mit faculty newsletter, vol. xxvii no. 5, may/june 2015web.mit.edu/fnl/volume/275/fnl275.pdf · mit...

in this issue we offer “A Letter to the Class of 2015” and an editorialaddressing the intertwining of local, national, and international politics (below andpage 3); Steven Hall’s “Reflections on My Time as Chair of the Faculty” (page 4); anIn Memoriam to Professor Stephan Chorover (page 16); and a piece exploring anext generation sustainability framework at MIT (page 17).

MITFacultyNewsletter

Vol. XXVII No. 5May/June 2015

http://web.mit.edu/fnl

MassachusettsInstitute ofTechnology

continued on page 8

Interview with NewMIT CorporationChairman RobertMillard

Is Research the Soul of MIT?

continued on page 10

GREETINGS TO YOU, THE GRADUATES!

– and to your families.Together with the thousands of family

members and friends gathered forCommencement, we share the excitementof this passage. Faculty both respect andtake pride in your accomplishments asMIT’s new 2015 graduates. In teachingand mentoring you, we on the facultyhave also learned and grown and receivednew insights. As you launch your owncareers, your contributions to your com-munities and to humanity will be amongthe most gratifying products of our aca-demic labors.

We hope you will look back on youryears at the Institute with a positivefeeling, and the sense that you have con-tributed to enhancing the MIT environ-ment and experience for the comingclasses. As you transition to other oppor-

EditorialA Letter to the Class of 2015

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R E C E N T LY, I WA S T H U M B I N G

through the pamphlet MIT Facts 2015distributed to visitors by the MITInformation Office, when I read on page40 that “The soul of MIT is research.” Aftermore than 45 years at MIT, this was a factthat I had not known. It certainly was nota fact when I arrived as a freshman in1968 and it was not something that wastrue when I stepped down as DepartmentHead in 2000. Clearly something haschanged over the past 15 years.

Moreover, something has changed inthe original conception of MIT: for thefirst 80 years, from 1865 to 1945, themission of MIT was not very differentfrom what is currently on page 6 of theMIT Facts booklet:

“The mission of MIT is to advance knowl-edge and educate students in science, tech-

MIT Corporation Chairman Robert Millard

Thomas W. Eagar

T H E F O L LOW I N G I N T E R V I E W BY

the Faculty Newsletter (FNL) with MITCorporation Chairman Robert Millard(RM) was held on April 14 of this year.

FNL: Why don’t we begin with MITx inparticular, and the future of higher educa-tion in general.

RM: I think there’s been an emphasis indeveloping MIT’s online capability, but Idon’t think that the administration hasever said that MITx is actually the futureof higher education. Just to be fair aboutit, I think the administration has said it’spart of the future of education, and that,at some level, is undeniable.

Frankly I think there was more specula-tive excitement two years ago about thethreat of MOOCs replacing residential

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Vol. XXVII No. 5 May/June 2015

Robert BerwickElectrical Engineering & Computer Science

Manduhai BuyandelgerAnthropology

*Nazli ChoucriPolitical Science

Christopher CumminsChemistry

Woodie FlowersMechanical Engineering

Ernst G. FrankelMechanical Engineering

*Jonathan King (Chair)Biology

Helen Elaine LeeWriting and Humanistic Studies

Stephen J. Lippard (Treasurer)Chemistry

Seth LloydMechanical Engineering

Fred MoavenzadehCivil & Environmental Engineering/Engineering Systems

Ruth Perry (Vice Chair)Literature Section

Nasser RabbatArchitecture

Patrick Henry WinstonElectrical Engineering & Computer Science

David LewisManaging Editor

*Editorial Subcommittee for this issue

AddressMIT Faculty NewsletterBldg. 10-335Cambridge, MA 02139

Websitehttp://web.mit.edu/fnl

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

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

01 Is Research the Soul of MIT?Thomas W. Eagar

01 Interview with New MIT Corporation ChairmanRobert Millard

Editorial 01 A Letter to the Class of 2015

03 Federal Budget Priorities: Public Transit Rather Than Nuclear Submarines Frederick P. Salvucci, Jonathan King

From The 04 Reflections on My Time as Chair of the Faculty Faculty Chair Steven Hall

06 Krishna Rajagopal New Faculty ChairNewsletter Staff

In Memoriam 16 Professor Stephan ChoroverJonathan King

17 Launching a Next Generation Sustainability Framework at MITJulie Newman

M.I.T. Numbers 20 Faculty Demographics

contentsThe MIT FacultyNewsletterEditorial Board

Photo credit: Page 1: Courtesy of Robert Millard; Page 6: Justin Knight; Page 16: Josh Kastorf

MIT Faculty NewsletterMay/June 2015

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tunities and challenges, MIT and other uni-versities are in the midst of a vigorous andhealthy reexamination of how and what andwhen we teach. You will be entering a worldwhere digital distance learning, new formsof academic and social communication, andglobal interactions are the norm. Issuessuch as climate change, nuclear disarma-ment, and reducing global poverty, once in

the distance, have now established them-selves as requiring the urgent attention of usall. Instabilities in nations that may haveonce seemed very far away now emerge asproblems that the world – and this nation –cannot ignore.

During your years with us, we on thefaculty have directly encountered your man-ifold talents, your serious ambitions, yourresilience in the face of setbacks, yourthoughtful and quirky self-expression, yourcreative and entrepreneurial energy, and

your myriad achievements. We hope that asyour various individual paths unfold, youwill put your powers to work on solvingsome of the problems that confront us, andmaking our society more responsibly pro-ductive and more supportive to those inneed. On behalf of the entire faculty, wewish you vision, strength, commitment, andsuccess in the challenges you take on.

The Editorial Board of the MIT Faculty Newsletter

A Letter to the Class of 2015continued from page 1

Frederick P. SalvucciJonathan King

Federal Budget Priorities: Public TransitRather Than Nuclear Submarines

TH I S PAST WI NTE R, hundreds ofMIT staff, students, and faculty had diffi-culty getting to and from work because ofthe inability of the transit system to handlethe unusually heavy snows. This reflected, inpart, many years of inadequate federal andstate investment in public transit. TheBoston Globe (Tuesday, May 19) reported onways traffic and transit congestion is limit-ing Kendall Square and MIT function andgrowth.

While the MBTA is seen as a state-pro-vided local service, during the Nixonadministration 15 percent of operatingsubsidies and 80 percent of capitalfunding for large systems such as theMBTA came from the federal government.Today the federal government provides nooperating cost to the MBTA, and capitalassistance is very hard to get, slow tocome, and usually no better than 50percent.

On May 13, tragedy struck when anAmtrak regional train headed to Bostonderailed outside Philadelphia, partly due tofailure to upgrade track safety, again reflect-ing inadequate federal investment. The nextday a Senate committee supported furtherreduction in Amtrak investment. The sumsunder discussion were in the $1-2 billionrange.

The same week, the Senate proposedmore than $600 billion in military funding,more than the total military budgets of thenext six largest nations together, and morethan 55% of total Congressional discre-tionary spending. A significant fraction ofthis budget is for upgrading our nuclearweapons arsenal. An article by physics profes-sor Aron Bernstein in last month’s FacultyNewsletter described the international effortsjust ended in New York – the Non-Proliferation Treaty Review – in which morethan 100 nations were pushing for reductionsin nuclear arms by those nations maintainingnuclear weapons arsenals. The U.S. arsenal,together with Russia’s, includes bomber-based, land-based, and submarine missiles.Our fleet of 14 nuclear-armed submarines,the world’s largest, each carry multiplewarhead missiles representing more than1000x the destructive power of the bombsdropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Thecurrent budget – more than a decade after thefall of the Berlin Wall – proposes buying 12additional Ohio class submarines at $8 billion each.

It seems extraordinary that our nationlacks the funds to upgrade its transit –helping people get to work, to school, tohealthcare facilities – while the administra-tion is planning to spend $300 billion over

the next 10 years maintaining and modernizing our nuclear weapons and theinfrastructure to produce them.

If a fraction of the $96 billion cost of newOhio class nuclear weapons submarineswere transferred to Amtrak, the entire EastCoast rail system could be brought up tomodern standards, increasing safety and thequality of life for millions of Americans.These nuclear weapon systems don’t feed us,don’t clothe us, don’t get us to work, don’tmitigate our energy needs, and don’t con-tribute to needed scientific or engineeringdevelopments. Many believe they decreaserather than increase national security.

It would be far better to increase ournational security by bringing our transit andtransportation systems up to modern stan-dards, rather than continuing to expand ournuclear arsenal. Maybe then we could evenafford new subway cars, signals, and powerstations for the Red Line serving MIT andKendall Square, improving the quality of lifeand productivity of MIT students, staff, andfaculty.

