MIT Reports to the President 2000–2001

Dean for Undergraduate Education

In This Report Organizational Changes Developments and Initiatives Centers, Offices and Programs Admissions Office Office of Academic Services Office of Career Services and Preprofessional Advising Office of Minority Education Office of the Registrar ROTC Programs Student Financial Services Student Services Information Technology Teaching and Learning Laboratory

The past year started with important organizational changes for the Office of the Dean for Undergraduate Education (DEU). In July 2000 the DUE office became distinct from the Office of the Dean for Student Life (DSL); previously both had been part of the Office of the Dean for Students and Undergraduate Education (ODSUE). With this change, Professor Rosalind Williams completed her 5-year term as ODSUE Dean. Professor Robert P. Redwine became Dean for Undergraduate Education, and Dr. Larry G. Benedict became Dean for Student Life.

While the DUE and DSL offices are now organizationally separated, there is a strong commitment across the organizations to work together on the many issues involving student life and learning. To promote this close collaboration, the two Deans' offices, along with that of Senior Associate Dean Robert Randolph, are now co-located in the 4-110 suite. There are also important administrative connections between DUE and DSL, including, for example, our joint process for awards and recognition.

With the new organization and new leadership, the Office of the Dean for Undergraduate Education had a very exciting and productive year. The summary below discusses the highlights; many more details are contained in the office summaries which follow.

Organizational Changes

At the beginning of this year, Elizabeth Hicks joined DUE as Director of Student Financial Services (SFS). Hicks immediately began to make her mark, re-organizing personnel and activities to make SFS more responsive and efficient in its mission to support our students in reaching their educational goals. DUE, with the strong support of the Provost's and Chancellor's Offices, is providing considerable financial resources to assist Hicks in her make-over of the SFS.

The importance of serious assessment and evaluation of initiatives in education has become very clear in recent years. Such assessment should be part of the design of initiatives and not just be attempted after-the-fact. An important center at MIT for assessment and evaluation has been the Teaching and Learning Laboratory (TLL), directed by Lori Breslow. In the past year we have brought TLL into DUE as a full-fledged office and are in the process of strengthening the group and physically locating TLL near other DUE activities in the main group of buildings. The assessment and evaluation activities of TLL are already having important impacts on the projects funded by the d'Arbeloff Fund and by iCampus.

Significant organizational changes involving the Registrar's Office, the Office of Academic Services (OAS), and senior personnel Mary Callahan, Margaret Enders, and Kim Vandiver took place this year. Early in the year it was decided to agree to Mary Callahan's wish to concentrate on being Registrar, thus giving up the co-directorship of OAS. Dean for Undergraduate Research Kim Vandiver was asked to co-direct OAS with Associate Dean Margaret Enders.

In the past year, DUE has played a leadership role in the development of the Cambridge/MIT Institute (CMI). The Dean is the MIT Program Director for Undergraduate Education and Student Exchange in CMI. Assistant Dean Margaret Enders and Associate Dean Kirk Kolenbrander have led successful efforts within DUE to implement the student exchange program, and several DUE and DSL offices contributed significantly to these efforts.

We were pleased this year to host Professor Gordon Weil, Associate Provost of Wheaton College as an ACE Fellow. Professor Weil's wisdom, good humor, and many contributions were much appreciated.

Some specific offices within DUE have made important progress in increasing the diversity of their staff. This is important not just for the individuals and offices involved, but also for our capability to serve and support a diverse student body. Other offices within DUE will receive more attention in this regard in the coming year.

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Highlights of Developments and Initiatives in Undergraduate Education

It is important to emphasize that the recent report of the Task Force on Student Life and Learning continues to be a guide for many activities in DUE. We are strongly committed to the goal of establishing community, along with classroom teaching and research, as a critical third leg of an MIT education. We are especially concentrating on working with DSL to use new housing opportunities to enhance the overall education of MIT students.

As described above, our activities in CMI have so far concentrated on establishing the undergraduate exchange program. This is moving along very well, with 25-30 students from each university expected to participate in the fall of 2001. We expect to spend more effort in the future on helping to establish joint courses with Cambridge.

It is critical to the success of DUE's mission that we work in conjunction with the faculty and students on programs and initiatives. A primary vehicle for this collaboration is the Committee on the Undergraduate Program (CUP). In the past year there has been especially close collaboration with CUP on several issues.

One of these issues is implementation of the new Communications Requirement (CR). The CUP Subcommittee on the Communications Requirement, with much help from DUE, has led the effort in the past year to bring the schools and departments to the point where the CR can be implemented with the class entering in 2001. This effort has gone very well, although there is much additional work to be done before the departments see the full implications of the requirement in 2003. Changes in DUE related to the CR, especially in the Registrar's Office, are well along. We are in the process of hiring a CR Coordinator for DUE; this person will provide coordination of many aspects of the CR across the Institute.

Another joint CUP/DUE project in the past year has been developing and shepherding the Pass/No Record change proposal through the approval process. We are now working on the changes necessary to have it in place for the class entering in 2002.

It is very important that DUE have an appropriate role in realizing the many opportunities provided by new technology for education. The best role is likely that of serving as a bridge between the new initiatives involving technology and the more mainstream efforts in education by our faculty and departments. To accomplish this the Dean for Undergraduate Education now serves as co-chair (with Provost Bob Brown and Professor Hal Abelson) of the Council on Educational Technology. This connection has proven critical to providing support from DUE for initiatives, such as OpenCourseWare.

The past year has seen the first full year of projects funded by the d'Arbeloff Fund for Educational Innovation and the second annual competition for new funding. By all accounts this program is extraordinarily successful, both in terms of invigorating the campus in this critical area and in terms of starting efforts which promise to be part of long-term changes in undergraduate education at MIT.

As described above, the Teaching and Learning Laboratory is now providing important resources and leadership for assessment and evaluation of a wide variety of educational initiative on campus.

Six new MacVicar Faculty Fellows were named this year: Mary C. Boyce, Anne Mayes, David A. Mindell, Heidi M. Nepf, Janet Sonenberg, and J. Kim Vandiver. The new Fellows were announced at a luncheon at the March Corporation meeting. This occasion was also MacVicar Day, at which several new activities in active learning were presented and discussed.

The Enrollment Management Group, chaired by the Dean for Undergraduate Education, met several times to decide on recommendations to Academic Council on tuition and financial aid policy for next year. The highlight of the recommendations and the eventual decision was a significant reduction in the "self-help" level. This change should provide important financial and educational benefits for many of our students.

We continue to work with the Development Office to secure funding for important initiatives and programs. The UROP program received significant additional funding this year, for example. We are actively seeking to endow as much of the Communications Requirement costs as possible.

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Admissions Office

The goal of the Admissions Office is to identify, recruit, select, and enroll the best students in science, engineering and technology in the world. We continue to have great success despite increasing competition and a wildly fluctuating marketplace, primarily due to the changing financial aid policies of our major competitors. Though our yield has dropped slightly because of this, we still hold the #5 position among our competitors. The main themes this year in Admissions are the following:

• The Institute increased its financial aid to needy students by decreasing self-help and changing a few internal policies regarding family assets. This helped us in our yield process, though not as well as hoped since our competition (Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, Yale) also made their financial aid more desirable. In addition, we have worked more cooperatively with Student Financial Services to deliver a smoother admissions process.
• We switched more of our publications and communications to the Web.
• We continued the reorganization of the Educational Council Office to provide an increased, more effective alumni presence in the admissions process.

Admission Statistics

• Our freshman applications were down one percent to 10,495 due to decreased number of internationals.
• The freshman yield rate is 58 percent, or 1039 enrolling, down one percent from last year.
• The enrolling freshman class will include 42 percent women, 18 percent minorities, and a record 10 percent students designated "academic superstars." Forty-five states are represented, all but Alaska, Arkansas, Idaho, Mississippi and North Dakota. International students are citizens of 45 countries, though if U.S. Permanent Residents were included, 60 countries would be represented in the class.
• The freshman admit rate was 17 percent, the second smallest applicant-to-admit ratio in MIT's history.
• We will enroll 33 transfer students and enrolled 6 this past spring to total 39 enrolling for the year. The admit rate was 13 percent, the yield rate is 85 percent (compared to last year's figures of 17 percent admit rate and 78 percent yield).
• Graduate applications were down 13 percent to 10,253. Overall admit rate was 24 percent. The yield is up slightly to 57 percent from 56 percent last year.

