Dean, School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences
The year 2000 marked the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences at MIT. Previously known as the School of Humanities and Social Science, on July 1, 2000 we added the Arts to our name in recognition of great progress the Arts have made at MIT in the past fifty years. To recognize our golden anniversary, we organized a series of events that formed an exciting tribute to the School. On September 21, 2000, we opened a significant exhibition in Compton Gallery entitled "A Fifty-Year Reflection: Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences at MIT." The exhibition ran through January 2001 in Compton, and in May it was relocated to a permanent site on the ground floor corridor of Building 14. It was curated by Professor Kenneth Manning of the programs in Writing and Humanistic Studies and Science, Technology and Society in cooperation with Director Jane Pickering and the staff of the MIT Museum.
On October 6 and 7, 2000 an extraordinary group of scholars and artists participated in a colloquium entitled "Asking the Right Questions." Featured were Institute Professor Noam Chomsky (Linguistics and Philosophy), Professor Steven Pinker (Brain and Cognitive Sciences), Professor Hilary Putnam (Philosophy Department, Harvard University), Institute Professor John Harbison (Music and Theater Arts), Professor Anita Desai (Writing and Humanistic Studies), Professor Louise Gluck (English Department, Williams College), Professor John Dower (History Faculty), Professor Pauline Maier (History Faculty), Professor Gillian Beer (English Department, University of Cambridge), Institute Professor Robert Solow (Economics), Professor Suzanne Berger (Political Science), and Professor Kenneth Arrow (Economics Department, Stanford University). A publication based on the colloquium presentations will appear in the fall of 2001 under the co-editorship of Professor Manning and Professor Joshua Cohen (Linguistics and Philosophy and Political Science), who organized and chaired the colloquium.
On the evening of October 6, the MIT community was treated to a series of magnificent performances by the MIT Symphony and other MIT musical groups and ensembles, organized by the Music and Theater Arts Section. Our celebration culminated on the evening of October 7 at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. The evening began with an awards ceremony at which 50th Anniversary Medals were presented to Professors Beer, Putnam, Arrow and Gluck, followed by a gala dinner and dance for over 400 guests including many members of the MIT Corporation, MIT's senior administration, and emeriti faculty in the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences. At the dinner, we announced the establishment of the Robert A. Muh Alumni Award in the Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences and introduced to the assembled guests its first incumbent, the dancer and choreographer Gus Solomons Jr. President Charles M. Vest concluded the evening by announcing the establishment of the $75 Million Kenan Sahin Fund for the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences. Dr. Sahin then offered comments on the great importance of the School to the life and success of the Institute.
A 30-minute video that captures the highlights of the entire two-day 50th anniversary celebration is available from the Dean's Office.
In March, Gus Solomons Jr. '61 (Architecture) returned to campus to teach an inspired master class in dance and choreography and to receive the first Robert A. Muh Alumni Award in the Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences at a dinner in his honor attended by Robert and Berit Muh and many members of the MIT arts community.
Meanwhile, the School continues to build and refine its undergraduate and graduate programs and to focus its efforts on fund-raising, affirmative action and faculty recruitment in departments, sections and programs which are experiencing retirements and resignations. The faculty received a number of honors and awards, and some important administrative changes within the School have occurred.
Undergraduate Education
From all indications, the simplification of the HASS-D Requirement which took effect fall 2000 seems to have been successful in reducing confusion concerning this requirement. (Students are now simply required to take three HASS-D subjects from three different categories, with the HASS-D Language Option still an option.) There were fewer questions from students and advisors, and most importantly, for the first time in many years, there were no last-minute crises involving graduating seniors who had not completed the HASS-D Requirement.
This was the third year of the pilot phase for HASS Communication Intensive (CI) subjects and the last year before implementation of the new Communication Requirement in fall 2001. Because students ordinarily will take HASS CI (CI-H and CI-HW) classes their first two years, considerable capacity is required in these classes. Thus, much time and effort—both on the part of the HASS Office and the HASS Overview Committee (HOC)—was expended in getting this new system in place. The HOC, chaired by Professor James Buzard, reviewed over 100 proposals and finally recommended 87 for HASS CI status to the Committee on Curricula (COC) for the 2001–2002 academic year. The COC affirmed the work of the HOC by approving the entire list. These classes will be available to freshmen, the Class of 2005, who will be subject to the new Communication Requirement, as well as to upperclassmen who can use them to fulfill Phase I of the Writing Requirement. In addition to reviewing proposals, the HOC spent time discussing various topics related to HASS CIs, including criteria for HASS CI subjects and funding for writing tutors to assist the instructors. The HASS Office maintains the HASS CI database, which includes all pilot HASS CIs as well as those approved for 2001-2002.
New Initiatives
In spring 2001 the Program in Writing and Humanistic Studies received approval from the MIT faculty for the creation of a new masters program in Science Writing, with the educational mission of improving the public understanding of science. This program seems particularly relevant to MIT, where excellence in scientific research is a hallmark. The graduate program will be directed by Professor of Science Writing Robert Kanigel and will draw on the talented teaching staff of the Program in Writing and Humanistic Studies. The Program hopes to hire an additional faculty member to teach and administer the new degree program, and plans to accept its initial group of students in September 2002.
