MIT
Reports to the President 1994-95
This year the School of Humanities and Social Science (SHSS) continued to focus
its efforts on affirmative action, fund-raising, and faculty recruitment in
departments and sections which are experiencing retirements and resignations,
in particular Linguistics & Philosophy, Political Science and Economics.
The faculty within the School received a number of honors and awards, and some
important administrative changes within the School have occurred.
In Fall 1994 the recommendation included in the report to the Committee on the
Undergraduate Program (CUP) by the HASS-D Six-Year Review Committee, that the
HASS-D requirement be slightly revised, was revisited. The purpose of that
recommendation was to encompass Category 3, Visual and Performing Arts, in the
requirement. Thus, students would be required to take one subject from
Categories 1,2, or 3 (instead of from 1 or 2). The rest of the requirement
would remain the same: one subject from Categories 4 or 5, and one from a
category not previously chosen. The recommendation had been rejected by the
CUP in Spring 1994 because of certain concerns on the part of some CUP members.
Chief among these was a concern that the proposed change might result in a
substantial shift in enrollments to the detriment of Humanities subjects in
Categories 1 and 2. In response to this concern, the CUP approved a compromise
in October which provided for implementation of the change in Fall 1995 as a
three year monitored experiment. In October 1998 the Chair of the CUP in
consultation with the Chair of the Faculty and the Deans of the Schools
offering HASS-D subjects "will appoint a committee to evaluate the results of
this experiment and to conduct a comprehensive review not only of the HASS-D
requirement but of the entire HASS requirement, something which has not been
significantly done since 1974." This compromise recommendation was discussed by
the Faculty Policy Committee (FPC) in November, which agreed that the "Report
of the Committee on the Undergraduate Program on the HASS-D Requirement" should
be presented to the Faculty.
The Chair of the CUP presented the above-mentioned report to the MIT Faculty at
its November meeting which accepted it with the compromise recommendation. The
experiment will begin with Fall Semester 1995.
Last year's report concentrated on one new initiative, the Writing Initiative,
which is a collaborative project between the School of Humanities and Social
Science and the School of Engineering. The Initiative has continued to grow,
in that the number of writing subjects, called practica, which are attached to
existing engineering subjects, has been increased.
Practica are designed to give students an opportunity to work intensively on
writing assignments for their engineering subjects; to prepare additional
assignments; to edit each other's work; to develop leadership and discussion
skills in a small group setting; and to give formal and informal presentations.
With the appointment of Professor Rosalind Williams, the director of the
Writing Initiative, as Dean for Undergraduate Education and Student Affairs, it
is expected that the Initiative will establish a more visible presence in
undergraduate education and help to strengthen the existing Writing
Requirement.
In September 1994, twenty faculty and staff, including the heads of the seven
Humanities units, went on retreat to Cape Cod to discuss the future of media
studies and the relationships of technology to the Humanities. The enthusiasm
that the retreat generated caused the Dean to appoint two faculty committees to
explore new opportunities in these related areas. The Humanities and
Technology (HAT) Committee met throughout Fall 1994 and issued a report on the
state of interactive multimedia projects in the Humanities that emphasized the
importance of forming cooperative alliances with industry to generate new
financial support for growing multimedia language and culture projects
associated with the Laboratory for Advanced Technology in the Humanities. A
conference designed to bring to campus companies interested in learning about
recent multimedia activities in the MIT Humanities is planned for Fall 1995.
The second committee is examining opportunities to strengthen the undergraduate
program in Film and Media Studies and to establish a graduate program in this
field that would train advanced students for employment in universities and
industry. The Media Studies committee has received considerable encouragement
from Dean William J. Mitchell of the School of Architecture and Planning, and
it appears that there are real opportunities for collaboration between
Architecture and SHSS in the expansion of Media Studies at MIT. The SHSS
Dean's Office agreed to fund a major conference for October 1995 that will
bring to the Institute the directors of the leading programs in film and media
studies in North America and Britain. The aim of the conference is to enhance
awareness in the MIT community of recent developments in media studies and to
seek the advice of leading scholars as to how MIT can effectively develop an
advanced program in media studies.
The MIT Humanities is already recognized as a national and international leader
in the design of state of the art multimedia projects, and there is good reason
to believe that, in addition to expanding its production of interactive
materials for the humanities, it can develop a significant academic program in
the critical study of past, present and future media.
The affirmative action record of SHSS appears to be strong relative to the rest
of the Institute mainly because the representation of women within the fields
of humanities and social science is relatively large. The School's record
relative to the pool, however, is about average. Within the School for 1994-95
there were 33 women faculty, which represents 22 percent of the total. Of
these 22 are tenured (20 percent of the tenured faculty). Over the past five
years, the total number of women faculty has remained steady (32 in 1989-90).