Frederick P. Salvucci is a Senior Lecturer inthe Department of Civil and EnvironmentalEngineering ([email protected]);Jonathan King is a Professor in theDepartment of Biology and MIT FacultyNewsletter Chair ([email protected]).

MIT Faculty NewsletterVol. XXVII No. 5

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Steven HallFrom The Faculty ChairReflections on My Time as Chair of the Faculty

M Y T E R M A S C H A I R of the MITfaculty ends this summer, and it has beena joy and an honor to serve in that role.For my last column as Faculty Chair, I’dlike to reflect briefly on the role, and talkabout a few issues of ongoing interest forthe faculty as a whole.

Around the time I agreed to becomeChair, I realized I had spent two-thirds ofmy life at MIT. I was here for eight years asa student, earning SB, SM, and ScDdegrees. I’ve been a member of the facultyfor 30 years, active in faculty governancefor many years, and an associate house-master of Simmons Hall for seven years.Nonetheless, the role of Faculty Chair hasbrought some unique opportunities andgiven me new perspective on the institu-tion I have called home for many years, byallowing me to see things I otherwisewould not. The result has been confidencein the many areas where things are goingwell, and an opportunity to try to engageother faculty in areas where we mighthave more to contribute.

During my time as Chair, the adminis-tration has taken a positive and construc-tive approach to consulting the faculty onimportant issues, ranging from potentiallegal strategies to the challenging deci-sions around reorganizing academicunits. Even when there are different views,having insight on decision-makingprocesses has given me an appreciationfor the administration’s commitment toacting in a deliberate, decisive, and princi-pled way.

One responsibility of the Chair is toserve as a member of Academic Counciland the Academic AppointmentsSubgroup. This is the Institute-widecouncil that hears appointment, promo-tion, and tenure cases after they have been

heard by the appropriate School council.Over the past two years, I have beenrepeatedly amazed at the quality andachievements of our faculty colleagues.Our newly tenured faculty are doing bril-liant and innovative work. They are natu-rally multidisciplinary, blurring the lines

between departments and Schools. Theycare deeply about research and teaching,and the work they do is bold and auda-cious. They choose to tackle difficult andimportant problems that will have hugeimpacts on society and the planet. Thechance to see just a slice of what our col-leagues are doing across the Institute hasbeen a joy.

I have also worked to represent facultyinterests and concerns on such commit-tees as the International AdvisoryCommittee, the Task Force on the Futureof MIT Education, and the CollierPermanent Memorial Committee. Thelatter deserves a special word. The death ofOfficer Sean Collier was a blow to MITand the larger community. The memorialcommittee sought input from the MITcommunity, and the response was inspir-ing, both for the depth of feeling forOfficer Collier, and for the vision thecommunity had for a fitting memorial.The memorial, designed by Professor

Meejin Yoon and engineered in collabora-tion with Professor John Ochsendorf,beautifully captures that vision. All of uswho served on the memorial committeeare honored to have had a small part inthe process.

MITx and edXThere are three issues that have domi-nated discussions over the past two yearsand can be expected to remain prioritiesin the near future. The first is MITx and,more generally, online learning. At almostevery Random Faculty Dinner this year,the conversation seemed to turn to newtechnologies and concerns, that somedaysoon students will be taking all of theirsubjects in a dorm room instead of inter-acting with others in the classroom.

Debates about technology-driven edu-cational initiatives aren’t new to MIT.When Project Athena was created in the1980s, there were many projections abouthow it would change the residential class-room, but its ultimate impact was largelyto provide ubiquitous computing to stu-dents, rather than on the classroom itself.The TEAL (Technology Enabled ActiveLearning) project was launched in 2000 atthe dawn of Web 2.0. TEAL has beenenormously successful, but over time it’s

The death of Officer Sean Collier was a blow to MIT andthe larger community. The memorial committee soughtinput from the MIT community, and the response wasinspiring, both for the depth of feeling for Officer Collier,and for the vision the community had for a fittingmemorial. . . All of us who served on the memorialcommittee are honored to have had a small part in theprocess.


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become clear that TEAL is about activelearning as much as the use of enablingtechnology.

Today, we are in the midst of the MITxand edX initiatives, driven in part bymany of the technologies described bysome as Web 3.0: efficient sharing of richcontent, especially video; the near univer-sal reach of the Internet, both to popula-tions and personal devices; very highnetwork speeds; and social networking.Many colleges see these technologies bothas an opportunity to expand their reach,and as an existential threat if others aremore successful at doing so. It’s too earlyto tell how this revolution will play out. Ifpast experience is a guide, there will bevaluable lessons learned for how we teach,and no doubt some technologies willemerge as essential components of futureeducation.

Meanwhile, MITx has thrown a spot-light on inherent tensions in our missionand helped launch a number of importantconversations about priorities. One trade-off is finding a middle ground betweenthe desire to move quickly in developinginnovative ideas and the desire to protectthe quality of our existing residential edu-cation system. One approach that thefaculty committees have taken is toapprove curricular experiments, whileseeking data to help understand differentclassroom experiences and outcomes.

MITx is driving important conversa-tions about how we can improve residen-tial education, and at the same time reachmore learners across the world. Here thereis a real opportunity for faculty to join theconversation. Everyone recognizes thepromise and potential of lifelong learning,but how do we match our aspiration toprovide broad access to education withthe resources required to do so? How cannew digital tools benefit our residentialeducational system? Is there an opportu-nity to rethink the structure of our pro-grams, for example, by making themmore modular, and if so, what does mod-ularity really mean? In short, we need tocontinue developing the business case foronline education and find the right fitwith our residential system.

Campus Planning and CapitalRenewalA second issue that has topped the facultygovernance agenda is campus planning.Here again, I think a lot of progress hasbeen made. The new faculty Committeeon Campus Planning was stood up thispast fall, and despite an inherently steepcurve in getting up to speed, they havedone important work in informing them-selves about the many capital projects inprogress and planned throughout thecampus, and the issues raised by thoseprojects. The members of the committee

also serve on other standing and ad hoccommittees, such as the BuildingCommittee and the West Campus StudySteering Committee. Their role is to serveas a point of contact for anyone withquestions or concerns and to ensure thatfaculty perspectives are heard before deci-sions are made. The committee has takenthis charge very seriously and has beenactively reaching out to hear from stake-holders.

On a related point, I think manyfaculty will agree that there has been sig-nificant progress in addressing capitalrenewal needs. MIT has for many yearsdeferred maintenance on its buildings,and the results are apparent to anyonewalking through campus. In the last fewyears, the administration has formulated aplan for reducing the levels of deferredmaintenance, and has allocated significantresources for the repair and renewal ofour physical plant. By next year, MIT willhave completed the renovation andrenewal of Building E52 (Economics) andBuilding 2 (Mathematics), as well as thelandmark Kresge Auditorium and MITChapel. The renovation of Building 2 isespecially significant, as it marks the

beginning of the renovation of MIT’sMain Group, the historic buildings built100 years ago when MIT moved fromBoston to Cambridge.

In the longer term, work on theMIT.nano building has begun with thedemolition of Building 12. Less visible arethe numerous upgrades to the utilitiesinfrastructure that will support MIT.nanoand the rest of the MIT campus. MIT alsohas ambitious plans for the renewal of theEast Campus area and Kendall Square,and for new dormitory space for bothundergraduate and graduate students.

There will certainly be many changes tocampus during the term of the next Chairof the Faculty, and no doubt some disrup-tion due to construction as well.

Student Life IssuesIf there is one issue on my list that wouldbenefit from greater faculty involvement,residential culture would be it. Fromsexual misconduct to mental health tohousing policy, student life has been anincreasingly visible topic of conversationon campus.

MIT’s unique residential culture forcesus to make daily choices in how wemanage competing values. For example,how do we balance autonomy of livinggroups with the need for discipline andsafety? What is the right balance betweenmaking our residences welcoming andinclusive versus encouraging and allowingfreedom of expression? Between individ-ual choice and diversity? The debatearound these issues is sometimes framedas issues of communication and trans-parency. I would argue that the centralpoints of disagreement among students,

If there is one issue on my list that would benefit fromgreater faculty involvement, residential culture would beit. From sexual misconduct to mental health to housingpolicy, student life has been an increasingly visible topicof conversation on campus.

continued on next page


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faculty, and the administration are notaround communication and process, butaround values, and the choices that thosevalues imply. To take one small example,in the last two years, MIT has substantiallyincreased security in the dorms. As ahousemaster, I no longer find people whodon’t belong in Simmons Hall wanderingits corridors, and I believe that our stu-dents are safer as a result. On the otherhand, students miss the ability to sponta-neously visit a friend in another dormwithout signing in. No one is opposed tosafety and security, or freedom and spon-taneity, but people naturally may placehigher emphasis on one or the other. If we

as faculty think that the magic of MIT ispartly about learning outside the class-room, then we should all be concernedwith the experience of students in our res-idences, and there is an opportunity forthe faculty to help define that experiencethrough shared principles and values.