Currently there are a record 1956 Educational Counselors (ECs) representing 50 states and 54 countries. Twenty-six percent (509) are female and 4 percent (74) are minorities. ECs interviewed 95 percent of all applicants. ECs arranged 93 central recruiting meetings for admissions staff around the US in 83 cities last fall attended by over 11,000 people. They also sponsored 61 admitted student receptions this spring and 9 enrolling receptions this summer.

Successes

We were able to document a direct correlation between our admissions numeric index and future MIT GPA. As a result we made a change in how we admit undergraduates, and this year's CAP studies confirm that we are admitting fewer students who are likely to have academic trouble. This year, as in last, 2 percent of the admitted group had numeric indexes in the lower half of the pool. This means that this entering freshman class has the highest overall numeric index on record, and therefore, should be most likely to do well at MIT.

It was an extraordinary year for minority freshman admissions. We had a 19 percent increase in minority freshman applications, the highest on record at 887. This includes record high applications from African American and Mexican American students. The admit rate of 34 percent is an all-time low for MIT (low admit rates are good), down from 40 percent last year and from the 55 percent range of the 1990s. This means that we are attracting a larger pool of qualified applicants and can afford to be more selective. We also have the highest minority yield ever at 62 percent, 3 percentage points higher than our overall yield. It is important to note that these students are well within the top half of the numeric index of our admit group, the strongest class in MIT's history. Among our peer institutions, we have the 2nd highest yield for African Americans after Harvard, and the highest yield for Mexican Americans.

We had the greatest faculty involvement in admissions in the 22 years that I have been in the Admissions Office. We more than doubled the number of faculty readers and their attendance at selection, though the numbers are still small (30 faculty).

We worked hard to expand our web presence:

• We completed the first two stages of our admissions web site redesign.
• We chose one vendor (CollegeNet) for both grads and undergrad admissions to provide an electronic application that will be directly downloaded into our database.
• We expanded electronic application status-checking for Educational Counselors. ECs can now look up the decisions on their interviewees as well as the quality ratings of their reports.
• Out of desperation Admissions shut off its email operation last summer, but we have now secured an email system through CollegeNet that makes email easier to answer and which, incidentally, is free.

Once again we held the Campus Preview Weekend for all admitted prefrosh this year. Fourty-seven percent of the class chose to attend (42 percent last year) and 71 percent of them have chosen to enroll this fall (73 percent yield last year). Campus Preview Weekend is our top yield event, as well as being one of the few events that pulls the undergraduate communities together.

Nearly all of the graduate departments now use the graduate admissions database. We have helped several departments analyze their yields as well as design their cancellation studies. And as of this past July 1, the graduate application is now electronic.

Marilee Jones

More information about this department can be found online at http://www.mit.edu/admissions/.

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Office of Academic Services

Academic Information and Communication

As part of a comprehensive review of undergraduate advising being undertaken by the Office of Academic Services (OAS) to complement the work of the Committee on the Undergraduate Program, a Discovery Team on Advising at MIT was formed to explore ways to improve information flow to and from undergraduates and their advisors. The team's recommendations included a wish list of features for an online augmented advising system based on feedback from faculty, students and staff; and a plan for coordinated content delivery that is presented from the users' points of view rather than on the basis of organizational structure.

The team's recommendations were based on interviews with students, faculty, and staff, as well as on best practices identified in other universities and in business. The final report and background information of the discovery project are available at http://web.mit.edu/is/discovery/advising/. Sponsors of this project included the CUP and the Dean for Undergraduate Education; all sponsors have enthusiastically endorsed the recommendations, and implementation is underway.

Work also continued throughout the year with members of the Academic Resource Center to plan and create a new "First Year" web site with both improved navigation and content. The site went live at the beginning of May.

The Academic Resource Center

The Academic Resource Center (ARC) has spent this year systematically evaluating all programs and initiatives, and resource allocation, and assessing new programmatic needs necessary to support and facilitate the success of academically at-risk students, under-represented minorities, athletes, and other populations within the freshman class. Follow-up of students flagged in the 5th week has been instituted; end-of-term outcomes have been followed.

New and expanded opportunities were initiated this year to provide collaborative relationships with other offices within the two new Dean's offices and the departmental undergraduate academic administrators. Efforts are underway to further develop opportunities to collaborate with the Office of Minority Education.

Orientation

Four student coordinators led the Orientation '00 Committee and 108 upper classmen were involved as orientation leaders. Thirty percent of the incoming class participated in five pre-orientation programs (Leadership, Outdoors, Ocean Engineering, Arts, and Urban programs). The residence Midway allowed students to investigate housing options without leaving campus.

Successful and varied programming that was continued included a presentation by Jay Friedman regarding alcohol and relationships; a health and wellness fair; and programming focusing on underrepresented minorities, women's, and LBGT's issues. Twenty-five volunteers complemented the student coordinators, leaders and staff.

Specific programs were offered to transfer students and there was a separate dinner for these students. Thirty-five transfer students entered in the fall of 2000, and six in the spring of 2001.

Freshman Advising

Ninety-three freshman advising seminars were offered, and there were sixty-five traditional advisors. Recruiting faculty to be freshmen advisors remains a challenge. Faculty represented 53.8 percent of the freshman advisors. The advising cadre included 85 faculty and 73 administrators and staff. There were 210 associate advisors. Expanded professional development opportunities were offered to both advisors and associate advisors.

A new pilot program in Residence-Based advising, supported by a d'Arbeloff grant, was implemented in the fall of 2000. The advising pilot represents an effort to create freshman advising communities that incorporate academic support with upper-class student mentoring and student life programming through the living group. Sixty-eight women in McCormick Hall were advised through six seminars and with two traditional advisors. Assessment indicators are positive thus far, and a final assessment is underway.

Independent Activities Period (IAP)

During IAP 2001, 547 different non-credit activities were available to the MIT community. Additionally, 100 for-credit subjects were taught during this period. Both on-line submission of offerings and the on-line IAP Guide were very effectively accessed and used. Printed IAP Guides were reduced by 3000 copies to 12,000 duplicates.

Publications and Web

The ARC has eliminated a number of publications or reduced them to brochures with an extensive listing of web addresses. Information is focused on four cyclic homepages, timed for the student's progress within the academic cycle. In addition, large publications which quickly become outdated, such as the UROP Directory, are available on-line, but are complemented with a small summary brochure.

Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program

During summer 2000 and academic year 2000-2001, a total of 1832 students conducted 2862 UROP projects. There is a slight increase in both the number of projects (2819 vs. 2862) and the number of participants (1758 to 1832) compared to last year. In AY2000-2001, 70 percent of the students chose UROP for pay, 28 percent for credit and 2 percent volunteered. During the summer, with the exception of two students, all UROP students conducted their projects for pay.

Presently, the UROP book-value endowment exceeds $8.4M; the Paul E. Gray Fund for UROP is the largest of the Program's individual endowment funds. Increased income from the endowment, combined with gifts and Institute funds, allowed the UROP office to allocate $954,000 to students. Additionally, faculty allocations to students through sponsored research or departmentally managed funds reached $5,415,000.

UROP's IAP Research Mentor Program continues to be a highly effective means of preparing freshmen for UROPs. Throughout the four-week program, experienced UROPers provided guidance to freshmen while working on their ongoing projects. This year thirty mentors collaborated with forty-one "pre-UROPers"; 54 percent of the participants went on to their own projects in the spring and/or summer of 2001.

ARC Programming and Outreach

A number of activities and programs were undertaken to enhance and support the academic success of students and facilitate interaction among faculty, staff and students. Notable activities include academic programming associated with the residence-based Advising Pilots; the organization of peer Choice of Major programming within residences; the introduction of an alumni panel during the Choice of Major fair and an IAP activity (co-sponsored with Human Resources) to assist students in making confident decisions about major choice.

Support to the Committee on Academic Performance

The increased number of ARC letters in 2000-2001 is due to a change in the minimum number of units which triggers such a letter.

Curriculum Development and Faculty Support

Alumni Engagement

As a new strategic direction for MIT, the Council on Educational Technology (CET) chartered a team in summer 2000 to assess and recommend how MIT will harness the experience and intellectual curiosity of alumni by drawing them into the core educational experience of students. Following on the team's work and recommendations, the CET and DUE asked the OAS to take responsibility for the continued exploration and development of alumni engagement activities at MIT. Activities this year have targeted support to d'Arbeloff funded programs, including "Mission 2004" (18 alumni were matched with ten student teams); BioMatrix (33 percent of the mentors are MIT alumni); "Factories and Laboratories" (we helped identify alumni working in both senior and junior roles); and "Exploring Black Holes" (12 alumni have been selected to participate in this experimental class). In addition, the Graduate Student Council and the Undergraduate Association, working closely with and supported by the OAS, submitted in the spring a funded proposal for several projects that will bring together students, alumni, and faculty. The OAS has been working closely with the Alumni Association on these programs and would like to acknowledge their support.

