’78, the February 14, 1978article concluded: “Gray commented thatthe time lost to research efforts consider-ably outweighs the out-of-pocketexpenses associated with physical plant.”Take a look around your office, labora-tory, or work area. If you were to lose yourmaterials today, what is the one thing thatyou would find most irreplaceable andthat places your research and/or educa-tion program most at risk? The pastinforms us that such a scenario exists. Aswe enter the gates of a new academic yearand prepare to meet its challenges,perhaps a fitting resolution might be toreflect on what is most precious to ourcontributions to MIT as individuals andgroups, seek ways to build resilience inthose efforts, and prevail in a way that issustainable for the MIT organism and itsinterconnected parts.

Susan Leite is an Officer in the Office ofEnvironment, Health, and Safety ([email protected]);Lou DiBerardinis is Director of the Office ofEnvironment, Health, and Safety ([email protected]).

to write effective peer-review comments ontopics such as “The Recovery of By-Products of the Blast Furnace.” Between thetwo World Wars, writing instructionbecame focused in the Humanities. In theearly 1950s, however, Prof. Robert R.Rathbone began collaborating withEngineering faculty, including Prof. Jay W.Forrester, director of the newly createdDigital Computer Laboratory, and facultyin Mechanical Engineering, to offer bothlectures on technical communication andfeedback on student technical reports.These informal arrangements soon evolvedinto the Undergraduate Technical WritingCooperative (the Writing Coop), which,for the next 40 years, integrated writingand speaking into science and engineering

classes. After Rathbone’s retirement, Prof.James G. Paradis, currently Head of theProgram in Writing and HumanisticStudies, led the Coop, followed by Prof.Rosalind H. Williams, who later becameDean for Undergraduate Education, andfinally by Dr. Edward C. Barrett.

In the 1990s, the Institute came torealize that its graduates needed moreinstruction and practice in writing andspeaking if they were going to be successfulas scientists, engineers, and entrepreneursin the twenty-first century. Following pilotprojects developed by the CommunicationInitiative and a grant from the NationalScience Foundation, the MIT facultyestablished the Communication Require-ment to meet this need. The WritingAcross the Curriculum (WAC) Group inthe Program in Writing and HumanisticStudies assists faculty in incorporating

instruction and practice in writing, speak-ing, and visual communication through-out the undergraduate curriculum.(Although our title is “Writing Across theCurriculum” the WAC group teachesvarious forms of communication, includ-ing oral and digital communication. Toavoid confusion, I am going to refer to theinstructors not as WAC Lecturers but asCommunication-Intensive (CI) Lecturers.Lecturers in CI-H classes, however, arecalled Writing Advisors.)

The way writing and speaking are taughtdiffer considerably among successfulclasses. The examples here are representa-tive of some basic principles and strategiesthat are shared by many of the successfulcollaborations at MIT, and evolved out ofthe 50-year-old Writing Coop:

Communicating Across the CurriculumPerelman, from page 1


• The communication activities, whetherwriting or speaking, are integral to thepurpose of the class rather than beingjust add-on exercises. Except for somecreative writing and other creativemedia, communication in the world isalways doing something. The most effec-tive way to teach writing and speaking isby teaching these skills as components inactivities that students value.

• Writing and speaking activities in them-selves are modes of learning.We all haveexperienced that we understand some-thing better when we have to explain itor communicate it to someone else.Developing a well-organized, effectivewritten or oral argument in any field, beit literary analysis or nuclear engineer-ing, provides the student with a deeper,or at least different, understanding of thesubject matter.

• Writing or speaking activities or bothare sequential and should occur in morethan one place in the term. Effectivewriting and speaking are skills that aredeveloped through multiple experiences,each one building upon earlier ones.

• The feedback given by the technicaland writing staff complement eachother and will help students improveand succeed in the class. Confusing ordisorganized writing is often con-nected to confusing or disorganizedthinking. Improving one often leads toquick improvement of the other.There are many cases in which garbledsyntax unravels into clear, effectivesentences once a student understandscompletely what he or she is trying tocommunicate.