On all these issues (online learning,campus planning, student life), it is diffi-cult to imagine that conversations couldbe managed by the administration or theCorporation alone. All three are funda-mental to the academic mission of MITand will require the serious participationof faculty and students.

Thanks!In closing, I would like to wish my succes-sor, Professor Krishna Rajagopal of

Physics, all the best for the next two years.I would also like to offer my deepestthanks to my fellow officers, AssociateChair John Belcher and Secretary JoAnneYates, and also to Lynsey Fitzpatrick, theFaculty Governance Administrator. Mostof the work of faculty governance is donethrough faculty committees, and I’ve beenespecially fortunate to have had anextraordinarily good set of faculty chairs.Nearly every person I’ve asked to join orchair a committee has agreed to do so, andI’ve been enormously grateful to workwith a faculty that cares so deeply aboutgovernance issues.

Reflections on My Time as Faculty ChairHall, from preceding page

Steven Hall is a Professor in the Departmentof Aeronautics and Astronautics and FacultyChair ([email protected]).

Newsletter StaffKrishna Rajagopal New Faculty Chair

K R I S H NA RAJAG OPAL, Professor ofPhysics, will become Chair of the Facultyon July 1, 2015 after serving as Chair-Electfor the past year. He has been learning theropes from the current Chair, Steve Hall,whose example he sees as setting a highbar. Joining Krishna as faculty officers thissummer will be Leslie Kolodziejski,Professor of Electrical Engineering andComputer Science (Associate Chair) andChris Capozzola, Professor of History(Secretary).

Krishna grew up in suburban Toronto;his family moved there from Munichwhen he was less than a year old. Hismother and father, who taught at different

Toronto universities, are originally fromGermany and India. Influenced by an out-standing teacher who brought pioneeringadvances in recombinant DNA andmolecular biology into his public highschool biology class, Krishna arrived atQueen’s University in Kingston, Ontarioplanning to major in biology. His fresh-man physics class rekindled his earlierinterest in physics. He much appreciatesthe formative educational influences thatshaped his own experience. He graduatedfrom Queen’s in 1988 and completed hisPhD at Princeton in 1993. After stints as aJunior Fellow at Harvard and a FairchildFellow at Caltech he joined the MIT


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faculty in 1997. He was elected a Fellow ofthe American Physical Society in 2004.Krishna has spent one year each at UCBerkeley and at CERN, the physics labora-tory outside Geneva, Switzerland.

Krishna is a theoretical physicist whoasks how the quarks that in ordinarymatter are found confined within protonsand neutrons behave in extraordinaryconditions, conditions that provide atestbed for understanding how a complexworld can emerge from simple underlyinglaws. His work links nuclear and particlephysics, condensed matter physics, astro-physics, and string theory. Experimentsthat recreate droplets of the trillions-of-degrees-hot matter that filled themicroseconds-old universe show that it isan almost ideal liquid, nothing like the gasof quarks that was originally anticipated.Krishna analyzes the properties of this hotquark soup, by seeing how they emergefrom the elementary forces betweenquarks and via repurposing techniquesfrom string theory to understand how hotquark soup is created and probed in highenergy collisions, the subject of hisrecently completed first book. He is theauthor of about 100 papers and has men-tored more than two-dozen PhD studentsand postdocs. Krishna’s work has also illu-minated the cold, dense, quark matter thatmay lie at the centers of neutron stars,showing that matter at the highest densi-ties imaginable is a transparent supercon-ductor. Krishna has made predictions forthe phase diagram of quark matter, hotand cold, and has helped to define theexperimental program that is currentlymapping it.

Krishna was named a MargaretMacVicar Faculty Fellow in 2010 and wonthe Baker Award for Excellence inUndergraduate Education in 2011. All ofhis classroom teaching has been at thefreshman, sophomore, or junior level. Hehas taught quantum mechanics, relativity,thermodynamics, and statistical mechan-ics and is currently teaching freshman

electricity and magnetism. What he mostenjoys is opening students’ eyes, for thefirst time, to powerful and far-reachingways of understanding the natural andtechnological world around them.

Until this past January, Krishna wasthe Associate Head for Education in theDepartment of Physics, responsible forthe stewardship of all of its educationalefforts, from the freshman level throughto the PhD, helping his departmental col-leagues and students to optimize the useof their talents and to realize their educa-tional goals. He has facilitated and sup-ported new MITx-enabled activitieswithin the Department of Physics. Theseincluded efforts that have improved theon-campus teaching of freshman physics

and junior lab, as well as the first OpenOnline Courses on intermediatequantum mechanics at a level suitable forMIT juniors and advanced quantumfield theory at a level suitable for second-and third-year theoretical physics PhDstudents.

What Krishna has most valued abouthis Institute service, for example as the

chair of the Committee on AcademicPerformance and as a member of anumber of ad hoc committees, has beenthe people he has met; the staff, studentsand faculty whose character knits ourcommunity together and makes MITMIT. He looks forward to getting to know,and help, many more in the coming twoyears.

Krishna lives in Arlington with hiswife, Dana Ansel, who was for many yearsthe Research Director at theMassachusetts Institute for a NewCommonwealth (MassINC) and is nowan education policy research consultant,and with their two sons, who will be in 5thand 7th grade this fall.


Krishna is a theoretical physicist who asks how thequarks that in ordinary matter are found confined withinprotons and neutrons behave in extraordinary conditions,conditions that provide a testbed for understanding howa complex world can emerge from simple underlyinglaws. His work links nuclear and particle physics,condensed matter physics, astrophysics, and stringtheory.


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nology, and other areas of scholarship thatwill best serve the nation and the world . . . .”

“Research” doesn’t appear in thismission. This is a mission statement that Ican endorse. Education of students, post-docs, other faculty and professionals is thesoul of MIT. Research may be a by-product of MIT’s educational mission,but it is not its “soul.”

As I read further in MIT Facts 2015,“For more than 150 years, the Institute hasmarried teaching with engineering andscientific studies . . . .” Again, this is a state-ment with which I can agree; this is not amarriage of education and research.Reading further, the booklet listed 15examples of MIT research, some datingback as far as Doc Edgerton’s invention ofthe stroboscope in the 1930s or engineer-ing of radar during World War II. About athird were singular MIT breakthroughs,but the rest were a rehash of recent MITPress news articles, the long-term conse-quence of which is unproven. Even thecover of the MIT Facts booklet, given as afirst impression to visitors, failed toimpress me as an MIT “lifer.” The coverconsists of the imprint of the soles of twohiking boots with two more on the back.Of all the images that might symbolizeMIT’s significant contributions to society,I cannot fathom how hiking boots conveythe message of MIT.

Many of us believe that the essence ofMIT consists of the faculty and the stu-dents. When asked about his steel empire,Andrew Carnegie said, “Take away mypeople, but leave my factories, and soongrass will grow on the factory floors. Takeaway my factories, but leave my people,and soon we will have a new and betterfactory.” So it is with MIT. The columnsand dome of Building 10 are a worldwidesymbol for excellence in engineering,science, and a number of other disci-plines, but this building by itself is merelya mass of sandstone slowly eroding in acidrain.

As a new faculty member in 1976,there were none of the generous startuppackages given to junior faculty today. Iused to say “MIT gives you a desk, a localphone [individual faculty had to pay theirlong distance phone bills until the 1990swhen the Internet made long distancephone calls inexpensive], and the MITname. The only one of value is the MITname and our job is to make sure we leavethe MIT reputation stronger than whenwe came.”

Up to the mid-1970s in my depart-ment (Course III, Materials Science and

Engineering), new faculty were expectedto work with a senior faculty mentor, whowould provide laboratory space, a fewgraduate students to supervise, someresearch funds and the opportunity tohelp teach the senior faculty member’ssubjects and write joint proposals. In theirspare time, the junior faculty memberswere expected to develop their own sub-jects, write their own proposals, andestablish independence from their mentorbefore the beginning of the tenure deci-sion process six years later. I saw it as afeudal system and I elected to start as anindependent rather than a serf. As a result,I had no research money, no students, andno laboratory my first year as a facultymember. I concentrated on teaching andwriting proposals.

I was also assigned 25 percent of a sec-retary located on the fifth floor ofBuilding 13, while I shared Room 8-137(the short door just off the InfiniteCorridor) with a few graduate students.There were no word processors for facultyin 1976 and personal computers had notbeen invented. I would handwrite a letter,walk it over to Cathy, my secretary a fewbuildings away, and wait a week for her to

type it. (I was third priority behind twomore senior faculty.)

In the fall of the first year, Cathybrought one of my letters for me to sign.She asked what research account numbershe should use to purchase the stamps. Ihad none. Maybe this is what the MITFacts booklet means when it says, “Thesoul of MIT is research.”; without anaccount number you could (and can) donothing.