Cambridge-MIT Institute Undergraduate Student Exchange

Staff within the OAS are involved with a number of the Undergraduate Education activities associated with the new Cambridge-MIT Institute. In particular, OAS has assumed responsibility for the planning and support of the undergraduate student exchanges between academic departments at MIT and the University of Cambridge. During this academic year, nine MIT undergraduate students attended the University of Cambridge from three engineering departments. The program has been expanded to include seven departments in engineering and science; in addition, we are working closely with faculty and staff in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences as we develop an exchange program that will meet the needs of our students in terms of their overall program.

Colloquium and Seminar Support

We provided assistance to the Dean for Undergraduate Education in the production of the IAP 2001 Spark Forum lecture series and of an MIT Colloquium. The topic of the Colloquium was "National Security, Civil Rights and Politics: Lessons Learned from the Wen Ho Lee Case," and involved a number of speakers from MIT and elsewhere.

d'Arbeloff Fund Educational Support

The OAS provided considerable support during the complete proposal development and review process, culminating in the distribution of awards to the 15 projects that have been funded for 2001-2002. In addition, significant administrative support was provided to a number of projects funded for 2000-2001, including "Mission 2004" and the BioMatrix mentoring project.

Faculty Governance

We continue to provide significant support to the Committee on the Undergraduate Program; in addition, this year staff support was dedicated to supporting the considerable efforts of the Pass/No Record Grading and AP Credit Subcommittee. An implementation team has been formed, led by staff in OAS. Finally, OAS provides assistance to the Chair of the Faculty in the screening of student complaints about term regulation violations.

Scholarships and Fellowships

This year the OAS provided administrative support and oversight to a number of scholarship and fellowship programs. Also, for the first time the OAS provided administrative support to MIT's chapter of Phi Beta Kappa. We inducted 61 seniors into our chapter of the honor society and held an awards ceremony with a lecture by Prof. Morris Halle, Institute Professor Emeritus of Linguistics.

Subject Evaluation

We are reviewing the results of the online subject evaluation efforts in Course 16 as we examine the feasibility of introducing a similar option to all academic departments.

Who's Teaching What

All MIT academic departments, with the exception of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, are now contributing to the Who's Teaching What (WTW) data collection effort. This collaborative effort between OAS and Student Services Information Technology (SSIT) is motivated by the need to respond in a systematic and complete manner to the increasing requests for information about who is teaching our students - and at the same time have data available for numerous other institutional needs.

Personnel

New staff in OAS include: Leslie Bottari, Administrative Assistant; Mary Camerlengo, Staff Associate, Academic Performance; Nancy Crosby, Administrative Assistant; Andrew Eisenmann, Associate Dean; Cecilia Marra, Technical Support Analyst; Julie Norman, Associate Dean, Academic Resources and Programming; Dauri Rosenfield, Administrative Assistant; and Eric Thorsen, Administrative Assistant.

Donna Friedman was promoted to Assistant Dean, Freshman Advising and Academic Services. Melissa Martin was promoted from Administrative Assistant to Staff Associate, UROP.

Three staff members left the office: Van Chu left MIT to join the Peace Corps; Margaret Devine-Sullivan is now assistant director of academic programs in the Sloan School; Leonard Lu has become an analyst programmer in Student Services Information Technology.

Peggy Enders, Kim Vandiver

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Office of Career Services and Preprofessional Advising

The Office of Career Services and Preprofessional Advising's (OCSPA) mission is to help students to learn about the relationship between what they do at MIT and life after graduation; to develop the competencies required beyond technical knowledge; to make informed decisions about career goals and to find opportunities related to their professional objectives; and to contribute to civilization. Career development is an ongoing process that includes: self-assessment, career exploration, choice of major, competency development; networking, informational interviewing, mentoring, internships, summer jobs and other opportunities to gain experience in fields of interest; study abroad; and preparation for the job search, and graduate/professional school application process, and productive, rewarding lives. Above all else, it is a generative process, which provides a foundation for achieving goals throughout life. OCSPA provides career development for students beginning with freshmen and first-year graduate students through individual one-to-one counseling, and a series of coordinated programs including a sequence of workshops and seminars.

Major Accomplishments

Career Development

OCSPA staff continues to maintain high levels of career development service to students, including more than 2353* office visits, and, while the number of appointments, 1460 (-10 percent), was down, the number of students coming in during "Walk-In Hours", 893 (+33 percent), was up significantly, as was the number of students attending workshops, 3519 (+60 percent). Staff also provide extensive advice to students and alumnae/i increasingly by email. Office visits included 1269 (54 percent) undergraduates of whom there were 331 freshmen, 287 sophomores, 214 juniors, and 305 seniors; 775 (33 percent) graduate students of whom there were 391 masters students, 313 doctoral students, and 66 post docs. OCSPA also saw 228 alumni and 81 employees and others. The following tables detail this level of activity and which MIT students are utilizing our services.

*As a result of improved record keeping systems this data on office visits is now reported for the fiscal year while in the past it was reported for the academic year.

Through our school-based teams OCSPA staff meet with many departments to provide help in a variety of ways including: participating in events for prospective, incoming and current students; developing of career information for their departmental website; collaborating on developing internship and other programs which provide professional opportunities to their students; and providing information about the post-graduation destinations of each school or department's graduates.

OCSPA continues to seek to integrate the educational experience with a career development focus for learning through our Comprehensive Student Plan for Career Development. The plan offers a developmental framework for our programs, such as F/ASIP and Career Services For PhDs and Post Docs. OCSPA workshops are offered in settings across0 campus including residence halls and for various groups of students. The capacity of the OCSPA website also continues to be expanded to incorporate interactive portions that encourage and support student learning on-line.

Research Activity

1396 (63 percent) of the June 2001 graduates responded to the fourth annual OCSPA Survey of Graduates as they picked up their caps and gowns. Earlier response rates were 45 percent in 2000, 63 percent in 1999, and 83 percent in 1998. The survey data contains information about the demographics of the sample, their post-graduation plans, salary, career resources used, career planning, graduate school information and employment information. The survey has attracted considerable interest from schools and departments as useful outcomes assessment and as a planning tool. The data also help students learn about the relationship between what they do at MIT and life after graduation.

Freshman/Alumni Summer Internship Program

A cornerstone of our Comprehensive Student Plan for Career Development, Freshman/Alumni Summer Internship Program (F/ASIP) offers first year students the opportunity to experience self-assessment, career exploration and strategic implementation of career planning. 164 (+13 percent) students enrolled in the program, and 81 of them landed internships in 19 states and in China and Poland. The statistics are outstanding, as about 20 percent of the pre-negotiated F/ASIP internships were cancelled early in the recruiting cycle due to the downturn in the economy. We worked with the Alumni Association, the Industrial Liaison Program, and the Office of Corporate Relations to identify opportunities and alumni at various companies including start-ups, large corporations, government agencies and research organizations. Students are working on a variety of projects, making valuable contributions to society as well as to their employers. For example, one student is working on counteracting the block that the Chinese government puts on the Voice of America radio and Internet programs. Through a targeted mailing to incoming students and a more visible marketing campaign in the fall, and continuous program improvement we hope to increase the number of students who participate in F/ASIP to 300 in FY2002. To date, the demand for internships consistently exceeds the number we have available. We will strive to balance the supply and demand for internships next year.

Preprofessional Advising

In 2000, there were 168 degree and 6 non-degree, applicants to medical school, 174 in all (+2 percent), far more than the only 99 who applied in 1988. Eighty-one percent of the seniors were accepted; 57 percent of graduate students; and 59 percent of alumni/ae. There were a total of 50 pre-medical advisors: 21 MIT and MIT-Harvard HST faculty members, 27 physicians, one former dean at the Academic Resource Center, and the former director of OCSPA. MIT remains an excellent choice for premedical studies and, despite higher criteria for acceptance, our students continue to do well. Key initiatives continue to be recruiting more Pre-Medical Advisors, advising undergraduates, graduates, and alumni/ae; developing an online database, which when completed, will provide 24/7 access to student information; benchmarking with other undergraduate institutions in order to determine best practices and continue ongoing quality service improvements in MIT Pre-Medical Advising System; building effective ongoing communication with Pre-Medical Advisory Council, Pre-Medical Advisors, Pre-Medical students, MIT-AMSA chapter, and MIT-BUSA chapter.