• Effective communication is judged bythe specific context, course goals, andconventions of the discipline. TheWriting Coop taught us long ago thatone size or approach does not fit all. CIlecturers evaluate writing and speaking,

from sentence level issues to slide design,as communication within a specificcommunity that has its own norms foreffective discourse.

• CI lecturers and the disciplinary facultycollaborate closely. The collaborativeroles, however, are quite different. Thefaculty determine the class goals and theoverall metrics for successful writing andspeaking. The CI Lecturers are enablersin the positive sense of the term. Our jobis to help students meet these class goalsand succeed.

Every year, disciplinary faculty and CIlecturers develop innovative ways tointegrate writing and speaking intoclasses in engineering, science, business,the arts, the social sciences, and thehumanities. Sometimes technologyenables the innovation. Over onehundred years ago, Valentine had stu-dents write comments on the margins ofeach other’s technical reports. Now weare able to have instructors and fellowstudents insert voice-overs and writtencomments into videos. But the mostsubstantive innovations usually comefrom the faculty in the discipline. Theyextend their enthusiasm in teachingtheir subjects to making the communi-cation activities in them more authenticin terms of the disciplinary activity orculture. Each year some faculty make thewriting and speaking activities in theirclass more real science, more real engi-neering, more real scholarship.

Following are some examples of thatwork.

21L.004 “Reading Poetry” Professor Mary Fuller and Ms. Nora Jackson

[Note: There are several sections of21L.004 and the specific details of thisdescription apply only to Prof. Fuller’ssection, although all of the sections effec-tively integrate writing and speaking.]

This subject aims to help studentsmake writing an efficient medium fordeveloping and conveying ideas. The classtherefore guides students through the

individual stages of the writing process (reading and analyzing, discussing ideas,drafting, receiving feedback, revising).The students begin this process by choos-ing poems to present in groups and theyattend an oral presentation workshopwith the writing advisor to discuss theanalysis of the poems and practice rhetor-ical skills (voice projection, debate skills,inciting audience participation withthought-provoking questions, and com-municating the pleasure of readingpoetry). The professor and classmatesprovide extensive written feedback on thepresentation.

The presenters are subsequentlyinvited to write an essay on the subject oftheir presentation, and benefit from theirpreliminary work and the feedbackreceived. Students submit drafts to theadvisor before the writing tutorial, whichis devoted to refining argument, testingthe validity of evidence, and fine-tuningstyle. The advisor raises counter-argu-ments and annotates paragraphs tostrengthen the student’s propositionsand prose.

The professor provides commentaryon each essay, and organizes a writing


22

Communicating Across the CurriculumPerelman, from preceding page

Every year, disciplinary faculty and CI lecturers developinnovative ways to integrate writing and speaking intoclasses in engineering, science, business, the arts, thesocial sciences, and the humanities. Sometimes thetechnology enables the innovation.


23

workshop in which she offers a sampleessay that illustrates the various stages ofrevision. The students can then once againdiscuss their revisions with the professoror advisor.

This trajectory mimics an idealsequence for the composition of effectivewriting. While the various stages ofwriting are initially neatly separated, theclass evolves toward giving the studentsthe responsibility for incorporating thesephases into their own writing routine.

2.009 “Product Engineering Processes” Professor David Wallace, Ms. JaneAbbot Connor, and Ms. Jane Kokernak

As its name suggests, this subjectguides MechE seniors through the designand engineering of an innovative product.From idea generation to modeling,research, testing and prototyping, teamsof 15 to 19 students work on originalproducts in a process including lectures,labs, industry mentoring, extensive fabri-cation, and intense collaboration.

Informal communication among teammembers, an elected system integrator,instructors, and course staff is vital to theprocess, as are five formal presentationsgiven during the semester in sync with thedesign cycle. CI lecturers, who attendweekly labs as fully integrated team advi-sors, coach interpersonal communica-tions, guide meetings, and help studentsdraft, revise, visualize, rehearse, video, andreview each presentation.

Two very different events bookend thesemester. For the first, called “ThreeIdeas,” each team divides in half, brain-storms potential products, develops threeideas, and pitches them concisely to theirpeers, mentors, and instructors. Each ideais illustrated by a poster with a simplesketch and key features. The event gener-ates substantial oral and written feedbackfrom CI and course staff, promptingteams to select ideas and focus wisely.