Affirmative Action
The affirmative action record of SHASS continues to appear strong relative to the rest of the Institute, but this is mainly because the representation of women within the fields of humanities and social science is relatively large. In fact, the total number of women faculty had been steadily increasing for several years—from 35 women in AY1993 to a peak of 49 in AY2000—until this year, when we witnessed a decline of two women faculty. Within the School for 2000-2001 there were 47 women faculty, representing 31 percent of the total faculty; of these, 31 are tenured (30 percent of the tenured faculty). And while we were successful in recruiting three women to the faculty (2 tenured/1 untenured) for next academic year (2001–2002), we will experience a net decrease of two women, bringing the number of women faculty down to 45, due to retirements, spousal/partner relocation, recruitment efforts by competing universities, and the unsuccessful promotions of some of our junior women faculty. Of the two SHASS faculty promoted internally and approved for tenure in AY2001 (to be effective July 1, 2001), one was a woman, but unfortunately, she accepted a position at Stanford to be closer to her partner.
The School has had moderate success in its efforts to recruit minority faculty. Although we successfully recruited two Asian American women (1 tenured/1 untenured) to join our faculty effective AY2002, we will experience a net increase of only one additional minority due to the loss of one Asian American assistant professor in Political Science. The total number of minority faculty in the School this year, including Asian Americans, was 20, and next year (AY2002) we will have a total of 21. With the help of the Provost's Initiative, we hope to step up our efforts to recruit qualified women and minority candidates.
We remain committed to increasing the minority representation of the administrative staff. Currently, we have only three minorities (one Hispanic and two Asian-Americans) of a total of 32 (approximately 9 percent). We hope to further diversify our administrative staff by working closely with the Departments and Programs in the School and with the Office of Human Resources.
Honors and Awards
The faculty within the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences garnered an array of honors and awards this year. The most notable among them were the following:
- Elting E. Morison Professor of History John Dower's Pulitzer-Prize winning book, Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II, continued to receive numerous honors, including the PEN/New England L.L. Winship Award, the Mark Lynton History Prize from Harvard University, and an American Library Association Notable Book award.
- Professor of Philosophy and Political Science Joshua Cohen was awarded The Leon and Anne Goldberg Professorship in Humanities.
- Esther Duflo was chosen as the Castle Krob Career Development Assistant Professor of Economics and received the 2001 John M. Olin Faculty Fellowship.
- Assistant Professor of Theater Arts Thomas DeFrantz received the Class of 1948 Career Development Professorship.
- David Kaiser of the Program in Science, Technology and Society (STS) was awarded the James Levitan Prize in the Humanities and appointed as the Leo Marx Career Development Assistant Professor in the History and Culture of Science and Technology.
- Anne McCants was appointed as the first recipient of the William and Betsy Leitch Associate Professor of History in Residence.
- Professor of History Peter Perdue was appointed the first holder of the T. T. and Wei Fong Chao Professorship in Asian Civilizations.
- Professor of Political Science and Economics James M. Snyder, Jr. was awarded The Arthur and Ruth Sloan Professorship in Political Science.
- Professor of Literature Peter S. Donaldson was selected as a recipient of the MIT Class of 1960 Innovation in Education Award.
- The Department of Economics' Professor Joshua Angrist was appointed to the Editorial Board of the American Economic Review; Associate Professor Dora Costa received the Economic History Association's Alice Hanson Jones Book Prize, 2000, for The Evolution of Retirement: An American Economic History, 1888-1998; Institute Professor of Economics Peter Diamond was nominated to be the President of the American Economic Association, 2002; Ford International Professor of Economics Rudiger Dornbusch was named Distinguished Fellow of the American Economic Association; Professor Glenn D. Ellison was elected as Fellow of the Econometric Society; and Franklin Fisher, Jane Berkowitz Carlton and Dennis William Carlton Professor of Microeconomics, was awarded an honorary doctorate from Hebrew University of Jerusalem and was named the 2001 Ida Cordelia Beam Distinguished Visiting Professor of the University of Iowa.
- Professor of Sociology and Anthropology Susan Silbey was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Political and Social Science.
- Associate Professor Deborah Fitzgerald, Director of Graduate Studies for the History and Social Study of Science and Technology (HSSST), received the Perkins Award for Excellence in Graduate Advising at the MIT Awards Convocation.
- Assistant Professor of Economics David Autor was given First Prize, Milken Institute Award for Distinguished Economic Research and received the 2001 Steven H. Sandell Grant for Junior Scholars in Retirement Research.
- Associate Professor of Political Science Melissa Nobles was awarded a Fellowship from Boston University's Institute on Race and Social Division and received the 2000 Outstanding Book Award for her book, Shades of Citizenship, from the National Conference of Black Political Scientists.
- Elizabeth and James Killian Professor of Economics and Management Paul L. Joskow was elected Vice President of the International Society for Institutional Economics and reappointed to the EPA Advisory Board.