Employment Recruiting

Over 650 employers participated in OCSPA's on-line, web-based employment recruiting program, InterviewTrak delivered in partnership with Monstertrak. Through this system, students, alumni/ae, and employers were able to communicate with each other throughout the job search process twenty-four hours a day and seven days a week. Employers posted jobs, students reviewed the job-postings and sent resumes over the Internet, and together they were able to build interview schedules. Currently 10,716 students and alumni/ae are registered with OCSPA including 6,051 undergraduates, 2,945 Masters, 108 MBAs, 1,461 Ph.D.s, and 151 Post Docs. Employment recruiting is scheduled to almost full capacity for Fall 2001, which indicates that there will be a high volume of activity in the fall and again a taper in the spring. We will be monitoring this situation for effects of the slowing economy on our students.

Career Services For Masters, Ph.D.s, and Post Docs

These new initiatives include the development of a comprehensive professional development program especially for Professional Masters students, and for PhDs and Post Docs from all departments. These are new efforts to specialize in understanding and serving the career needs of these students. Many other professional schools and research universities, including Caltech, Penn, Chicago, Princeton, Yale and Harvard have specific career advisors who serve these students. During the spring term 2001 a new workshop on was developed and presented in conjunction with a program sponsored by the Graduate Student Council. A four-session summer transition group for Ph.D.s who are preparing for the move from student to professional was also offered. Nearly 70 students responded to the announcement of this program, which was intended as a pilot program for about 8 students, we will offer two sections, accommodating a total of 30 students.

Personnel

In conjunction with the staff OCSPA reallocated staff resources to better serve the students who seem to most need our services. Specifically this plan allocated staff to students in more equitable ratios, and provided additional resources to Preprofessional Advising. Diversity of full-time staff at all levels has also increased significantly, 7 of 15 staff or 47 percent are people of color.

Deborah Liverman, Career Development Counselor for the School of Engineering and an African American woman was promoted to Assistant Director for the School of Engineering.

Ricardo Bianco, Graduate Assistant/Career Assistant for the School of Engineering and an Hispanic man was promoted to Career Development Counselor for the School of Engineering reporting to Deborah Liverman. Ricardo also assists Pre-Medical students in the School of Engineering.

Deborah Rosencrans, Assistant Director for the School of Engineering and an Asian American woman now serves as Assistant Director for the Architecture, EECS, Civil and Environmental Engineering, and Media Arts and Sciences.

Hannah Bernstein, Assistant Director for the School of Science is now responsible for Ph.D.s and Post-Docs.

Jason Wall was hired as Assistant Director for Employer Relations, and also works with DUSP.

Alisa Tongg, Career Development Counselor for Architecture, EECS, Civil and Environmental Engineering, and Media Arts and Sciences, and an Asian American woman was promoted to Coordinator of the Freshman/Alumni Summer Internship Program.

Marilyn Wilson was hired as Career Development Counselor for the School of Science UG, and will also assist Pre-Medical students from the School of Science.

Bonnie Walters, recently retired from OAS, was hired as a consultant premedical advisor responsible for recruiting premedical advisors and advising undergraduates, graduates, and alumni/ae.

Shonool Malik was hired as Assistant Director for Preprofessional Advising, Management UG, SDM, LFM, and Study Abroad. Shonool is an Indian woman.

Tamara Raimundi Menghi was hired as Career Development Counselor for Architecture, EECS, Civil and Environmental Engineering, and Media Arts and Sciences, and an Hispanic woman, and will also assist Pre-Medical students in those departments.

All new professional staff have career development experience, and have, or are pursuing master's degrees.

In addition, OCSPA staff contributed significantly to a number of MIT initiatives including the Human Resources Diversity Initiative, Dr. Christopher Pratt and Deborah Liverman; the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Breakfast, Deborah Liverman; and the Council on Work and Family, Elizabeth Reed.

Christopher Pratt

More information about OCSPA is available on our web site: http://web.mit.edu/career/www/.

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Office of Minority Education

Over two and a half decades ago, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology established the Office of Minority Education (OME) to provide academic and personal support to minority students who attend MIT and pursue a degree in Engineering or Science. The establishment of the office was a clear sign of MIT's commitment to minority students and its desire to ensure their success in achieving their academic goals. Over the years, the Institute has implemented several academic enrichment programs to support and develop minority students' intellectual capability to handle the academic rigors of MIT. Over the past four years, MIT has reaffirmed its commitment to guarantee the presence and, where possible, to provide academic enrichment programs to ensure the success of minority students who decide to attend MIT.

To that end, the mission of the Office of Minority Education is to provide effective academic enrichment programs to enhance matriculation, promote higher retention and greater excellence in underrepresented minority (African American, Mexican American, Native American and Puerto Rican/Hispanic) students' academic and general educational achievements, and to encourage their pursuits of higher degrees and professional careers. OME's mission embrace a strategy to address academic and graduation gaps between underrepresented minority and non-minority students on MIT campus.

Academic Year in Review and Accomplishments

Project Interphase

Project Interphase (PI) is one of the significant programs that illuminate MIT's commitment to ensure minority students academic success. The program admitted fifty-seven students which constitute approximately one-third of the admitted underrepresented minority student class. It is a seven and half week rigorous academic experience involving a curriculum that covers physics, calculus, chemistry, writing, physical education and a number of co-curricular activities.

Each year, the OME hires an academic staff that includes faculty and instructors who, with the assistance of graduate and undergraduate students, make up the teaching core for Project Interphase. Professor Nihat Berker served as the Academic Officer and through his leadership the faculty and tutors made significant contributions in preparing the participants of PI '04 to face the rigors of MIT. As a result the PI Class of 2004 received the lowest academic warnings (5) in the history of the program. Reducing the number of academic warnings participants of PI receive has been a goal of the OME leadership for seven years.

The ethnic and gender breakdowns of the PI Class of 2004 were consistent with previous years and closely reflected the underrepresented minority class of 2004. There were twenty-three African Americans, or 40 percent. Mexican Americans represented 28 percent or 16, while Puerto Rican participation increased to 12 percent, numbering 7. PI '04 saw an increase in the number of Hispanic surnamed students to 14 percent. Hispanic surnamed students are individuals who are not part of the Mexican American or Puerto Rican cohorts. Native Americans participation remains the lowest of all groups at 5 percent. This year, women representation in the program was 32 percent, slightly lower than the representation in the overall freshmen class.

Academic advancement continues to be one of the goals of PI. To that end, a high percentage of the students who took the advanced standing test for 18.01 received credit. Thus, they were able to take higher level math classes during the first semester. Several students passed Phase I of the writing requirement. In addition, we observed an increase in the number of students who passed Chemistry in the first semester. These positive outcomes reinforce the value of Project Interphase.

Seminar XL

Seminar XL is an academic enrichment program for first-year underrepresented minority and non- minority students. The students are divided into small interactive learning/study groups focusing on calculus, chemistry, physics, and other freshmen core courses offered in the fall and spring. XL facilitators, who are upper class and graduate students from a broad range of disciplines and ethnic backgrounds, coordinate the study groups and the interactive discussion of materials covered in the subject. Seminar XL utilizes an array of facilitators from a broad range of disciplines and ethnic backgrounds. All facilitators were interviewed, hired and trained by the Associate Dean/Director, in conjunction with the Assistant Dean/Assistant Director. Eighty-two minority and non-minority students enrolled in Seminar XL for the fall and spring terms that covered 8.01, 8.01L, 8.01X, 8.02, 18.01.18.02, 5.111, 5.112, 5.60 and 6.001. The majority of the students who participated in Seminar XL passed the core curriculum of the freshmen year.

Tutorial Service Room

The Office of Minority Education's Tutorial Service Room (TSR) provides tutorial service to a significant number of minority and non-minority students. The TSR is managed by a core of upper-class students who are supervised by the Assistant Dean/Assistant Director of the OME. The OME employed over fifty upperclass and graduate students from an array of ethnic backgrounds to tutor in over fifty courses. The Associate Dean/Director, in conjunction with the Assistant Dean/Assistant Director, interviewed, hired and trained all tutors, whose academic records were verified to make sure that they met the academic requirements of B or better in the courses they tutored. TSR provided academic support for 750 students during the fall and spring semester. Freshman and sophomores made up the majority users in the TSR. In addition, core courses from the freshmen and sophomore years were requested more than courses from the junior or senior year. Women continued to utilize the TSR at a higher rate than did their male counterparts.