We were successful in recruiting three women to the faculty for next year (one
in Foreign Languages and Literatures, one in Music and Theater Arts, and one in
Economics), and we are hopeful that a fourth (in Literature) will be get
approval from School Council, Academic Council, and Executive Committee next
fall; this will increase the number of women faculty to 37.
The School's record with respect to minority faculty is much less satisfactory
than it is with respect to women, although we appear to be making some
progress. We remain committed to increasing the representation of minorities
on the faculty. That commitment has led to the successful recruitment of an
Afro-Caribbean (Haitain) linguist currently at Michigan University, who will be
joining the faculty in the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy in AY'97;
the appointment of an Asian (Indian continent) male as Assistant Professor in
the Literature section; and the appointment of an Asian woman as Assistant
Professor of Japanese in the Foreign Languages and Literatures Section. In
addition we continue to pursue non-traditional methods in the hope that they
will lead to faculty appointments, such as the appointment of an Hispanic woman
in the Music and Theater Arts Section. She was hired through the Provost's
Program to Attract Women and Minority Candidates as an Artist-in-Residence in
1993, while working to complete her Ph.D., and will join the faculty in AY'96
as an Assistant Professor. Another such appointment was made this year to an
African-American woman with a J.D. Degree, who received her university
education at Harvard University. She has been given a two-year lectureship in
the Program in Writing and Humanistic Studies, and the faculty hope to mentor
her during this time for a regular faculty position at the rank of Assistant
Professor. Also through these efforts, an African-American man will join Music
and Theater Arts next year as an Instructor, while he completes his Ph.D. It
is expected that he will join the faculty as an Assistant Professor the
following year (AY'97). The total number of minority faculty in the School,
including Asian Americans, will be 16 (11%) as of AY'96.
The School's record with respect to minority administrative staff members is
better, with four minorities of a total of 19 (21%). SHSS has reduced the
number of administrative staff positions by three in the last two years (from
22 to 19), owing to: 1) the transfer of the Integrated Studies Program (ISP),
effective July 1, 1995, to the School of Engineering; 2) the retirement this
year of an exempt staff member in the Department of Political Science and the
subsequent replacement at the support staff level; and 3) last year's
administrative reorganization of the Programs in Anthropology/Archaeology and
Science, Technology and Society (STS). The School remains committed to further
increasing the number of minority faculty and administrative staff members.
The faculty within the School of Humanities and Social Science garnered an
impressive array of honors and awards this year. The most notable among them
were the following: Professor John Harbison of the Music and Theater Arts
Section was appointed Institute Professor giving MIT its first representative
from the Arts in that prestigious company. Music and Theater Arts was further
honored when Professor Marcus Thompson became both the inaugural recipient of
the Robert R. Taylor Professorship for minority faculty and a 1994-95 MacVicar
Faculty Fellow. The STS Program's Professor Jed Buchwald of the Program in
Science, Technology and Society (STS) and Director of the Dibner Institute for
the History of Science and Technology was named a MacArthur Prize Fellow this
year; Professor Merritt Roe Smith received the Leonardo da Vinci Medal from the
Society for the History of Technology; and Professor Theodore Postol was the
recipient of the 1995 American Association for the Advancement of Science's
Hilliard Roderick Prize in Science, Arms Control, and International Security.
The Department of Economics' Professor Olivier Blanchard was named Class of
1941 Professor; Associate Professor Jonathan Gruber was the recipient of a
Sloan Research Fellowship; Institute Professor Robert Solow received an
Honorary Doctorate from the Conservatoire National des Arts et Metier in Paris,
and was appointed, along with Professor Paul Joskow, to a Presidential Economic
Advisory Board; Professor Peter Diamond was elected President of the National
Academy of Social Insurance; Professor Bengt Holmstrom was elected to the
Council of the Econometric Society; and Assistant Professor Dora Costa of the
Department of Economics received the Allen Nevins Prize for the best
dissertation in U.S. Economic history from the Economic History Association.