Ten productive weeks later, at theirFinal Presentations, teams introduce theirhigh-quality, functioning alpha proto-types to the 2.009 core audience and 100

to 150 industry guests. Working inti-mately with their CI lecturers and techni-cal staff, teams devise staging, props, evenvideo and team-colored costumes. Thestakes are high: teams invest these presen-tations with as much wit, commitment,and polish as they brought to theirproduct’s design and engineering.

The MechE faculty and CI team havecollaborated on the communicationfocus, going beyond public speaking totrain students in intra-group interactionas well. Over the semester, while presenta-tion skills go from earnest to professional,team communications – in meetings,among individuals, via e-mail – shift fromchaotic towards disciplined, deft, andeffective.

7.18 “Topics in Experimental Biology” Professor Mary-Lou Pardue and Dr. Karen Pepper

This subject teaches scientific communi-cation to students doing biologicalresearch in various laboratories at MIT,usually as UROPs. Students meet as agroup twice weekly with a biology profes-sor and a CI lecturer. Each section of 7.18includes students from diverse researchlaboratories so that students learn to com-municate with scientists in many sub-fields. Before taking 7.18, students spendone semester or a summer working ontheir projects and continue to do theirresearch during the semester of thecourse. Communications exercises,capped by a scientific paper (consisting ofAbstract, Introduction, Materials andMethods, Results, Discussion), buildaround their laboratory projects.

Students first write a mini-review andannotated bibliography, putting theirresearch project into the context of thefield. As the semester continues, theysubmit drafts of sections of a researchpaper. Instruction is given for each sectionbefore the draft is due, and then drafts arecritiqued by both instructors. Studentsrevise for clarity, precision, and style.Students give oral presentations abouttheir research. Receiving comments from

the instructors and fellow students helpsthem to improve as the semester goesalong. Journal articles are critiqued bothin writing and in class discussion, for sci-entific content, illustrations, and effective-ness. Aspects of publishing, writing for anon-scientific audience, and the ethics oflaboratory practice are also discussed.Finally, students serve as editors of eachother’s papers, learning how peer reviewworks in scientific publishing.

8.13 “Experimental Physics”Prof. Joseph Formaggio and Ms. Atissa Banuazizi

8.13, the first semester of Junior Lab, isperhaps the most challenging course inthe MIT Physics suite. At the core ofJunior Lab is a set of experiments thatreplicate the major laboratory break-throughs of the late nineteenth and twen-tieth centuries. Through these, studentsdevelop their ability to pose questionswithin proper theoretical frameworks,and to collect, analyze, and interpret data.

Equally important, however, is learningto communicate these ideas in ways appro-priate to the discipline. For each experi-ment, students produce a four-page paperin the format of – and meeting publicationstandards for – Physical Review Letters.They also prepare twelve-minute oral pre-sentations in the style of an AmericanPhysics Society talk, which they deliver totheir laboratory instructor and TA.

After the first (ungraded) set of orals,each student meets one-on-one with theCI lecturer to analyze a video of his or herpresentation. Together, the student andthe lecturer also dissect the organizationand design of the slides for the talk. Theorals for the remaining four experimentsare likewise videotaped, allowing studentsto track their own progress as they honetheir skills.

The semester culminates with thepublic oral. Students each choose oneexperiment to present for a second time –this time in a celebratory end-of semestersymposium, whose audience comprises


faculty, fellow students, and assortedguests (from Junior Lab alumni toparents!). In preparation, the student andCI Lecturer meet again to examine thatpresentation’s video and slides, with aneye towards revising the talk for a largeraudience.

The ability to share one’s discoverieswith the broader scientific community isa critical skill, but one that often eludeseven the most experienced scholars.Students emerge from this class confi-dent in their ability to participate in pro-fessional discourse settings. Theintensive practice MIT Physics studentsreceive in writing and speaking is trulyexceptional, and often the envy of ourpeer institutions.

8.287J-12.410J “ObservationalTechniques of Optical Astronomy” Professor Jim Elliot and Ms. Jane Abbot Connor

This subject, focused on independentstudent projects, presents the communi-cation skills necessary for successfulastronomical research. Astronomerscompete for resources; peer-judged pro-posals for grants and telescope time havea 20 - 35% success rate. Furthermore,securing a desirable job presupposes theability to present interesting seminars.Thus, effective communication can be asimportant to professional success as aretechnical abilities.