Second Summer Program

The Second Summer Program (SSP) entered its 30th year and has complemented MIT's academic experience in an array of disciplines. SSP is an academic enrichment program that supports underrepresented minority students' intellectual growth while assisting them to develop a keen sense of their professional possibilities as engineers and scientists through an array of internships at various companies. Forty one underrepresented minority students qualified to participate in the SSP by attending three orientation sessions, several workshops on resume writing, interviewing techniques, and passing the core curriculum for the freshmen year. In addition, students were required to participate in the Engineering Design Workshop held during Independent Activities Period. Ethnic backgrounds of this year's students included 20 African Americans, 18 Latinos, 2 Native Americans and one other. There were 14 women and 27 men. Fourteen companies participated in the SSP for the 2000-2001 academic year.

Industrial Advisory Council for Minority Education

The Industrial Advisory Council for Minority Education (IACME) helps ensure greater retention and higher academic achievement of MIT's underrepresented minority students through active support of, and participation in, the realization of the OME mission and goals. Two meetings were held during the 2000-2001 academic year which encompassed two town meetings with the Leadership of the Institute. The first town meeting included Professor Thomas Magnanti, Dean of the School of Engineering and Professor Lawrence Bacow, Chancellor. THE Second Town Meeting participants were Professor Robert Armstrong, Department Head of Chemical Engineering, Professor John Guttag, Department Head for Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and Professor Nam Suh, Department Head for Mechanical Engineering. These departments enroll the largest number of underrepresented minority students at the Institute. The outcome of the town meetings was that each department pledged to work with the OME to address some of the issues effecting minority students in departments. During the 2001-2002 academic year, the OME will invite each department to meet the staff of the office and identify areas for collaboration. IACME provided both financial and in-kind support to American Indian Science and Engineering Society (AISES), Mexican American Engineering Society (MAES), National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE), and Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE). Through the stewardship of IACME, the OME contributed over $20,000 to support an array of professional and cultural organizations.

Office of Minority Education Student Advisory Council

Office of Minority Education Student Advisory Council (OMESAC) provides a mechanism for minority students to bring their concerns and issues to the Associate Dean for Undergraduate Education/Director of the OME. OMESAC's membership consist of cross-section of underrepresented students organizations totaling 18 groups. The council held two Robert Taylor Lecture series during the academic year. In the fall and spring semesters, two events were sponsored to focus on issues affecting minority males and females on the MIT campus. A core of representatives from OMESAC served on two search committees to identify two assistant deans for the OME.

Annual Minority Awards Banquet

This year, Dr. Calvin McKie, Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Tulane University was the keynote speaker at the Annual Minority Awards Banquet, supported by the Office of Minority Education, the Graduate Students Office, the Office of the President and Counseling and Support Services. Over two hundred and fifty students, administrators, faculty and support staff attended the banquet. Academic and Cultural Awards were presented to students who have contributed to the quality of life for minority students at MIT.

Personnel

Two search committees were convened during the 2000-2001 academic year to replace Ann Davis Shaw and to identify a new professional staff member to address especially the need to support Latino students at the Institute.

Professor William Watson served as the chair of the search committee for the Assistant Dean/Assistant Director of OME. He was joined by Arnold Henderson, Associate Dean /Section Head CSS; Maggie Devine, Staff Support to the CAP; Gail-Lenora Staton, Financial Officer of the OME; David Lowry, AISES; Luwam Semere, Past President of NSBE; Manuel Sanchez, President of MAES; and Candice Albritton, TSR Manager. A national search plan, implemented to reach a wide range of candidates, resulted in one hundred candidates submitting their resumes for the position. An offer has been made and we expect that the candidate will accept.

The second search committee for the Assistant Dean for Advising and Programs was chaired by Professor Daniel Hastings, from the department of Aeronautics and Astronautics Course 16. He was joined by Professor Vernon Ingram, Maria Otera '02, Desiree Ramirez '02, Mishone Donelson '01, Daniel Sandoval '01 and the Associate Dean/Director of the OME. In response to a national search plan, seventy-one candidates submitted their resumes for consideration for the position. The applicant pool consisted of thirty-three men and thirty-eight women. Four candidates were identified to invite to the campus to be interviewed by the committee and other members of the MIT community. The committee was unable to recommend a candidate for the position, even though two of the finalists were Latinos. Plans are being developed to implement another search to identify a Latino administrator.

Leo Osgood

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Office of the Registrar

The Office of the Registrar promotes the educational goals of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology by conveying to the MIT community and beyond accurate, timely information and providing services related to enrollment, registration, and graduation; by implementing and enforcing academic and administrative policies related to the above; by creating, updating, preserving, and issuing academic records for past and current students and alumni/ae; by developing and communicating official subject, schedule, and curricular program information; by managing and maintaining classroom space; and by publishing in these areas.

In fulfilling its mission, the Office of the Registrar works with the Faculty, Institute/Faculty committees, departments, staff, and students to guide and assist in developing and modifying educational policies and procedures in accordance with Institute policy and local, state, and federal laws. The office will continue to gather, maintain, interpret, and share information—through new technologies, broadened capacities, and enhanced communications—in the areas that the Institute has entrusted to its charge.

Accomplishments

Much effort was spent this year in increasing our delivery of information and services, analyzing and implementing new faculty policies, and supporting new educational initiatives and community events. The year was also marked by the reorganization of the office as an entity separate from the Office of Academic Services.

The office, in partnership with SSIT:

• Piloted an online departmental picture list which allows departmental administrators access to pictures of all their majors; and
• Analyzed, designed, and developed solutions to the new Communications Requirement. These included a way to audit both GIR and departmental aspects of the requirement as well as an advisory messaging mechanism to support enforcement.

Policy work highlights include:

• Worked with CUP, Academic Services, and Admissions to plan the implementation of the new faculty policy on freshman grading.
• Provided information pertaining to the review of the three-year experimental undergraduate cross-registration program with the Massachusetts College of Art and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts.
• Collaborated with the Chair of the Faculty, Academic Services and the President's Office in educating faculty and departments in the interpretation of the new term regulations for undergraduate subjects, particularly in regards to final exam scheduling and ex-camera finals.
• Developed, in conjunction with the Physics Department, a process for including incoming freshman in the 8.01X lottery for the first time.
• Implemented, in collaboration with the Chair of the Faculty and the Chair of CAP, the office implemented a new version of the Incomplete Instructor's form which includes a default final grade.
• Worked with the Cambridge-MIT Initiative to develop procedures for students wishing to study away in the first year of the student exchange to England.
• The Working Group on Student Information Policy gave several presentations regarding the new Student Information Policy to groups on campus as part of the education plan.

In the area of classroom management the office:

• Led the design effort for Rooms 3-370 and 3-270 and the TEAL classroom (Technology Enhanced Active Learning);
• Led the effort to complete renovations of three medium size classrooms in Building 1;
• Completed partial renovations of four classrooms in Building 33, including new lighting, furniture, audiovisual equipment and improvements to HVAC systems;
• Led the effort to define appropriate technology upgrades in Room 1-390 to support distance education
• Led the effort to upgrade audiovisual systems in Room 10-250. Introduced touch screen technology, flexible laptop connections and new video projection systems;
• Provided technology upgrades to Rooms 4-364, 14E-310, and 35-225 in response to faculty driven needs
• Served on the Stata Center classroom design team;
• Provided new furniture in the Walker exam site; and
• Provided data for numerous classroom studies across campus including the new neuroscience building study.

Operational highlights include:

• Assumed responsibility for maintaining and updating the academic portion of WebSIS
• Enhanced the printed Registration Instructions/Class Schedules book and publication of information on the web
• Enhanced the fall freshman registration form

Registration

In 2000-2001 student enrollment was 10,090, compared with 9,972 in 1999-2000. There were 4,258 undergraduates (4,300 the previous year) and 5,832 graduate students (5,672 the previous year). The international student population was 2,489, representing eight percent of the undergraduate and 36 percent of the graduate populations. These students were citizens of 109 countries. (Students with permanent residence status are included with U.S. citizens.)

In 2000-2001, there were 3,335 women students (1,755 undergraduate and 1,580 graduate) at the Institute, compared with 3,287 (1,768 undergraduate and 1,519 graduate) in 1999-2000. In September 2000, 429 first-year women entered MIT, representing 42 percent of the freshman class of 1,017 students.