I immediately went to my DepartmentHead, Professor Walter Owen, to ask howI would get funding to pay for my long

distance phone bills. Walter said, “We’llgive you an advance on your ILP(Industrial Liaison Program) funds,”which I had not yet accumulated.

Unimpressed with Walter’s response, Icrossed the suite of offices to see ourDepartment Administrative Officer, JoeDhosi. Posing a new question so as not tobe playing one person’s negative answeragainst another, I said “Joe, Cathy says sheneeds an account number to buy stampsfor me.” Joe responded, “Why don’t youask some of the other secretaries if theywill give you some stamps?”

Feeling discouraged but knowing thatProfessor Mert Flemings was the seniormentor that everyone expected me toassist, I walked up to Mert’s office on thefourth floor. I told Mert that I did not havean account number to copy my proposals.Mert hemmed and hawed a bit, but thensaid, “I’ll give you an account number butlet me know if you spend more than fiftydollars.”

Today, most people would considerthis incredible, but it is most assuredlyaccurate. I returned to my office, sat at mydesk, clasped my hands together and saidto myself, “So this is what it means to be

Is Research the Soul of MIT?Eagar, from page 1

There were no word processors for faculty in 1976 andpersonal computers had not been invented. I wouldhandwrite a letter, walk it over to Cathy, my secretary afew buildings away, and wait a week for her to type it. (I was third priority behind two more senior faculty.)


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an assistant professor at MIT – it’s sink orswim!” I determined that I would strive toswim, but I promised myself that if I wassuccessful, I would make sure that noother junior faculty member would gothrough what I was experiencing.

The first opportunity came two yearslater when Professor Don Sadoway washired. Don had come from the Universityof Toronto and did not know the cultureof junior faculty support in our depart-ment. Don was given the desk, the localphone and the MIT name, but Donwanted a credenza for his office and thedepartment said no. Don came to mesince I had been mentoring him on navi-gating MIT. Always ready to teach with astory, I told Don about my $50 first-yearbudget. After two years I now had threeresearch contracts and grants from theOffice of Naval Research, the DoE Officeof Basic Energy Sciences and the NSF, butnone of these accounts would permit pur-chase of office furniture. Don said the cre-denza cost $200 and I agreed to buy itfrom the $600 I had in my ILP account.There have been ample opportunities overthe past 37 years to assist junior faculty,and the Institute has progressed beyondrefusing stamps and credenzas.Mentoring has improved greatly but itcould still be better.

A few years later I had another oppor-tunity to learn about research funding.Robert Seamans was the Dean ofEngineering and he decided it would behelpful to meet with all of the untenuredfaculty in the School. About 30 or 40 of ushad lunch with the Dean and AssociateDeans at the Faculty Club. At the end ofthe meal Bob Seamans stood andexpressed his appreciation for all of us.Then he announced he had to leave forthe airport and his Associates couldanswer any questions.

One of the first questions was “Howimportant is research funding in thetenure decision?” It should be noted thatfor my first 15 years on the faculty, allfaculty, senior or junior, except those whohad gone into administration, wereexpected to pay 50 percent of their aca-demic year salary plus benefits and over-

head from research, and if there wassomething left over you could pay twomonths of summer salary.

All of the faculty, but especially thejunior faculty, found that a tremendousburden. It was no burden at all for theadministration. These faculty were paidfor 12 months with no research fundingrequirement.

The response from the Associate Deanwas “I have never heard the question ofresearch funding come up in a tenuredecision at Engineering Council.” Severaljunior faculty tried to clarify because theycould not believe their ears. We werealways under pressure to “help” thedepartment budget by paying more of ouracademic year salary. The Deans wereadamant; research funding was never atopic of discussion. The dining room wasin an uproar of incredulity. I leaned overto the junior faculty member next to meand said “That’s because if you do nothave a lot of funding, your tenure case willnever get out of your department forEngineering Council to discuss!”

Fortunately, MIT saw the handwritingfrom NSF and Congress and hardenedacademic year salaries in the 1990s. Ashard as it is for junior faculty to securefunds for basic research today, the pres-sures of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s weremerely of a different sort. Today there arehuge resources for applied research fromnon-governmental sources. Junior facultyhave to do some basic research with thesefunds while also working on appliedproblems. Frankly, that was always myapproach to receiving 80 percent of myfunding from basic research agencies ofthe government. They wanted basic

research that had an opportunity to beapplied. The funding pendulum swingsover the decades.

But this history begs the question ofwhether research is the soul of MIT.Going back further in time to pre-WWII,research was not the soul of MIT. Reviewof the research funding or its corollary,number of graduate students and post-

docs, indicates that the research emphasiswas nearly non-existent prior to WWII(and later Sputnik).

As a Department Head and CenterDirector serving on Engineering Councilfor over a decade, I always knew thatDeans Gerry Wilson and Joel Mosesunderstood the primacy of the educa-tional mission. Budgets were determinedby numbers of undergraduate studentstaught, and not by research funds accu-mulated nor graduate student/post-docpopulation. Faculty considered for pro-motion were judged in part on thenumber of student theses supervised andnot on the amount of research funding.The graduate student-to-post-doc ratiohad to be greater than one and preferablytwo to three.

When I read that “The soul of MIT isresearch” I must correct this misconcep-tion. The soul of MIT relates to educationand knowledge creation. Research ismerely a by-product of the “marriage ofteaching with engineering and scientificstudies.” Research can be beneficial orharmful depending on how we manage it;it is not our soul.

The response from the Associate Dean was “I havenever heard the question of research funding come upin a tenure decision at Engineering Council.” Severaljunior faculty tried to clarify because they could notbelieve their ears. We were always under pressure to“help” the department budget by paying more of ouracademic year salary.

Thomas W. Eagar is a Professor of MaterialsEngineering and Engineering Management([email protected]).


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education than there is today. I think theproliferation of MOOCs has developedover the last two years, but the fear hassubsided a bit. I can’t exactly explain whythat is.

FNL: What do you think of MOOCs?

RM: I myself have taken a MOOC andcompleted the course, and I have a certifi-cate to prove it! It was Eric Lander’s [MITbiology professor] course. So I have greatrespect for the power of the method.Ultimately, it’s a very effective, new type oftextbook. But I don’t think it replaces theactual experience of being in class amongcohorts.

I believe there are a lot of people who feelthey instantly understand what it’s like tolearn through a MOOC, who’ve nevertaken a MOOC. And although I thinkthey largely get it, there are some subtletiesyou don’t get until you’ve tried it, untilyou’ve really done it yourself.

FNL: What type of subtleties?

RM: One thing is that quality reallymatters. It’s hard to devote yourself to thatkind of an investment of time and effort,if the course lacks quality.

I understand that most of the people whotake MOOCs are older than college age.That might have been a little surprising tosome people.

When I took the MOOC, I was surprisedat how easy it was, compared to trying tolearn the material on my own. Onedoesn’t realize how easy college is com-pared to the real world; how neatly andefficiently things that you need to learnare laid out. But having a professor andbeing among classmates has immeasura-ble value.

FNL: It’s hard to quantify.

RM: It is. So the idea that MOOCs aregoing to replace college, because it makesthe knowledge more available and it’s free,is just not correct. The information wasalways available and it was always free. Allyou had to do was go to the public libraryand sit there, because there’s nothing, at

least as an undergraduate, that you learnedat MIT that you couldn’t have learned bysitting by yourself in a public library. So agood MOOC can replicate a classroom inmany respects, but it can’t replicate the res-idential college experience.

I don’t think anybody has ever said thatMITx is the future of higher education. Ithas a role and that role, for our students,for example, is a way of supplementingtheir course work.

FNL: Let’s cycle back. You talked about theimportance of quality. Let’s talk about thefinancial model. That course that you tookwas in the Biology Department, and so thedevelopment of it was reported.

One of the things they reported early on isthat it was much more expensive than hadbeen planned. It wasn’t in the BiologyDepartment teaching budget. And ProfessorLander used his private funds to supple-ment the course. But there aren’t that manyprofessors around to do that. So what’s yoursense of the financial model going forward?There’s not tuition being collected, etc.

RM: I don’t think there was ever really afinancial model when we started MITx orOCW [OpenCourseWare]. Everything we

do here at MIT, and at other schools likeour own, is a money loser. Well, perhapsnot a complete money loser, or otherwisewe’d all go bankrupt!

So money is a factor, but it’s never beenthe primary motivator. When we started

MITx, and I was there at the beginning,there was no revenue model. No one satdown with a spreadsheet to say, well, thisis how much we invested in this and this iswhat we’re going to make and this iswhere we’re going and this is thebreakeven point. No one ever said that.

What people did say, is look, this is part ofthe future, this technology exists, it’s goingto happen with us or without us. Andindeed it was. Actually, we were not firstout of the gate. I think Coursera was.Maybe Udacity. And either we can chooseto try to lead this, or just ignore it. Wemade the right decision to be part of theinitial development.