The course’s first assignment is a briefproposal requesting telescope time; itstates a project’s goal, data required, and aplan for data acquisition and analysis. TheCI lecturer gives significant feedback onthe writing; course staff provide contentfeedback on the project’s feasibility. Theproposal is then revised accordingly. Next,an oral presentation of the proposal isdelivered to the class, TAs and faculty; itreceives extensive CI feedback, andrequires students to sharpen and developtheir ideas. These assignments, graded

entirely as communications efforts,provide a baseline for each student’s work. Using the proposal revisions, the CI lec-turer assesses each student’s challenges.

Individual CI consultations covergrammar or ESL issues (with encourage-ment to use the Writing Center); organi-zation and argumentation; coherencewithin and between paragraphs; graphics;conventions of formatting; and clarity ofthe required content. Students learn tothink about their intended audience, andto craft their document to convey theirideas to that audience, accurately and effi-ciently. Questions that guide the consulta-tion include: Will this piece of writingpersuade your readers to entrust you with

the scarce resource of telescope time thatyou seek? Will they understand yourneeds quickly and effortlessly? Is the caretaken in your writing predictive of that inyour research? Does your writing demon-strate that you are competent and pre-pared? Are you – through content,language, and format – presenting your-self as a professional, establishing yourcredibility as a scientist, so that your audi-ence can sense you would use the tele-scope time well?

The final assignment for 12.410,given both astronomy and communica-tion grades, is a 15- to 20-page ProjectReport with a required revision. Thisreport is built in stages beginning withanticipated Figures, Tables, and Outline.Graphics – clear, effective figures andtables – are emphasized. Students revise,based on feedback from technical and CIstaff, and may choose to give a final pres-entation. The final revision is judged on

writing criteria established in the roundsof proposal writing, and on the qualityand depth of scientific and technicalthinking.

16.621 and 16. 622 “ExperimentalProjects I & II” Professor EdwardGreitzer and Ms. Jennifer Craig

In these two classes, or as it is commonlyknown, “.62x,” teams of two studentsselect their own projects from a broadlist of projects proposed by faculty andwork with a faculty or staff advisor. Theyrefine an hypothesis and then design,construct, and carry out an experiment.

The small team size offers opportunityfor close contact among students,faculty, and staff. The aim is to ensurethat students are engaged with anadvisor and a project about which theyare enthusiastic.

Excellence in written and oral commu-nication is an overarching theme. Thecommunication-intensive curriculum isan Institute-wide mandate, and 16.621and 16.622 are two of Course 16’s com-munication-intensive subjects. Workingwith a CI lecturer, student teams reporttheir progress through the two semestersin a sequence of written documents andoral presentations that are less like con-ventional homework and more the kindsof communication in which professionalengineers engage. Thus, students learnabout audience and persuasion, informa-tion organization, informational graphicsand data presentation, and how todescribe complex engineering decisions.


24

Communicating Across the CurriculumPerelman, from preceding page

Working with a communication instructor, studentteams report their progress through the twosemesters in a sequence of written documents andoral presentations that are less like conventionalhomework and more the kinds of communication inwhich professional engineers engage.


25

Written and oral communication areapproached in similar ways. First, with theconsultation of engineering faculty,assignments are designed around authen-tic activities taking place in the course.Students receive instruction just as theyare about to write or to prepare a presen-tation. Written communication requires adraft and usually a conference with the CIlecturer after which the final draft isturned in for a grade. Oral presentationsrequire a rehearsal with the CI lecturerbefore the student team presents to theengineering faculty and their peers.Engineering faculty work with the com-munication instructor to compose therubric with which written and oral com-munication is assessed. Moreover, stu-dents receive not only a grade but alsowritten and oral feedback from their engi-neering faculty as well as from the CI lec-turer. The combination of mentoringfrom their engineering faculty andsupport and instruction from the com-munication instructor usually results in asharp increase in skill level. Students also

receive several opportunities to practiceduring the semester – a key factor in com-munication excellence.