In 2000-2001, there were, as self-reported by students, 2,780 minority students (1,984 undergraduate and 796 graduate) at the Institute, compared with 2,669 (1,996 undergraduate and 673 graduate) in 1999-2000. Minority students included 402 African Americans (non-Hispanic), 89 Native Americans, 594 Hispanic Americans, and 1,695 Asian Americans. The first-year class entering in September 2000 included 495 minority students, representing 49 percent of the class.

Degrees Awarded

Degrees awarded by the Institute in 2000-2001 included 1,183 bachelor's degrees, 1,553 master's degrees, 10 engineer's degrees, and 492 doctoral degrees-a total of 3,238 (compared with 3,199 in 1999-2000).

Space Moves

The consolidation of Registrar's Office operations in Building 5 has provided a wonderful improvement to the work environment. We are extremely grateful for the support from the senior administration in this move. Unfortunately, the move of SSIT to W92 has challenged our ability to work closely with this crucial group.

Personnel Changes

Shirley Thompson and Peter Hayes were promoted to administrative staff increasing the number of minority administrative staff members to two. Nancy Swallow was promoted to Assistant Registrar.

New support staff in the office include Jeff DiNicola, Margaret Newell, Rachel Grubb, and Nate Hagee. A few members of the office departed for new positions. Phoebe Minias left the office after 10 wonderful years of service to join SSIT; Denise Vallay left to join RLSLP; and Ertha Baptiste-Ikini left to return to school.

Mary Callahan

More information on the Registrar's Office can be found on the office web site at http://web.mit.edu/registrar/.

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ROTC Programs

Air Force Reserve Officers' Training Corps

The mission of Air Force Reserve Officers's Training Corps (AFROTC) is to train leaders to be commissioned Second Lieutenants in the United States Air Force.

The academic year 2000-2001 at Detachment 365 at MIT was exceptional. Accomplishments include the following.

• The academic year started with a memorable New Student Orientation weekend in September 2000.
• We have eight cadets flying on weekends at Hanscom Air Force Base.
• In October 2000, 20 cadets traveled to Washington DC and visited the Capitol and the Pentagon.
• In November 2000, we had a dining-in with former MIT Graduate LTC Daenick as the guest speaker.
• In November 2000, the detachment sponsored a Veterans Week Program. The week began with a tri-service POW/MIA Vigil at MIT. We also marched in the Boston Veteran's Day Parade.
• In March 2001, the detachment visited the McGuire AFB for leadership training and a KC-10 ride.
• In June 2001, we commissioned 4 MIT graduates and 4 Harvard Graduates as Second Lieutenants

There were two new initiatives this year:

• Colonel Kuconis taught a freshman seminar SEM130 and was a freshman advisor.
• Detachment 365 along with Army and Navy ROTC developed a joint leadership seminar with the Sloan School of Management. This 3-credit seminar was taught during IAP.

Captain Brown left the Air Force and MIT. Major Daniels replaced him in February.

Col. John E. Kuconis

For more information about our program, please visit our detachment web page at http://web.mit.edu/afrotc/www/.

Army Reserve Officers' Training Coprs

The mission of the Army Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) is to commission officers in the Active Army, Army Reserves, or Army National Guard by providing instruction and training in military science subjects, to include a focus on leadership development.

Accomplishments include the following:

• Department crafted vision and implementation plans to double enrollment by 2005 addressing directly the 10 year negative enrollment trend.
• Commanding General visited MIT and granted $.5M additional scholarship funding for incoming freshman (Class of 2005) totaling $1.5M.
• MIT granted $9K for cadre/faculty tuition; five of ten faculty members enrolled in professional development opportunities.
• The department was presented the best Army ROTC Unit in the Nation Award by the Order of the Founders and Patriots of America.
• The department received the Commanding General's Award for Training Excellence, awarded to the top 5 percent of the 270 programs across the nation, for the second year in a row.
• Major Curran and Sergeant First Class Anderson presented a module on Leadership in Action in the leadership seminar with Sloan's Leaders for Manufacturing program during IAP.
• Sergeant First Class Anderson conducted a seminar for the CIS Security Studies Program on the Battle of Mogadishu, Somalia where he earned the Bronze Star for valor.
• Lieutenant Colonel Baker began an engineering and science outreach initiative with member firms in the Boston chapter of the Society of American Military Engineers. Over 30 MIT undergraduate students (Non-ROTC and ROTC) participated during the past year. Several students have secured internships with industry through this collaborative effort.
• Students in 15.305 Leadership and Management received credit from the Sloan School of Management for the second consecutive year.

At the end of the academic year, 38 students were enrolled in our program. Of those 38 students 15 (39 percent were minority including 10 women (26 percent).

Of the twelve enrolled MIT students, eight are currently on scholarship. This year the Army ROTC commissioned 7 new second lieutenants, none from MIT.

Off-campus learning opportunities continued to attract cadets who volunteered for training at Fort Benning, GA (Airborne School) and Fort Bragg, NC (Troop Leadership), and an internship at the Pentagon. Participation continued to be strong in the MIT Pershing Rifles Company, a group of both ROTC and non-ROTC students dedicated to the pursuit of excellence in military leadership and tactics.

Four new faculty members have joined the department: Major Curran, Captain Berube, Captain Wiernicki, and Sergeant First Class Beltran. Five faculty members have departed or are in the process of departing: Major Cho, Captain King, Master Sergeant Velez, Sergeant First Class Anderson, and Staff Sergeant Sullivan. Sergeant Hiett has departed for a six-month temporary duty assignment in Europe.

Lt. Col. Brian L. Baker

More information about this department can be found online at http://web.mit.edu/armyrotc/.

Naval Reserve Officers' Training Corps (NROTC)

The Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps (NROTC) program at MIT provides challenging and comprehensive professional education for students attending MIT, Harvard, and Tufts. The Program encourages academic achievement, while providing practical experience, to endow the Navy and Marine Corps with capable officers. -

During the 2000-2001 Academic Year, 19 men and women were commissioned. Program enrollment just prior to June commencement was:

The Navy's financial assistance for MIT students totaled $1,138,000 for the year. We are expecting approximately 17 new freshmen to enter the program this year.

MIT midshipmen are involved in numerous activities throughout the year. In the fall, an annual formal ball was held to celebrate the birthdays of both the Navy and Marine Corps. The MIT NROTC Color Guard participated in the Boston Veteran's Day parade as well as several MIT football games. The midshipman battalion was also active in community service, including cleaning up several Cambridge parks, supporting the New England Shelter for Homeless Veterans, and hosting a Military Excellence Competition for area High Schools. The MIT NROTC sailing team hosted the Seventh Annual Beaver Cup Regatta on the Charles River where the team won first place. Midshipmen also participated in military excellence competitions at Villanova, Cornell, and Holy Cross. The Midshipman Battalion ended the year by hosting the Tri-Service ROTC Pass-in-Review on Berry Field.

During the summer, all scholarship midshipmen participate in active duty training with deployed naval units. This summer, midshipmen served aboard submarines, maritime patrol aircraft, aircraft carriers, and amphibious assault ships, to name a few. This training provides invaluable experience for their future careers as naval officers.

The MIT NROTC unit hosted Rear Admiral Barry Costello, Deputy Director, Plans and Policy, Joint Staff. Admiral Costello spoke about the future of Naval Surface Warfare and discussed principles of leadership with the midshipmen. The unit also hosted Commander Leonard Goff, Commanding Officer of the fast attack submarine, USS City of Corpus Christi. Commander Goff spoke to the unit about the future of the submarine force and what it is like to be a submarine officer.

The culmination of four years of training was reached on June 8, 2001, as twelve MIT students were commissioned as Ensigns in the United States Navy in a service alongside the USS Constitution. The guest speaker was Rear Admiral Michael C. Tracy, Commander, Navy Region Northeast/Submarine Group TWO.

Capt. Conrad J. Donahue

More information about the Navy ROTC can be found online at http://navyrotc.mit.edu/.

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Student Financial Services

The mission of Student Financial Services is to enable students to meet their financial obligations while ensuring access for all qualified students without regard to their financial need. The five core business functions of Student Financial Services are: Bursar, Financial Aid, Loan Services, Student Services Center, and Student Employment.

Bursar

Student Financial Services has responsibility for the Institute's bursar functions of billing and collecting tuition, Institute-related charges, and related fees assessed to students. In FY2001 the Bursar serviced approximately 17,000 student accounts; conducted 319,911 student account transactions; recorded student tuition of $274,701,654; and received income from Bursary Payment Plan finance charges of $203,000 and from late payment fees of $313,860.