But what is unique, is that we were theonly people who did it as a not-for-profit.And that added quality and substance tothe experience. I’m proud of MIT forhaving done this. We never had a revenuemodel. There was always a suppositionthat at some point in the future there’d besome way to potentially recoup our costs,but we viewed it as a pure expense.

FNL: But MITx is much more expensivethan OCW. All the interactive components,videos, etc. make it a much more costlyproduct. And faculty recognize that it both

Interview with Robert Millardcontinued from page 1

FNL: What do you think of MOOCs?

RM: I myself have taken a MOOC and completed thecourse, and I have a certificate to prove it! It was EricLander’s [MIT biology professor] course. So I have greatrespect for the power of the method. Ultimately, it’s avery effective, new type of textbook. But I don’t think itreplaces the actual experience of being in class amongcohorts.


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costs a lot of money and takes a lot of time.So they ask where is the money going tocome from? Regardless of the percentage ofthe overall education that MITx might ulti-mately evolve into, where is the time goingto come from? Are we going to hire morefaculty? Are we going to hire people to workwith faculty to do MITx?

RM: I’m not sure you’re asking the rightperson those questions. As I understandit, faculty are invited to participate in thisexperience, not compelled to. So variousdepartments, various disciplines, havebeen variously enthusiastic about this,and have approached it from a variety ofways.

FNL: Do you think there is a “grand plan”for how we’re going to proceed?

RM: I haven’t heard of a grand plan.

FNL: On a somewhat related issue, for along time the Humanities faculty here havefelt very separate from the science and tech-nology and engineering people. And as partof MITx, a lot of feedback that we’ve gottenis that the whole concept of MITx seems tobe geared and works well with science andengineering courses and not so well withhumanities courses. Do you have anythoughts about that?

RM: I do. Obviously there are courseswhere an online format simply doesn’twork. If you’re going to have a big vocalscreaming argument about what Platoreally meant, I don’t think a MOOCworks. And there are some courses, notnecessarily all taught here, which areideally suited to online teaching: musiccourses, theory courses, because you canactually hear, you can have instant feed-back. So I think there’s some validity to itand there’s some not. I think it goes bothways.

And as far as science versus the arts goes,there are a lot of people in history whothought that the one can’t do without theother. I mean, what’s the point of all thisunless we express our humanity? And cer-

tainly no inquiry, no scientific inquiryinto the human condition, into howhumans work, is complete without someunderstanding of the humanities. There’sa beauty and a grace in science and inengineering, and science excites me in thesame way that the arts do. You know Ihave an architecture degree. Music andarchitecture. Am I being too romantic?

FNL: So to sum up MITx . . . ?

RM: It’s always going to be sort of an add-on here. It’s never going to replace the res-idential university.

FNL: Let’s move on. Over the last decadeand more MIT has collaborated withseveral other countries to form research pro-grams, etc. There’s Singapore, Russia, AbuDhabi, to name just three. This is a dra-matic change from the Cold War days.What are your thoughts on these interna-tional collaborations? Are they discussed atthe Corporation meetings?

RM: These collaborations are definitelydiscussed at Corporation meetings. Andthere have been varying degrees ofsuccess. The Skolkovo Institute [in Russia]has been a work in progress. You know, Iwasn’t around here five years after MITwas founded, but maybe people weresaying the same thing about MIT backthen.

Singapore is more mature; we’ve beenthere 20 years now. And I want to be clearthat nowhere are we trying to createanother MIT with the Institute’s name.We all agree, everybody agrees, especiallythe Corporation, that the MIT brandshould never be diluted or imperiled.

To have international engagements seemsreasonable. The world’s a big place. It usedto not be quite as big. And we distinguish– and I’m sure the faculty does as well –between educational endeavor andresearch endeavor. So we do research in alot of different places, funded by a lot ofdifferent sources. Some foreign, somegovernment, some philanthropic. So, it’s

MIT research, and I don’t think we areever that sensitive about letting people saythat they are paying for our research.

But we have not set up a residential educa-tional institute anywhere else. Those arejust the facts, as I understand them. We arenot granting MIT degrees anywhere elsein the world. We are, however, doing MITresearch at other places in the world. So,with that distinction in mind, as towhether or not we should, someday,extend our education reach beyondCambridge, MA, that’s a question morefor the faculty and administration. Is thata down payment on the answer?

FNL: It is.

RM: This is what I did say to theCorporation: After World War II, which isbasically when MIT really got going, theUnited States had 50% of the world’sGDP. And in terms of the kind of GDPthat you need in order to sustain the sortsof things we do at MIT, like a disposablesort of advanced GDP, we were probablythree-quarters of the world’s GDP.

There are certain things you can track lin-early to the GDP of a country. Basicallywhat a country can afford, like its defensebudget or its R&D budget. And our gov-ernment was incredibly enlightened inmaking a major investment in research.But it was also a function of the fact thatwe could afford it. The rest of the worldsimply couldn’t. So, our internationalstrategy after WWII was just to be inAmerica. And in particular, this was truefor MIT, because what we were doing waswhat the world needed, because the worldhad turned scientific and technological.

So we were in the perfect place at theperfect time, and this was the perfect insti-tution to take advantage of that. Buttoday, you wake up and the U.S. is 23% ofthe world’s GDP. And it’s going down.Our GDP is still growing, but the rest ofthe world is growing faster. So for us to



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have an effective monopoly now is justnot going to happen.

Back when we were young, even thoughwe were 50% of the world’s GDP, we weregetting an even greater share of theworld’s talent. Our grad students wouldcome from all over the world, and thenthey would stay here. Now, the world’schanged. There’s a middle-class in most ofthese countries, and the grad students arereturning to their own countries. If youthink of it as a market share exercise, wehave a big headwind, whereas before wehad a tailwind. Now, I think that’s aninternational strategy question and thisInstitute would be very remiss not to care-fully consider what the implications ofthese incontrovertible facts will be overthe next 50 or 100 years.

FNL: We hear concern from some facultythat these international collaborations arefinancially based versus research based, orintellectually based, or humanities based.

RM: I don’t believe that. I think they aregrounded in research. There is somefinancial component that flows throughthe Institute to compensate the Institutefor the allocation of resources – for bothtime and attention.

There are a lot of places in the world thatwould love to have MIT be present andsprinkle a little bit of our magic dust onthem, so they can say they are keepingpace with MIT and that we are attractedto them. But the thing that attracts us isresearch dollars.

If the NSF gives a faculty memberresearch dollars to go study something ontop of a mountain, then I guess we mightdo that. And if someone gives us researchdollars to study something in Singapore, Idon’t see that as a whole lot different.

There’s a structural component where wehave been helpful to others from manage-

rial and organizational points of view.And for that we’ve been paid beyond theprice tag on the sponsored research. Thatis logical and consistent. We’ve not soldour brand to anyone. I don’t think we’vehad to do that.

FNL: A question we were asked to submit toyou is what do you think can be done aboutthe extent of rape and sexual assault on cam-puses – MIT as well as well as others? Howcan undergraduate women be protected?

RM: Men and women are no differentthan they’ve been for perhaps the last3000 years. So whatever is causing thisproblem has been around for an awfullylong time. But we’re doing a lot more nowthan we’ve ever done before. I do thinkwe’re hearing more about it, which is agood thing, and part of the solution and,thus, doing more about it.

We’ve done a lot on this campus. We hadthe study on sexual assault. We wereleaders in this. We got high marks from it,we’ve been open, we’ve been honest. We’redoing, frankly, what we should be doing.And we did discuss this seriously at theCorporation.

FNL: It’s important for people to hear thatthe Corporation is concerned and discusses it.

RM: And, as usual, that MIT is handlingthings well, handling things objectively.Openly. Without emotional overreac-tions. We’ve done better than some otheruniversities in this general area.

FNL: How about if we talk about campusplanning – MITIMCo [MIT InvestmentManagement Company], graduate studenthousing, etc.

RM: That is something I can be more spe-cific about.

FNL: Although it may not be exactly accu-rate, we had gotten the impression duringSusan Hockfield’s administration that inessence the campus planning functions gotturned over to MITIMCo. At least that’s

how faculty heard it. The Institute used tohave a Planning Office that was abolishedin 2000, and it seemed that all of their func-tions were reassigned to MITIMCo.

We do finally have a faculty campus plan-ning committee, and it was quite a battle toget it as a standing committee of the faculty.It’s a committee that every other major uni-versity in the United States has as a stand-ing committee of the faculty – campusplanning. There was a lot of resistance.

And perhaps the major issue among gradu-ate students and post-docs is the issue ofhousing. It’s absolutely a systematic themeat MIT. As the rentals have gone up, and theNovartises and Pfizers and the Googles havemoved in, they price out the grad students.It’s one of the most common coffee tablegossip among graduate students, when yourlandlord says you have to move out, whatabout your lease, somebody else had tomove in, etc. So, this decision, the decisionabout graduate housing on the campus, thatsuch an important decision should be madeby MITIMCo. . . .