Teams from 16.62x often present atstudent divisions at conferences, and theirsuccess rate is high. Over the past six years,our students at the AIAA and ASEEregional student conferences have wonfirst place undergraduate awards in 2005,2003, 2002, and 2001, as well as second orthird place in 2002 and 2000.

24.06 “Bioethics” Professor Caspar Hare, ProfessorDavid Jones, and Mr. Thomas Delaney

Bioethics (24.06) is a subject that providesstudents with a platform for improvingtheir writing, no matter on what level theircurrent skills may lie. Team taught by a his-torian and a philosopher, the class requiresstudents to make and critique historicaland philosophical arguments. Studentsoften need to shed old writing habits, suchas padding an argument with superfluous

material. Instead, they need to learn how toreconstruct an argument in a succinctfashion by focusing on its essential ele-ments. Their task then is to identify one ormore of those elements as weak or strong,providing evidence to make their case.

The writing advisor works from draftsto help individuals make their words andsyntax map the argument as closely aspossible, applying philosophical conceptssuch as validity, soundness, and persua-siveness. In historical argument, a studentmust use the historical and cultural evo-lution of a bioethical issue to shed lighton present stances. One technique thathelps students is an initial conversationthat focuses on understanding of thematerial and the nature of argument. Thewriting advisor then aids the writer inproducing a conceptual outline, eachpoint of which can be developed into aparagraph that makes an assertion orprovides supporting evidence.

Les Perelman is the Director of Writing Acrossthe Curriculum in the Program in Writing andHumanistic Studies ([email protected]).

Jason PontinTech Talk Ceases Publication: MIT News Office Launches New Website

ON SEPTEMBER 16 , M IT 'S NewsOffice published the final issue of TechTalk. On September 15, a new dailyWebsite was launched, MIT News.

The closing of any publication willsadden some of its readers. But we believewe can better inform our communityusing Web, video, mobile, and social tech-nologies, and that those media will allowus to do entirely new things, as well.

Those who visit MIT News atweb.mit.edu/newsoffice/will see a site thatfulfills the old mission of Tech Talk: tobring together the MIT community withnews of life on campus. But they will alsosee a site that will invite readers outside ofMIT to better understand the Institute.Every day, readers inside and outside MITwill find three news stories about theInstitute's research, innovations, and

teaching, written by the News Office toappeal to the widest audience interested inscience and technology. This approach –in which a university speaks directly to thepublic – will be an innovation unique toMIT.

To the immediate right of the day's topstories will be a video, "Sixty Seconds atMIT," that will bring out the life of theInstitute in small, daily doses. Beneath thetop stories and the daily video will be"Institute Announcements" from theadministration. Beneath these elements is"Around Campus," which focuses on theMIT community directly. "Of Note" willspotlight an event or activity on campusthat deserves promotion. To the immedi-ate right is "Campus News," whereselected faculty, staff, and students cansubmit news that will be edited, then

posted, by the News Office staff. Anotherpart of "Around Campus" will be a dailylink to an MIT Website that we findcurious, elegant, or new. Finally, MITNews will highlight the Institute's sharedcalendar.

We recognize that not everyone withinour community will want a purely elec-tronic publication. To address thatconcern, we will soon begin publishing aweekly e-mail newsletter that users caneasily print.

All new Websites are (or should be)beta software. Their launches are collabo-rations, their development iterative.Please write to me with any suggestions orcomments.

Jason Pontin is MIT Director ofCommunications and Advisor to the President([email protected]).


26

Susann LuperfoyUPOP Positions Students for Professional Success

ACCORD ING TO THE NAT IONAL

Association of Colleges and Employers(NACE), just 19.7 percent of 2009 gradu-ates who applied for a job had procuredone by May [www.naceweb.org/press/display.asp?year=&prid=301]. Even grad-uates of leading schools like MIT faced stiffcompetition for scarce openings. Morethan ever before, experience – in the formof internships – can be the determiningfactor in employment decisions.