Student Account Counselors and the Associate Director, Service Delivery, coordinated activities with Financial Aid Counselors and representatives from the Cambridge-MIT Initiative (CMI) to successfully matriculate the first MIT students to participate in the program between Cambridge University and MIT. The Bursar, with approval from MIT Medical, changed descriptions of medical charges from specific to general to ensure students' privacy.

More information about Bursar functions may be found online at http://web.mit.edu.bursar/.

Financial Aid

Student Financial Services has responsibility for: development of financial aid policy; dissemination of financial aid information; counseling students and parents on financing a MIT education, applying for financial aid, and debt management; determining financial need; packaging financial aid awards; disbursing grants; administering federal, state, and private financial aid; and stewarding financial aid funds, including reporting to donors.

In FY2001 2,304 undergraduates received a total of $54,077,871 in student financial aid, exclusive of student employment. This represents an increase of 7.6 percent from FY2000.

Undergraduate students were awarded scholarships and grants of $42,515,352, an increase of 12.4 percent from FY2000.

Undergraduate students borrowed $11,562,519, a decrease of 7.2 percent from FY2000.

Graduate students borrowed $15,033,908, an increase of 5.2 percent from FY2000.

Total student borrowing by undergraduates and graduates was $26,596,427, a decrease of 0.6 percent from FY2000. Parents borrowed $8,783,827, a decrease of 7.46 percent from FY2000.

Total borrowing by undergraduates, graduates and parents was $35,380,254, a decrease of 2.3 percent from FY2000.

More information about Financial Aid may be found on the web site at http://web.mit.edu.finaid/.

Loan Services

Student Financial Services disburses, bills and collects student and parent loans as well as conducts entrance and exit loan counseling for students to inform them of their rights and responsibilities as well as provide them debt management strategies. Students borrow from four sources: the William D. Ford Federal Direct Loan Program, the Federal Perkins Program, MIT's Technology Loan Program, and the MIT Parsons Loan Program. Parents borrow from three programs: the Federal PLUS Loan Program, the MIT Parent Loan Plan, and the Massachusetts Educational Finance Authority. Student Financial Services is responsible for disbursing student and parent loans from all sources, and for collecting loans from the Federal Perkins Loan Program, MIT Technology Loan Program, MIT Parsons Loan Program, and MIT Parent Loan Plan. In addition to these functions, Student Financial Services collaborates with the MIT Benefits Office to administer the MIT Educational Loan Plan for eligible employees. Beyond the financial aid statistics reported above, during 2001, Loan Services:

• Managed student loan receivable portfolio of approximately $75,953,239 at year-end comprised of $22,480,654 in funds from MIT Loan Programs established by friends and alumni of the Institute, $30,886,678 in funds from the Federal Perkins Loan Program, and $22,585,907 in funds from Mass Bank.
• Conducted 884 exit counseling sessions for graduating students comprised of 604 in group sessions and 280 individual sessions.
• Implemented new federal provisions for rehabilitation of defaulted Perkins Loans effective for FY01. This provision allows borrowers, after making 12 consecutive on time monthly payments, to regain eligibility for federal financial aid and to have all default information removed from their credit history.
• Completed sixth year of participation, FY2001, in the William D. Ford Federal Direct Loan Program.
• Reconciled and completed closeout analysis for fourth year of participation, FY1999, in the William D. Ford Federal Direct Loan Program for disbursements totaling $17,419,376 for the year.
• Collected $4,128,758 in MIT's Federal Perkins Loan Program. The cohort default rate for Federal Perkins is estimated at 5.12 percent for FY2000. This increase is a result of staff turnover and the economic situation in the job market.
• Collected $1,833,433 under the MIT Parent Loan Plan, resulting in a year-end receivable balance of $3,747,741.
• Disbursed $1,905,964 to MIT faculty and staff under the MIT Educational Loan Plan and collected $1,770,698, resulting in a year-end receivable balance of $2,673,707.

More information about Loan Services may be found online at http://web.mit.edu/bursar/alumni.html/.

Student Services Center

Through the Student Services Center, Student Financial Services provides a broad range of academic, financial and general customer services to student, parents, alumni, members of the MIT community and others. Academic services include: obtaining an academic transcript, checking grades, acquiring cross-registration information and materials, and receiving certification of enrollment. Financial services include: making payments on a student account, requesting a refund or cash advance, obtaining a financial aid transcript, discussing a student account statement with a student account counselor, signing loan promissory notes, discussing financial aid needs or awards with a financial aid counselor, receiving loan counseling, signing a loan check, obtaining a copy of the financial aid statement, changing a Meal Plan amount and requesting a new student ID card. In addition, students obtain various paper forms, check Student Employment Office job listings and complete various student employment payroll and federally required forms.

The staff of the center strives to work collaboratively with other MIT offices to create a focal point for student contact and make administrative tasks less time-consuming for students, enabling them to focus on their studies and research.

Student Services Center highlights for FY2001 are as follows.

• The service desk staff (Mary Kathryn Mora, Kimberly Huse and Anne McCall) received Infinite Mile Award for outstanding customer service through the Rewards and Recognitions program.
• The official Student Services Center handbook was revised to update policies and procedures consistent with Institute and Student Financial Services demands.
• The office assumed many of the duties performed by the Meal Plan and Card Office representative who previously resided in the Student Services Center. During FY2001, the Meal Plan and Card Office satellite station was discontinued. In order to accommodate students who wished to adjust their Meal Plan balance or replace a lost card, the Center's service desk staff coordinated work with the two home offices. Their efforts curtailed students' trips to E32 to conduct business.
• The staff received on-going team training from the MIT Training Center and through presentations by representatives from other offices. Most recently Constance Scribner from the Registrar's Office spoke with them about registration initiatives.
• Student Services Center was represented at Project Interphase orientation.

More information about the Student Services Center may be found on the web site http://web.mit.edu/ssc/.

Student Employment

Student Financial Services creates and administers student employment opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students enrolled at the Institute, not just financial aid recipients. It also serves as the human resources office for students and their employers, on- and off-campus. MIT academic and administrative offices rely on Student Financial Services to assist them with personnel policies and procedures related to student employees.

The FY2001 student employment highlights are as follows.

• Employment opportunities for MIT students increased to over 1,700 job listings, including many positions at significantly higher pay rates than in prior years.
• The minimum rate on campus was $7.25. The average hourly rate for freshmen was $7.50 and for upperclass the average was $8.50.
• The fourth year of participation in the Federal Work Study Community Service Program ended with an increase in the number of employers as well as employment positions.
• The Cambridge Port Elementary School became a new site, during the fourth year of participation in the federal America Reads Program—Reach Out-Help Teach A Child to Read. There are now four non-profits involved in the program. 85 MIT students work under the federal work-study program or volunteered to help more than 100 Boston and Cambridge youngsters in grades K-5 learn to read at grade level.
• Created a new and exciting America Counts site. The MATCH School's mission is to prepare disadvantaged urban Boston students to attend and excel in college and beyond—including and especially those students who have not been led to expect a university education. This was a perfect match—7 MIT students tutoring and honing math skills for 9th grade kids. The impact was immediate!
• The office validated the identification of 1642 students who completed the federal I-9 form, were approved and processed.
• 6,270 Personnel Action forms, the vehicle by which students get set up on the student hourly payroll.
• A brochure called "Work—The Profitable Student Activity," was developed to provide freshmen and their families an overview of on-campus employment and to show them that a part time job can be a good balance to academic life.
• Two of our student staff graduated—Liz Sharp and Amy Thayer!

Elizabeth M. Hicks

More information about Student Employment may be found on the web site http://web.mit.edu/seo/.

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Student Services Information Technology

The mission of Student Services Information Technology is to provide high quality information services support to a wide-ranging set of users within the Dean for Undergraduate Education, the Dean for Student Life and MIT. This support focuses on the automation of business processes and information systems to provide students, faculty and administrators with timely and accurate information and support.