RM: OK. So, first of all, I have beenreading the Faculty Newsletter, and I thinkthat it’s served a very useful, invaluablepurpose, and I’m not just being patroniz-ing. It has illuminated, articulated, theissues that you just described.

But some of the things I read in theFaculty Newsletter about campus planningare just simply wrong. And I’m happy torigorously develop that, and perhaps offera better understanding, which could bethe most useful part of this discussion.And you know I’ve been involved in allparts of this.

So, first of all, MITIMCo is not runningcampus planning. And it never has.MITIMCo does have a lot of real estate,and it has a lot of expertise in how to buildthings and how to run real estate.

Campus planning is done by the adminis-tration, drawing on MITIMCo’s expertise.I know all these people well. MITIMCo

Interview with Robert Millardcontinued from preceding page


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has never been confused about the goalsof campus planning. I think they’ve beenaccused of things, which are just wrong.

I don’t think the administration was asclear as it could have been. And theFaculty Newsletter was useful in gettingthat controversy out. And hopefully, it’s ina better place now.

OK. So which branch should we go down?In terms of graduate student housing, lastspring the Graduate Student HousingWorking Group, led by Phil Clay, publishedtheir report. And probably as a conse-quence of that report, 270 net new gradu-ate student housing units are beingconstructed as part of the most recent plan.

There is a temptation to dwell upon whatpeople think is a cultural divide betweenMITIMCo and MIT...that one is a profit-seeking enterprise and the other is a do-good kind of place; that one group wearsblack hats and the other wears white hats;good guys and bad guys. And that is naïve,simplistic, and frankly counterproductive.

There is no confusion at MITIMCo. Iknow these people, and I chaired thisCorporation committee and there is noconfusion at MITIMCo about whomthey’re working for, and what the object oftheir mission is – it’s this academic/res-earch enterprise. There is no confusionabout that. There isn’t a person atMITIMCo who couldn’t make moremoney going to work in the private sector.That’s just a fact.

And it’s also a fact that our 30-year returnsthrough MITIMCo – and it doesn’tmatter whether you look at one year, threeyears, 10 years, or 30 years – our 30-yearreturns have been 12.9%. And a portfolioof the traditional 60/40 model that a uni-versity would use, has been 10.4%.

Among the 150 or so universities to whichwe’re compared, we’ve been in the 99thpercentile for the last three years in termsof return, and in the 98th percentile overthe past 10 years. These are facts.

So when you talk about the quality ofthose people, every one of them could geta job making more money, but they’re allhere because they love MIT and theybelieve in this mission. And frankly I’mvery sympathetic to that, because I gaveup my career doing stuff like that to comedo this. Because I love this, and I thinkthis is what’s saving the world; thischanges the world. And I think they feelthat too. And to sometimes be paintedwith a brush that suggests that they’rethese evil, money-grubbing people is justterrible.

My worst fear, during all the controversyabout Kendall Square, was that they werejust going to leave because, as they say, nogood deed goes unpunished, and theywere certainly getting the punishment.And as loyal to MIT as they are, they werereally hurting.

FNL: That’s a very interesting notion thatthey were feeling bad; no one has ever pre-sented that perspective before.

RM: They really were hurt.

FNL: I can believe that.

RM: So, there’s no black hats/white hatsthing. Now, getting back to campus plan-ning: I remember the first time this MIT2030 plan was laid out. It started withwhat were our long-term projected aca-demic needs, in terms of square feet. Theall-day discussion concluded that MIT’sgrowth was geometric and they came upwith a range of projections about howmuch academic space we’d need on thiscampus for the next 100 years. I believe itwas a 100-year projection.

That was the beginning point of the con-versation. We will take the upper bound ofwhat we could conceivably need over thenext 100 years, and make sure that what-ever we do, we have that capacity.

FNL: How does that connect with MIT’sreal estate holdings?

RM: Well we’ve got this other real estate,which we have wisely assembled over theyears from a lot of adjacent, largelyderelict properties. And what should wedo with it? One of these miraculous virtu-ous circles that you occasionally see is thisMITIMCo real estate/academic thing thatwe’ve been doing. And it’s been going onfor a long time. One of the smartest thingsI ever heard in real estate, is that real estatenext to you is worth more to you than tosomeone else. Well, so it was to MIT.

So, wisely, MIT, before we got here,bought up real estate for more thanenough of its future academic needs. Andsome of the leftover real estate was devel-oped in a way that was consonant withour academic mission. They didn’t letsomeone open a Walmart or somethinglike that. And we retain ownership of theunderlying land. We still own the lease. Westill own the real estate underneath.

For example, this Novartis building that’sgetting built has a 60-year lease. They’reputting in a better part of a billion dollarsto build their world research headquartersthere. Yes, it will compete for somehousing and some secretaries and someother support service. But the reasonthey’re doing it, and paying us a lot ofmoney for the land, is to be near us.

I mean, Walmart wouldn’t pay us. So, as itturns out, the highest and best use for thisexcess real estate is for people who want tobe near us. And you know, MIT hasembraced this industry/academic connec-tion like few others in the world. It’s sortof how MIT started 150 years ago, by part-nering in industrial research, being adimension of industry when a lot of otheruniversities treat companies as the enemy.

So, we’ve leased land to people who’vebuilt some buildings and some of themmay be beautiful, but we eventually getthem back in 60 years. And meanwhile,they’re occupied by people who aresomehow contributing, I think, to our



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enterprise, or as I said, are consonant. Andthey’re making the neighborhood nicer.

To me, it’s this virtuous circle. But it’salways been the academic institution first.And no one at MITIMCo has ever pro-posed putting a tenant in or using a pieceof real estate for a commercial purposethat the administration didn’t want to.

FNL: You’re obviously very knowledgeableabout real estate, and we don’t disagree withanything you said. On the other hand, ifyou’re one of the 4500 graduate studentswho has to find housing off campus, theconsequence of what you’ve described isnow you have to commute from Everett orSomerville or Medford, because you can’tpossibly compete with Novartis and Pfizerand Google. So the fact of the matter, is theyare spending more time commuting, oftenthey can’t afford a car, and it can be quitedifficult.

And so the whole reason, of course, thatNovartis and Pfizer want to be here isbecause of all these talented, hardworkinggrad students and postdoctoral fellows. Andit’s a fact that the lives of graduate studentsare being made more difficult. They are notbenefitting from what you just described.They are seeing a reduction in their qualityof life in order that MIT can grow in thisway. And there is enough land there thatMIT could build on. The Clay Commissionactually calls for 1000 units; 600 new and400 swing. And to many graduate studentsit feels like the burden of the growth hasbeen put on their backs. That’s what it feelslike to many.

They don’t see any benefits from Novartisor Pfizer. A few of them might getemployed, but for most of them finding aplace to live is absolutely key, and they needto be close to campus, so they can be pro-ductive. And we have never heardMITIMCo express a scintilla of concernabout those graduate students.

It’s always going to be a cost plus operation.A subsidy in some way. So, we have neverknown anybody in MITIMCo to show anyunderstanding of the life of people who haveto work in a laboratory, getting things donemaybe late at night, seven days a week.

RM: I certainly understand the thrust ofyour concern. We have close to 7,000graduate students here, even more gradu-ate students than undergraduates. And it’sthe graduate students who make theresearch possible. It’s the research thatmakes MIT possible. So, I get that. I’m notarguing with that at all. But MITIMCodoes not decide how to spend, it does notdecide the academic priorities that theadministration administers.

FNL: So there used to be a Planning Office.It got abolished. So who makes those deci-sions now?

RM: You mean, a real estate planningoffice?

FNL: Yes. It was abolished. Now there is acommittee consisting of members of thehigh-level administration. So if MITIMCodoesn’t make those decisions, who does?Does the Corporation?

RM: No, the Corporation does not makethose decisions. The administrationmakes those decisions. And I can’t tell youwhat office. I know there’s a buildingcommittee. I don’t know who gets todecide whether we should have a Colliermemorial or if we should have more grad-uate student housing, or should we restoreKresge Auditorium. But the administra-tion does that, not the Corporation. And Ithink that you, as faculty, need to engagewith the administration.

FNL: But it is a little odd. I mean,MITIMCo is an institutional form that thefaculty have no relationship with or over-sight of, as it should be. But they do thinkthat decisions about housing are absolutelysomething that the faculty should be cen-trally involved in. And we would say that inthe four years of discussions that we’ve been

in concerning these things, you’re the firstperson who said that the MITIMCo peoplewere not making those decisions. Becausewhat we generally were told was those arethe people who know how to use the campusreal estate.