MIT’s Undergraduate PracticeOpportunities Program (UPOP) givesstudents hands-on experience to comple-ment their MIT education. Classroominstruction and exposure to research withMIT faculty (UROPs) give students thegrounding in engineering science theyneed to function at the highest echelons inindustry, academia, and the public sector.Students graduate with unsurpassed tech-nical knowledge, analytic skills, and theability to teach themselves. But MIT grad-uates are often oblivious to the unwrittenrules of organizations and get left toexecute engineering decisions made bytheir less technical colleagues. UPOPcreates in students an awareness of the“invisible forces” that exist in the world ofwork; UPOP faculty, staff, and industryprofessionals introduce them to the tools,techniques, and mentoring relationshipsthey need to get started on masteringthose forces.

UPOP is a full-year co-curricularprogram (open to all Institute sopho-mores) with an emphasis on two educa-tional tracks: engineering effectiveness,and career ownership. Hands-on exercisesin engineering specification, project man-agement, teamwork, and communication

expose students to key success factors forapplied work. Coached practice in profes-sional networking (versus “schmoozing”),principled negotiation (versus “winning”),empathy (versus “manipulation”) and rep-utation-building all help students takeactive control of their prospective careerstwo years before they graduate.

UPOP also serves as the sophomoreyear of the Bernard M. Gordon-MITEngineering Leadership Program. [Seearticle by E. Crawley in the MIT FacultyNewsletter, Vol. XXI No. 4.] Students whocomplete the UPOP foundational yearbecome eligible to continue in theEngineering Leadership PracticeOpportunities Program (ELPOP) or theGordon Engineering Leadership (GEL)program in their junior and senior years.Beginning with UPOP, the Gordonprogram provides a progressively chal-lenging sequence of leadership experi-ences that position students for success inthe job market and a career in engineeringleadership.

Summer Internships: A Gateway toEmploymentOn-campus recruiting is the mostcommon method of finding full-timeemployment at graduation. With theadvent of the recession in AY 2007-08,MIT on-campus recruiting dropped by 26percent, making internships an even moreimportant method of finding work forMIT bachelor’s degree recipients[web.mit.edu/career/www/infostats/graduation08.pdf: 1, 4]. According to theNACE study, over 75 percent of employersprefer to hire new college graduates whohave relevant work experience, and nearly

20 percent of employers prefer any type ofwork experience to none at all[www.naceweb.org/press/display.asp?year=&prid=295]. Internship experiencegives students a competitive edge in thejob market and provides employers withearly access to top talent. For manyemployers, summer interns comprise aprimary pool from which to recruit full-time staff. In fact, employers surveyed byNACE reported that more than one-thirdof the new college graduates they hired in2008 came from their internship pro-grams[www.naceweb.org/www.naceweb.org/press/display.asp?year=2009&prid=298].So the more on-campus recruitingdeclines, the more internships serve as thegateway to full-time jobs.

While UPOP is not a placement serviceand does not guarantee internships, thecommitment to the student is “We won’tgive up on you until you give up yourself.”In a typical year, 85 percent of UPOPsophomores find real hands-on work in amarket that seeks only juniors and gradu-ate students. Beyond matching sopho-mores to internships, UPOP instillsstudents with job acquisition and per-formance skills and a career-focusedoutlook that will serve them over thecourse of their careers. They learn how toidentify (or create) opportunities, obtainthe offer, negotiate terms, and performwith excellence on the job.

The UPOP CommunityAfter recruiting and internships, network-ing was the third most common vehicle forMIT undergraduates landing full-timeemployment. UPOP sophomores learntools and techniques for networking, and


27

practice them by making personal connec-tions with engineering leaders who partici-pate in UPOP. This requires a strongcommunity of seasoned professionals,mostly MIT graduates, who mentor, coach,and employ students. During IAP, students(in teams of 7-9) spend one week with anassigned mentor-instructor as part of anintensive engineering effectiveness work-shop. The workshop is taught by MITfaculty and facilitated by the mentor-instructors who come from a variety ofengineering disciplines and devote nine fulldays to the program. Many remain incontact with their students throughout thespring semester – and often long after-wards. Students benefit from the contactwith professionals, and mentor-instructorsenjoy re-connecting with the Institute. “Itwas invigorating to mentor and learn fromthe UPOP students,” said Rick Stadterman’75, Head of Global R&D for BayerHealthcare Diabetes Care. Steve Webster’78, the VP for Research and TechnologyCommercialization at 3M, has volunteeredtwice. “Since so much of my success andopportunities have been because of MIT,[participating in the IAP Workshop]seemed like a great way to give back.”