- The Department of Linguistics and Philosophy's Associate Professor of Philosophy Sally Haslanger received a 2001 Fellowship from the American Council for Learned Society; Professor of Linguistics David Pesetsky was appointed Henrietta Harvey Distinguished Lecturer at Memorial University, Newfoundland; Professor of Philosophy Irving Singer has been appointed a Fellow of the European Humanities Research Centre at Oxford University, England; Associate Professor of Philosophy Ralph Wedgwood was awarded the Young Epistemologist Prize at the Rutgers Epistemology Conference in 2001; and Associate Professor of Linguistics Cheryl Zoll received a 2002 Bunting Fellowship from the Radcliffe Institute of Advanced Studies.
- Bengt Holmstrom, Paul A. Samuelson Professor of Economics, was appointed to The Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences.
- Professor of History and Philosophy of Science Evelyn Fox Keller was awarded the 2001 L.L. Winship/PEN New England Award for her book, The Century of the Gene, and an honorary doctorate from Wesleyan University.
- The Department of Economics' James Poterba, Mitsui Professor of Economics, and Professor Nancy L. Rose were appointed 2001 George and Karen McCown Distinguished Visiting Fellowships at the Hoover Institution. Professor Poterba was also elected to the Executive Committee of the American Economic Association, 2001-2003.
- Professor of Literature Ruth Perry received the American Society of Eighteenth Century Studies Award for outstanding women in eighteenth century studies.
- Associate Professor of History Jeffrey Ravel's book, The Contested Parterre: Public Theater and French Political Culture, 1680-1791, won the Barnard Hewitt Award from the American Society for Theater Research.
- Associate Professor of Economics Jaume Ventura received the MIT Graduate Economics Association "Best Teacher" Award, 2000-2001.
- Associate Professor of Theater Arts Janet Sonenberg was awarded a Margaret MacVicar Faculty Fellowship.
- Peter Temin, Elisha Gray II Professor of Economics, was awarded a 2001 Guggenheim Fellowship.
- Dean Philip S. Khoury was elected an Alumni Trustee of Trinity College.
Fundraising
New gifts and pledges for FY2001 total $7,824,603.59. With the $75 Million from the Kenan Sahin gift, the School total is $82,824,603.59.
Fundraising highlights include:
- Assignment of $75M of the Kenan Sahin, '63 GM, gift to the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences.
- French Ministry of Foreign Affairs support for MISTI France Professorship ($1M+) to be matched by MIT/School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences fundraising efforts.
- Pledge payments brought professorship funding up to levels to permit new appointments to be made: the Leon and Anne Goldberg Professorship in the Humanities, Professor Joshua Cohen; the T. T. and Wei Fong Chao Professorship in Asian Civilizations, Professor Peter Perdue; and the completion of S. C. Fang Professorship in Chinese Language and Culture, Professor Jing Wang.
- Substantial increase to the Washington Summer Internship Program, including a $500,000 commitment from Dana Mead, PO '67.
- New support for economic fellowships, including a new commitment from Kenneth Wang, '72 EC.
- Robert, '59 MG, and Berit Muh provided support for a prize to recognize MIT alumni/ae contributions in Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences. First award ceremony was in March 2001.
The top School fundraising priorities continue to be increased support for fellowships, professorships and faculty/program resources. Specific program priorities include the Shakespeare Archive, Bilingual/Bicultural Studies, Writing and Humanistic Studies, especially the new masters level program in Science Writing and the MIT Science and Technology Initiative (MISTI) Programs.
Faculty Promotions, Administrative Changes, Retirements
This year has seen two retirements, seven resignations and ten new faculty appointments within the School. Among the faculty retirements were Jeanne Bamberger (Music and Theater Arts) and Wayne O'Neil (Linguistics and Philosophy). Among the resignations were two associate professors (one whom had just received tenure in Economics and one nontenured in Writing and Humanistic Studies), two full professors (Jed Buchwald of STS and the Dibner, and Alan Lightman of Writing and Humanistic Studies), and three assistant professors, including two in Political Science and one in STS. While Alan Lightman will step down as a tenured faculty member, he has agreed to a part-time appointment as Adjunct Professor. A total of two faculty members in the School were promoted to tenure this year, effective July 1, 2001: Susan Athey of the Department of Economics, although she accepted a position at Stanford University in order to be closer to her partner, and Kai von Fintel of the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy.
The School was successful in recruiting a total of ten new members to the faculty during 2000–2001. Nine of the new faculty (two tenured/seven nontenured) will join us effective AY2002, while one, Donca Steriade (who will join the Linguistics and Philosophy Department as a full professor) will join us in AY2003. Of the nine, two will join the faculty as full tenured professors (Susan Silbey, Anthropology, and Jing Wang, Foreign Languages and Literatures); one as a non-tenured associate professor (Roger Peterson, Political Science); and six as assistant professors.
Academic Year 2000–2001 brought two additional women to School Council as new department heads Ellen Harris and Susan Slyomovics assumed leadership of Music and Theater Arts and Anthropology respectively.
More information about the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences can be found online at http://web.mit.edu/shass/.