Accomplishments

Client — Focused accomplishments uncluded the following:

• Participated in a Discovery effort to determine the best ways to use technology to enhance the advising process at MIT.
• Created PDF formatted picture class lists on WebSIS so they are accessible on all PC platforms.
• Deployed approximately 165 computers across DUE/DSL offices as part of a desktop computer upgrade program.
• Coordinated IT-related aspects of a number of DUE/DSL moves including DUE/DSL Administration, Registrar's Office, Academic Services, Teaching and Learning Lab, Office of Discipline and Conflict Resolution, Student Financial Services, and SSIT.
• Developed web-based process to collect and process freshman seminars catalog information.
• Developed web-based tool to maintain an on-line glossary of MIT terminology.
• Provided web-based graduate housing application entry by students and a lottery process (integrated with Graduate Admissions) to eliminate duplicate data entry, improve communications between housing and academic departments, and provide data for statistical analysis of housing lottery results on yields.
• Implemented a 1.5 percent loan rebate policy per requirements of the Department of Education. This policy was created as an incentive for students to pay their loans in a timely manner.
• For Aid Year 1999-2000, the Department of Education (DOE) approved the Master Promissory Note Project (MPN) as the only approved note for Direct Subsidized and Unsubsidized loans for student borrowers at a specific school. For Aid Year 2000-2001 Multi-Year Master Promissory Notes (MYN) were approved by the DOE. This new change allowed the MPN to be used for many subsidized or unsubsidized loans, for the same student, for multiple years, at multiple schools participating in the MYN functionality.
• In partnership with the Housing Office, created a website to assist an MIT student's search for off-campus housing.
• Created departmental picture lists on WebSIS for Department Administrators to view students by their department or by Course.
• Deployed Who's Teaching What (WTW), a web-based tool to collect detailed data on what teaching roles faculty and TAs have in the classes they teach, to all academic departments.

SSIT - Focused accomplishments included the following:

• Move to W92 - In order to accommodate conflicting space needs, SSIT moved away from the central campus.
• SIS Systems Documentation - Developed a Web-based tool to maintain on-line documentation for Student Information Systems (including User procedures.)
• SSIT Problem Report/Tracking - In collaboration with MIT Information Systems and SSIT Team Leaders, partially implemented the MIT IS developed CaseTracker system.
• Student Life - Focused Analysis/Programming Team - In order to provide focused support for Student Life systems as well as Graduate Admissions, a new SSIT Team was formed with Ayca Darcan as Team Lead.

Staffing Changes

In FY2001 we initiated the implementation of our Consultant Migration Plan (migrating away from utilizing contract analyst/programmers for ongoing work.) In part as a result of the Consultant Migration Plan, four analyst/programmers (Leonard Lu, Mark Briebart, Boguslaw Pierscionek and Shannon Moon) with a variety of skills and experience and a Documentation Lead (Phoebe Minias) joined SSIT.

The Graduate Admissions application support position was transferred from the Office of Admissions to SSIT to provide more technical synergy (both applications and analyst/programmers.)

Robert Rippcondi

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The Teaching and Learning Laboratory

The Teaching and Learning Laboratory's (TLL) most important activities this year revolved around assessment and evaluation. TLL is in the process of creating a range of tools and services that will give the Institute the ability to assess educational efforts in a rigorously analytical way. This work will also serve as the foundation of a research program we are developing primarily, but not exclusively, on the impact of educational technology on higher education. Additions to and promotions within TLL staff have been instrumental in allowing TLL to move in this direction.

TLL was founded in 1997 as a resource for faculty, administrators, and students who share a desire to improve teaching and learning at MIT. Its goals are to: strengthen the quality of instruction at the Institute; further an understanding of the learning process, particularly in science and engineering; and provide support for the creation and assessment of innovative educational technologies, curricula, and instructional methods.

Accomplishments

As described above, TLL has three broad, though interrelated, functions: instructional support, assessment and evaluation, and research. TLL's accomplishments in each of these three areas are detailed below. In addition, as TLL has increased its staff threefold this year, we have spent time building the office into a larger, cohesive operation. Activities that contributed to that work are also listed below.

Assessment And Evaluation

We have worked this year to build a solid foundation for TLL's capabilities in this area. Dr. Newman met with PIs and their staffs from each of the iCampus/ d'Arbeloff projects to determine their assessment needs. From these meetings came a report entitled "Assessment Needs at MIT." TLL staff organized and facilitated a series of meetings with experts in assessment on campus and representatives from Microsoft in order to identify important research questions concerning the impact of educational technology on higher education. Three broad streams of research were identified: conceptual learning; student engagement and interaction; and faculty engagement with a particular focus on resource issues. Dr. Breslow and Dr. Newman produced a strategic plan for assessment at MIT. It recommends a two-prong approach: targeting particular iCampus/d'Arbeloff projects for in-depth evaluation and assessment by both on-campus experts and outside consultants; and developing a "coaching" service that will provide assistance to faculty, administration, and students who undertake their own assessment projects. Dr. Newman organized and facilitated two workshops on assessment for PIs and their staffs working on iCampus/d'Arbeloff projects. Several assessment projects of educational initiatives are currently underway or completed:

• An assessment of the iCampus project "Beyond the Firehose: Learning by Doing" (Professor Tomas Lozano-Perez, PI) by Dr. Newman
• An evaluation of the PIVoT project by Dr. Lipson. A preliminary assessment of Mission 2004 by Dr. Lipson Qualitative case studies involving focus groups and interviews for the three freshmen alternative programs (ESP, Concourse, and ISP) by Dr. Lipson
• An assessment of the Resident Associate Advisor Program to be undertaken by Dr. Michael Ryan of the University of Texas-San Antonio.

Dr. Lipson administered and/or analyzed a number of surveys in her capacity as Associate Director of Educational Studies. These included: the College Student Experience Questionnaire (CSEQ), the 2001 and 2000 Engineering Senior Surveys, the COFHE alumni survey, the Core Institute Alcohol and Drug Survey. Survey assistance was also provided to the Office of Career Services, Course 13, and Project Interphase. Dr. Lipson is a member of the ABET working group and Academic Services Representative to CUAFA.

Research

As explained above, our intention is to use the data we derive from assessment and evaluation, as well as other research TLL staff members undertake, to contribute to the literature on higher education. To that end, during this summer, we are working with four UROP students who are doing literature searches in the areas we have targeted for study. In addition, Dr. Breslow, working with Dr. Donna Qualters of Northeastern's Center for Effective University Teaching, is continuing a research project on interdisciplinarity that will use the HST program as a case study. Observations and interviews will begin this fall.

Instructional Support

TLL has continued to offer the services and programs in instructional support that it has developed over the last several years. These include: the Class Videotaping and Consulting Program, departmental workshops, consultations with individual faculty and departmental committees, microteaching workshops, orientations, the IAP series "Better Teaching @ MIT," and Dr. Breslow's "Teach Talk" column in the faculty newsletter. New activities this year include:

• The organization and facilitation of the "Educational Change Seminars," monthly seminars on educational issues offered to the iCampus and d'Arbeloff PIs and their staffs.
• The organization of "TLL Associates," a group of educational experts on campus who will advise TLL on its activities, as well as work with TLL staff on specific projects.
• The development of projects in cooperation with Academic Computing, including: a series of "best practices" papers on the use of various educational technologies; a joint workshop (or workshops) to be given during IAP; input on assessment tools to be developed as part of Stellar.

Other Activities

Other notable TLL activities included the following:

• Dr. Breslow was invited to be a member of the International Advisory Committee for the second symposium on Teaching and Learning in Higher Education sponsored by the National University of Singapore.
• Dr. Breslow co-facilitated a two-day faculty development workshop sponsored by the Chinese Ministry of Higher Education at Lignon University, Ghangzhou, China.
• Dr. Newman is on the leadership committee of Project Kaleidoscope's Faculty of the 21st Century, and is helping to write the NSF 10-year report on that program's contribution to the reform of SME&T undergraduate education.
• Dr. Newman is providing assessment consultation to the Council on Undergraduate Education's project to assess national outcomes of student research activity.
• Ms. Swire created a new TLL web site that reflects our expanded activities.

Staffing Changes

Dr. John Newman joined TLL as Associate Director of Assessment and Evaluation in December 2000. Dr. Newman had previously been Coordinator of Research and Evaluation at the Searle Center for Teaching Excellence, Northwestern University. Dr. Alberta Lipson and Ms. Rosanne Swire, who had previously been part of the Office of Academic Services, joined TLL as Associate Director for Educational Studies and Research Assistant, respectively. Ms. Cynthia Dernay Tervalon was promoted to Staff Associate in May 2000. Ms. Brenda Blais joined TLL in June 2000 as Administrative Assistant. Ms. Blais, who has 13 years experience at MIT, was most recently with the Department of Urban Studies and Planning.

Lori Breslow

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