Success on the Job UPOP’s emphasis on communication andteamwork resonates with employers.Angie Kelic PhD ’05, who served as amentor-instructor in 2008 and 2009, saysthe program “gives students the perspec-tive that problems are not always justtechnical, which is something you don’talways get in school. UPOP shows themthat issues can be about communication.… Students need to understand that andbe exposed to it.” The data support Kelic’sclaim. According to NACE’s Job Outlook2009, communication skills, strong workethic, ability to work in a team, and initia-tive are among the qualities employersvalue most [www.naceweb.org/press/display.asp?year=&prid=295].

According to surveyed employers,UPOP students significantly out-performtheir non-UPOP peers when functioningon multi-disciplinary teams and inmaking oral presentations [Charles

Leiserson, Barbara Masi, Chris Resto, andDick K.P.Yue: “Development of engineer-ing professional abilities in a co-curricularprogram for engineering sophomores.”Proceedings of the 2004 American Societyfor Engineering Education AnnualConference & Exposition.] Additionalprogram evaluation data show a statisti-cally significant advantage for UPOP stu-dents in the following areas:

• Asking for more challenging assignments• Managing and organizing workload• Addressing personal conflicts• Addressing team conflicts• Tailoring presentations to fit audienceinterests• Appreciating the role of ethics in engineering

UPOP Welcomes All StudentsAll MIT sophomores are eligible for theinstruction, coaching and summerpracticum offered by UPOP. UPOP

requirements are compatible with MISTI,departmental internship programs,UROP assignments and most IAP offer-ings. UPOP’s “open door policy” meansthat students are welcome in the officeanytime: no appointment is necessary forrésumé review, interview coaching, andnegotiation support throughout theinternship search and beyond. Juniors,seniors, and graduate students who havecompleted the program are welcome andfrequently do return to the UPOP officefor continued support.

UPOP is a strong program with a vastand enthusiastic community of faculty,staff, and volunteer supporters. Newmembers are always welcome as are sug-gestions for improving the curriculumdesign or program operations to betterserve student and department needs.

In AY 2008-09, more than 300 students from across the Institute enrolled in UPOP.The yearlong program is delivered in five phases including academic training, hands-onpractice, personalized coaching, and several networking opportunities.

• A fall semester program of workshops and individual coaching in which studentslearn to author an effective résumé, excel in a job interview, and establish the foundationof their professional network by meeting alums and engineering experts. Students com-plete a self analysis of problem solving styles and meet a panel of MIT alums.• A one-week intensive course of experiential learning over IAP in which studentsreceive instruction and coaching from MIT faculty (SoE, Sloan, and ESD) and a team ofindustry professionals who serve as Mentor-Instructors. The course is offered twice eachJanuary. Topics include: project engineering, specification, leadership, networking, con-flict resolution, and effective presentation of technical arguments. • A spring semester program of workshops and individual coaching in the job-searchprocess. Includes finding and creating job openings, professional etiquette, and individualhelp in securing a summer internship assignment suited to their needs and aspirations.• A 10- to 12-week summer practicum in which students apply their technical and inter-personal skills in real-world settings. During the internship, each student submits threeentries to an electronic journal, conducts an interview of one engineering leader, andmany host a site visit by UPOP staff. Meeting with the students, their supervisors, and HRrepresentatives helps program staff to ensure a positive outcome for student andemployer and strengthens the relationship for future students.• A reflective learning experience upon return to campus the next fall. UPOP juniorsattend a reflection event where they report on their summer experience to each other andto a team of industry mentors. They complete a coaching conference with UPOP staff tochart a course for the next year including the option of continuing in one of two tracks inthe Gordon program: Gordon Engineering Leadership (GEL) or Engineering LeadershipPractice Opportunities Program (ELPOP).

Susann Luperfoy is Executive Director of theUndergraduate Practice Opportunities Program(UPOP) ([email protected]).


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mit faculty newsletter vol. xxi no. 1, september/october...

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