RM: So consider the current KendallSquare project. There are some academicbuildings in there, and there’s some com-mercial stuff in there. And the academicstuff is not going to be owned and run byMITIMCo.

FNL: Right.

RM: There is going to be a properaccounting from the endowment to theuniversity. And the university has to putup the money to build its portion of that.MITIMCo does what it’s supposed to bedoing, which is making money off of theinvestments. It’s not investing in the aca-demic plant.

FNL: So, MITIMCo doesn’t say it’s a 20-year lease, it’s a 40-year lease, it’s a 60-yearlease. The MIT administration makes thatdecision.

RM: No, I wouldn’t say it’s that black andwhite. Like with Novartis. TheCorporation and the administration andMITIMCo decided that was best servedgoing to a 60-year lease. So, I think thatMITIMCo is acting in MIT’s best interestat all times, trying to maximize whatevervalue can be created on MIT’s behalf. Butit is never making the decision.

FNL: So, in terms of should something berented, should we build a lab, should webuild housing, should we build classrooms,should we upgrade 10-250 – all of thosekinds of decisions are not made by theCorporation, they’re made by the adminis-tration. And they may talk to MITIMCoabout that, but . . .

RM: No, let me be more precise aboutthat. They will talk to MITIMCo to gainexpertise. The decisions are proposed bythe administration. The administration



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sets the priorities, describes the priorities,and they then go to the CorporationExecutive Committee, which acts for theCorporation.

Those decisions are proposed by theadministration and approved by theCorporation via the ExecutiveCommittee. We do have serious discus-sions at the Executive Committee thatreflect the academic priorities of theInstitute, balanced against its resources.When they were planning the NanoBuilding, for example, we argued a lot ofthe points. There were three different ver-sions, each going to cost in increments of100 million dollars, more or less. We spenta lot of time on that. The ExecutiveCommittee approved the final decision.

FNL: So, all those things are run by theExecutive Committee.

RM: Oh, absolutely. Every buildingproject that’s more than five or 10 milliondollars.

FNL: Moving on. What do you think aboutMIT divesting from fossil fuel companies?

RM: Well, we have a campus conversationgoing on. The Boston Globe called me lastnight and asked me to comment on thefossil fuel divestment issue. I said as far asMIT’s concerned, we have a very open,ongoing, campus conversation. There wasa debate in Kresge about divestment,about what we should do, what the properresponse is for MIT. So, we’re engaged inthat, and we don’t have a position yet,because we’re not finished with the con-versation.

FNL: Well said.

RM: But they wanted to know my per-sonal opinion. And I said, my opinion is apersonal matter, and I wasn’t hired to bechairman for my personal charm. Theyhired me for my inclusiveness. But I didsay that I think it’s unfortunate what’sgoing on at Harvard. It’s unfortunate,because this question about divestment is

being phrased in moral terms. And I don’tthink it’s a morality issue. I haven’t heardanybody, neither Harvard nor MIT, dis-agree with the importance of the issue.

The climate is changing. The science saysthat humans have contributed mightily tothis. No one is denying that. We have acrisis on our hands that is perhaps one ofthe worst crises humanity’s ever faced. Noone’s arguing with that. It’s only abouttactics.

And how can you impugn people’s moralstanding about a legitimate discussionabout tactics? I think that’s unfortunate. Isaid we don’t have that yet, at least not atMIT. And I hope we never have that. Ithink we’ve gone to great lengths toinclude everybody, to consider it, to beopen. And we’ll make some decisions.

I think the word divestment is a simpleword. I think divesting from a big endow-ment is not simple – you don’t just pressthe divestment button and it happens.What I find lacking from all of the conver-sations, including from our own debate inKresge Auditorium, is any discussionabout the practical aspects of it: the cost,the time, the tradeoffs. So I think we needmore work on that.

FNL: Ultimately, assuming petitions,faculty in favor of, votes, whatever it is, willthe Corporation decide whether or not to doanything relative to divestment?

RM: The first line of decision-making, aswith most things, is the administration. Idon’t think the Corporation decides thesethings on its own and then imposes itupon the administration. There’ll be theusual train of progression of decision-making. The administration, workingwith the Executive Committee – and wediscuss it at every Executive Committeemeeting. We’ve discussed it at great length.

FNL: There does seem to be an attempt toget some kind of consensus, if there is a con-sensus. And we think the faculty may besurveyed about it.

RM: I would like to see a little bit moredetailed discussion about the practicalitiesof divestment before the faculty. A littleless of an emotional symbolism, and alittle bit more of the practical part of itdiscussed. Although symbolism has value.

FNL: It is being driven by the students. Youknow, it’s not something that’s coming fromthe faculty. It’s driven from below.

RM: I think both sides in the debate haveacknowledged that it’s only symbolic.That it’s not likely to have a practicaleffect.

FNL: In closing, is there any particular areaabout which the Executive Committee andthe Corporation is interested in receivinginput from the faculty?

RM: I think that’s a really, really greatquestion. And I’d like to answer it now.But I’d also like to think about it a little bitmore. Because I think it’s a great question.First of all, from my perspective, it’s anincredibly flattering invitation.

I’ve devoted the next big portion of mylife to this job because I love what we dohere. What we love, what we do here, iswhat the faculty does. And the students.But the faculty. So I have many friends onthe faculty, and I have to say that if you askme what, and I really, really mean this, ifyou ask me what’s the best part of the job?Without a doubt, it’s dealing with myfaculty friends, with getting to knowfaculty.

One question I’d ask is what the facultythink about the size of our undergraduatepopulation remaining basically the samefor so many years.

FNL: The world has grown, everything hasgrown, MIT is still the same size, and sosome think that’s a good thing, we shouldprotect that. Other people think it’s somekind of anomaly. Clearly there are morebright people out there than we thought



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there were. Why shouldn’t the campusgrow?

RM: I think it’s a great question. It’s notfor me to answer, but it’s for me to ask.And I have asked.

FNL: And the faculty is the same size, also.The undergraduates and the faculty are thesame size, and the graduate students havegrown almost exponentially.

RM: I think the sizing question is notunrelated to the economics question. Theeconomics question around here is whathave we got here? We have a cost structurethat rises disproportionately, becausethere are no gains in productivity the waythere are in the rest of the economy.

So our cost structure rises faster than infla-tion. I’m not the only one who sees that, butI’m surprised at how few people understandit. It’s just true. The world has gotten bigger,which means our competition has gottenbigger, or better, and more expensive. Whichaffects the cost structure yet again.

Research funding, which is what this placewas really supercharged on, is flattening.We’ve got a lot of headwinds in a lot ofdifferent directions. So is this economicmodel sustainable long term? I thinkthat’s a faculty question.

FNL: Thank you so much for allowing us tointerview you for the Faculty Newsletter.I’m sure our colleagues will find it mostinteresting.

RM: Thank you. The pleasure was allmine.


Jonathan KingIn Memoriam Professor Stephan Chorover

STEVE CHOROVER, WHO PASSED AWAY

on February 20 at age 82, was a foundingmember of the MIT Faculty Newsletter.Instrumental in the development of theBrain and Cognitive Science faculty, Stevewas also one of the faculty leaders whopressed for the establishment of the

Program in Science, Technology andSociety.

Steve was an astute observer of thesocial context of scientific and academicwork, and of the human dimensions ofthose engaged. His book From Genesis toGenocide, which critiqued the import ofpseudo-scientific determinism into socialand political policy, was influential amongthe generation of biological and social sci-entists responding to the civil rightsmovement and resistance to the war inVietnam.

Steve was very sensitive not only to thedanger of authoritarian aspects of federalpolicies, but also their reflection withinuniversity administrations. He was one ofthe first senior faculty to voice opposition

to then-Provost John Deutch’s termina-tion of the Department of AppliedBiological Science in 1988. This led to hisparticipation in the establishment of theFaculty Newsletter.

Steve was unusually sympathetic andattuned to the personal concerns of stu-dents, faculty, and staff, and alwaysbrought this dimension into the discus-sions of the FNL Editorial Board. He wasone of those rare faculty members, who,after inquiring how your research andteaching were going, inquired about howyou were doing in general. He will besorely missed by all who knew him.

Jonathan King is a Professor in theDepartment of Biology and MIT FacultyNewsletter Chair ([email protected]).


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Julie NewmanLaunching a Next Generation Sustainability Framework at MIT

M I T F O S T E R S A R I C H network ofdepartments and initiatives workingtoward advancing sustainability oncampus, locally, and around the world atall levels and scales. Students, staff, faculty,and a multitude of institutional and com-munity-based partners collaborate acrossdisciplines to discover innovative solu-tions that improve the well-being ofpeople and the environment. Researchrelated to sustainability spans the devel-opment of clean energy systems, to theoptimization of urban food production,to the design of smart mobility systems.

