The Associate Advisor Steering Committee organized the training of associate advisors, four choice of major sessions, five workshops, the "MIT Survival Guide," the "Outstanding Associate Advisor Award," and a survey on the quality of associate advising.
1994-95 CAP Actions by Class
Class Warnings Required Withdrawals 1998 171 17 1997 103 26 1996 77 16 1995 78 17 Totals 429 76
* Administering the Pre-Calculus Math Diagnostic for entering freshmen and conducting follow-up studies of the predictive capacity of the test.
* Coordinating discussions about providing pictures of students to departments and individual faculty in a timely and effective manner. A student picture experiment will be tried in the fall with the Physics Department.
* Working closely with the Physics Department and the Registrar's Office on the new 8.01. Two separate subject evaluations were coordinated by this office.
* Continuing to meet with the ad hoc "Science Core Group" in weekly discussions about issues concerning the freshman academic program.
* Organizing the science core recitation instructor lunches, which were hosted by Dean John VanderSande and Professor Robert Silbey.
* Working with Dean Arthur Smith on the Class of '51 Excellence in Education Awards process.
* Recruiting Dr. Lori Breslow of the Sloan School to consult with about 50 faculty and other teaching staff who have had their classroom teaching videotaped.
* Expanding the fall-term Orientation Workshop for New Faculty and Graduate Teaching Staff to included workshops on a variety of teaching topics.
* Sponsoring our second IAP series, "Teaching at MIT: Better .... and Better ... and Better...."
* Underwriting a three-day intensive "microteaching" workshop led by Dr. Breslow and Professor James Propp of the Mathematics Department for all 18.02 Calculus instructors.
* Assisting the Mechanical Engineering Department in organizing an all-day workshop to prepare for the teaching of their new undergraduate curriculum.
* Preparing for the new edition of "The Torch or the Firehose," MIT's popular guide to recitation section teaching, which will be published in August.
* Two departments-Mechanical Engineering and Physics-this year developed subjects offered only in IAP which will be required of their majors beginning next year.
* As part of its deliberations on these required subjects, the IAP Policy Committee developed a set of guidelines for required subjects offered only during IAP, which it forwarded to the Committee on Curricula and the Committee on the Undergraduate Program.
* The IAP Policy Committee has charged the IAP staff to work with the Registrar's Office to develop procedures for a central registration system for IAP subjects for credit.
* This spring an IAP Student Board was established, modeled after the effective Associate Advisor Steering Committee. Meeting weekly into the summer, its members are planning events for next IAP as well as designing ways to help and encourage more students to organize activities.
* Special note must be made of this year's Charm School, which garnered national media coverage. Charm School drew increasing involvement from faculty, staff, and students who explored topics from table manners to faculty-students interactions. Judith Martin, better known as Miss Manners, gave a "commencement" address to the "graduates" of charm school and other members of the MIT community. Her speech-like Charm School itself-was light-hearted and humorous, but serious in its content and purpose.
* Student participation was lower, as predicted. There were 32% fewer students working for pay during term time. Credit registrations rose 15% in the fall and 22% in the spring semester. This was not sufficient to offset the decrease in paid UROPs; overall participation was, therefore, down for the academic year by 19%. In summer 1995, participation was near the six hundred mark, 40% fewer students than in summer 1994.
* Faculty participation remained stable. Well over 50% of the MIT faculty served as UROP project supervisors this year.
* Gifts to UROP exceeded those of previous years. Individual donors and the fall Alumni Fund drive boosted UROP's small endowment by over $300,000. UROP was the recipient of the Class of 1995 Senior Class Gift, which has added nearly $50,000 to endowment as of the end of spring.
* The Undergraduate Corporate Research Fellows program was launched in late spring, the result of a cooperative endeavor with the Industrial Liaison Program (ILP). It offers companies an opportunity to support or sponsor undergraduate research on-campus under UROP auspices for a yearly fee.
Travis R. Merritt
Elizabeth Kowal
Mary Z. Enterline
Alberta G. Lipson
Margaret E. Devine
Norma G. McGavern
Margaret S. Enders
Jeffrey A. Meldman
Ida Faber
Leslie C. Perelman
Donna L. Friedman
Debbie H. Shoap
Marshall D. Hughes
Bonnie J. Walters
MIT Reports to the President 1994-95