Many of the urgent issues our stu-dents, researchers, and faculty are grap-pling with have relevancy to theday-to-day and long-term decision-making of a dense, urban campus definedby the Charles River and its ecosystem.This synergy among our education,research, and how we manage our campusoperations has the potential to pro-foundly impact the sustainability of ourcampus and, in turn, systems throughoutthe world.

Building on the momentum of thepast and with an influx of new partnersand projects, it is an opportune momentat MIT to take sustainability innovation toscale on campus, locally, and beyond. Weare now positioned to ask ourselves: Howcan MIT become a game-changing forcefor campus sustainability in the twenty-first century?

MIT has a history of prioritizing thesustainability of its buildings and thestudy, research, and implementation oftransformative energy systems. TheCampus Energy Taskforce and the MITEnergy Initiative (both established in

2006) and a commitment to constructingand renovating LEED (Leadership inEnergy and Environmental Design) certi-fied buildings on campus have set a strongfoundation for current and future efforts.Most significantly, the Institute hasembarked on the initial phases of acampus renewal program that will con-tinue through 2030. Plans for renewal andexpansion of the Central Utilities Plantalign our campus energy generation, dis-tribution, and building power usage in

support of an ever-expanded mission –one that is “right-sized” to the naturalresource constraints of a changingeconomy and climate and to the needs ofa first-class research campus.

In the last two years, MIT has expo-nentially increased its capacity to drivesustainable solutions. The Office ofSustainability was established in thesummer of 2013, followed by the MITEnvironmental Solutions Initiative (envi-ronmentalsolutions.mit.edu/contact-us)that fall. A year later, President Reif calledfor an exploration into “how the MITcommunity – through education, researchand campus engagement – can construc-

tively move the global and nationalagendas forward” on effective climatechange mitigation, thereby launching theMIT Conversation on Climate Change(climatechange.mit.edu). At the city level,Cambridge is advancing toward buildingenergy use disclosure, understanding netzero building emissions, exploring anEcoDistrict in Kendall Square, and climateaction planning. The Office is now posi-tioned as a connecting force in this networkof sustainability-related initiatives.

Calling for a Next GenerationSustainability Framework at MITThe creation of an Office ofSustainability, under the leadership of theExecutive Vice President and Treasurer’sOffice, has given MIT the unique oppor-tunity to redefine the field of campus sus-tainability. MIT’s commitment to appliedresearch, technology, and policy innova-tion combined with lessons from peerinstitutions, now enables us to frame a“next generation” approach to campussustainability that moves the entire fieldforward.


Many of the urgent issues our students, researchers, andfaculty are grappling with have relevancy to the day-to-day and long-term decision-making of a dense, urbancampus defined by the Charles River and its ecosystem.. . . We are now positioned to ask ourselves: How canMIT become a game-changing force for campussustainability in the twenty-first century?


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Launching a Sustainability FrameworkNewman, from preceding page

A core component of a next generationapproach is the creation of a decision-making platform for the campus that isfounded on systems thinking andpowered by responsive, robust data andmetrics. The interactions between humanhealth, environmental quality, and fiscalresponsibility, are increasingly complex.Even routine decisions become compli-cated when we take into account the inter-connectedness of the systems that sustainus. How do our decisions about campusdesign impact the Charles RiverWatershed? What is the relationshipbetween the materials that flow intocampus via procurement systems andthose that flow out via waste manage-ment? A commitment to sustainabilityallows us to consider near- and long-termfiscal, environmental, and human healthimpacts when making decisions, and weare currently building the capacity tocreate this process.

By developing tools like those shownin Figure 1, we are working across infra-structure investments and decision-making to ensure sustainability isinherent – not additional – to the way weoperate our campus. Sustainability andenergy use are now an integral part ofongoing discussions, with new emphasison downscaling inefficiency in buildings,and scaling up our ability to operate acampus on the cutting edge of sustainableinfrastructure. A comprehensive opera-tional greenhouse gas inventory com-pleted for FY2014, also gives us new datato help manage, plan, and prepare toreduce our contribution to climatechange.

Building Capacity for a SustainableFuture In the fall of 2014, we launched our firstset of Sustainability Working Groups withsystems thinking at their core, charged

with re-examining the management ofthe campus and recommending strategiesthe Institute can take to advance sustain-ability to its highest potential. The first setof priorities includes: Sustainable Designand Construction, Green Labs, MaterialsManagement, and Stormwater and LandManagement. The recommendationsdeveloped by these Working Groups thisspring will seek to align campus opera-tions along a core set of sustainabilityprinciples, setting a strong foundation forrigorous and innovative Institute-widegoal-setting, measurement and verifica-tion, and implementation strategies.

In March 2015, “SustainabilityConnect2015” (sustainability.mit.edu/sustain-abilityconnect) convened the staff, faculty,and administrative Working Group par-ticipants and sponsors, as well as fouradditional groups and committees taskedwith developing related recommenda-tions, including the Climate ChangeConversation. The first event of its kind atMIT, this forum combined presentations

Figure 1. Students, faculty, and researchers collaborating with facilities project teamsare gathering and analyzing building systems data. These metrics viewed through thelens of resource conservation will enable us to consider and establish renewal priorities. This graph shows building gross square footage correlated to academic mission relevance, and energy intensity, allowing teams to make decisions on futureenergy use and building updates at the intersection of performance and sustainability.

Figure 2. Full building renovations pro-vide significant opportunities to incorpo-rate sustainable systems that reduceenergy usage and emissions. Once reno-vated, E52 is expected to reduce carbonemissions by more than half the standardfor comparable buildings.


19

from topical experts with concreteworking sessions covering topics such asclimate vulnerability in Cambridge andthe power of innovation to transformcampus sustainability. The purpose of theday was to set a foundation for the devel-opment of an integrated and innovativeset of recommendations this spring. Newand old colleagues came together – over125 students, staff, and faculty were inattendance.

During one of the event’s talks, Henry“Jake” Jacoby, Professor Emeritus ofManagement and member of the ClimateConversation Committee said: “We seeourselves as a catalyst for change, andthere are a lot of people in the worldlooking at what we do.” If the Institute canfind solutions on campus that are scalableand replicable, he said, “We can have aninfluence.” This recognition that we canhave a global impact through our campusactions is driving the working groups

forward as they craft their next generationrecommendations.

The recommendations that theWorking Groups develop this spring –and all recommendations from futureworking groups – will head to the newlyestablished Campus Sustainability TaskForce, made up of students, staff, andfaculty from the five Schools. The TaskForce will work under the auspices of theCampus Sustainability SteeringCommittee to shape the vision and planof action for campus sustainability atMIT.

The Task Force, working with theOffice of Sustainability, will connect theleadership of the MIT Energy Initiative,MIT Environmental Initiative, andCommittee on the MIT Climate ChangeConversation. Its membership will enablethe MIT community – faculty, students,and staff from across the Schools andinterdisciplinary laboratories – to set a

vision for MIT. The Task Force com-menced in April 2015 and will regularlysubmit recommendations to the CampusSustainability Steering Committee forreview and endorsement.

Harnessing the power of the collectivetoward a sustainable future at MITMIT is well positioned to excel in a nextgeneration approach to campus sustain-ability given its collaborative fabric ofresearchers, entrepreneurs, inventors, andcommunity partners. We are poised totransform the campus and its surround-ings into a scalable laboratory, in which todevise, pilot, implement and evaluate thesustainable urban strategies of today andthe emerging next generation strategiesfor tomorrow.

As a community, we now need todetermine together which game-changingquestions to pursue. How can we connectthe campus to the cutting edge researchon solar energy and hydrocarbon produc-tion, on global systems and nanostruc-tured materials? MIT is positioned to takethe lead in this arena and build a new nar-rative.

Figure 3. A depiction of the Sustainability Governance structure now in place. Julie Newman is Director of Sustainability inthe Office of the Executive Vice President andTreasurer ([email protected]).


M.I.T. NumbersFaculty Demographics

Source: Office of the Provost/Institutional Research

United States 58%

India 4%

China 3%

United Kingdom 3%

Canada 3%

Germany 2%

Greece 2%

Italy 2%

Israel 2% France

1%

Russia 1%

South Korea 1% Spain

1%

Turkey 1%

Japan 1%

Poland 1% Argentina

1%

All Others 13%

Born Outside the U.S.

42%

Country of Origin

MIT 26.6%

Harvard 12.0%

Stanford 9.0%

UC Berkeley 8.2%

CalTech 3.6%

Princeton 3.3%

U Chicago 2.4%

U Pennsylvania 1.8%

Columbia 1.7%

Yale 1.6%

Cornell 1.3% NYU

1.2%

U Michigan 1.0%

UCLA 1.0%

Oxford 0.9%

U Wisconsin 0.9%

All Others 23.6%

Institution of Highest Degree

mit faculty newsletter, vol. xxvii no. 5, may/june 2015web.mit.edu/fnl/volume/275/fnl275.pdf · mit...

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