Professor Kenneth Hale of the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy was
appointed the Edward Sapir Professor for the 1995 Linguistic Institute of the
Linguistic Society of America, and Professor Noam Chomsky received two honorary
degrees: Doctor of Humane Letters from Amherst College and Doctor of Literature
from the University of Cambridge. Professor Suzanne Berger of the Department
of Political Science was awarded the Raphael Dorman and Helen Starbuck
Professorship; Professor Myron Weiner received the School of Oriental and
African Studies, University of London Edgar Graham Book Prize for his book, The
Child and the State in India (Princeton University Press); and Assistant
Professor Frederic Schaffer received a Rozance Memorial Fellowship in Political
Science from the University of California, Berkeley, and a National Endowment
for the Humanities Dissertation Fellowship. Professor of Linguistics and
Japanese Shigeru Miyagawa was named to the Kochi Prefecture-John Manjiro
Professorship in Japanese Language and Culture and honored with the Irwin Sizer
Award for "the most significant improvement to education at MIT." The Foreign
Languages and Literatures Section's Professor Edward Baron Turk was the 1995
Levitan Prize recipient and named Chevalier in the Order of Arts and Letters by
the French Minister of Culture; Assistant Professor of German Studies Bernd
Widdig was awarded the Class of 1958 Career Development Professsorship; and
Associate Professor of Hispanic Studies Margery Resnick was appointed as a
MacVicar Faculty Fellow "in recognition of sustained and significant
contributions to teaching and undergraduate education at the Institute."
Professor Harriet Ritvo (History and Writing and Humanistic Studies) became the
first holder of the Arthur J. Conner Professorship, one of three new
professorships established this year to honor faculty in Humanities. Professor
of History Bruce Mazlish won the Kayden National University Press Book Award
for The Fourth Discontinuity: The Co-Evolution of Humans and Machines; and
Assistant Professor of History Anne E. McCants was appointed as the Class of
1957 Career Development Professor. The Literature Section's Professor John
Hildebidle held a Fullbright Research Fellowship; Professor Ruth Perry was
awarded a Fellowship of the American Council of Learned Societies; and
Associate Professor Mary Fuller was awarded a Folger Shakespeare Library
Fellowship and a John Carter Brown Library Fellowship. Professor Alan Lightman
(Head, Program in Writing and Humanistic Studies) has been named as the first
holder of the John E. Burchard Professorship; John Burchard served as the
School's first dean, from 1948 to 1964.
The School achieved significant results in its fundraising efforts this year.
As in the past, SHSS continues to excel in securing money from foundations.
1995 Highlights include novel achievements in a number of departments and
programs. In Foreign Languages and Literatures, funding of $2.3 million was
given to the School by the Kochi Prefecture of Japan to create a new chair.
This gift represents a first for this school in the form of country to
Institute endowment of a chair. Professor Shigeru Miyagawa, Professor of
Linguistics and Japanese, was named holder of the Kochi Perfecture - John
Manjiro Professorship in Japanese Language and Culture. Professor Peter
Donaldson, Head of the Literature Section, and Dr. Janet Murray, Director for
the Laboratory for the Advanced Technology in the Humanities (LATH), received a
$450K grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for the Shakespeare Electronic
Archive Project.
Professors Merritt Roe Smith, Head of the Program in Science, Technology and
Society (STS), Pauline Maier, History, Alex Keyssar, Duke University, and
Daniel Kevles, California Institute of Technology, received a $1.75 million
grant from the Sloan Foundation for their project "Integrating the American
Past: A New Narrative History of the United States." This project, which is
directed by Professor Smith, will result in a one volume narrative history of
the United States which addresses processes of technological and scientific
changes and integrates them into the mainstream of the American experience.
The STS Program received $428K in grants for new and continuing research
projects during the 94-95 academic year.
The Robert M. Solow Endowment Fund was established by the Department of
Economics to honor Professor Solow's retirement. To date, more than $750K in
gifts and pledges have come into the fund, which is designed to support
graduate students and provide an annual award for the student who exhibits
excellence in both teaching and scholarship. The Center for International
Studies (CIS) received $125K for the first installment of a $375K grant to be
distributed over a three-year period from the John D. And Catherine T.
MacArthur Foundation. CIS also received a National Science Foundation grant of
$112K, the MIT Japan Program received $2 million from the Starr Foundation, and
the Defense and Arms Control Program (DACS) received $450K (with an additional
$450K to be awarded in FY'97) from the Carnegie Foundation.
This year has seen two retirements, nine resignations, and nine new faculty
appointments (including one appointment effective AY'97) within the School. As
of June 30, 1995, Institute Professor Robert Solow of the Department of
Economics, and Professor David Epstein of the Music and Theater Arts Section
will retire. We wish them great success in all their future endeavors as
emeriti professors of MIT. The School saw nine resignations this year,
including: four due to the denial of tenure - one in the Department of
Linguistics and Philosophy, two in the Department of Political Science, and one
in the Department of Economics. Two faculty were promoted to tenure, effective
July 1, 1995: Deborah Fitzgerald (STS) and Stephen Van Evera (Political
Science).
The School was successful in recruiting nine new members to the faculty - eight
effective 1995-96 and one effective 1996-97. They include two in the
Department of Economics, one in the Department of Political Science, two in the
Department of Linguistics and Philosophy, one in the Foreign Languages and
Literatures Section, one in the Literature Section, and two in the Music and
Th[[daggerdbl]]r Arts Section.
The Music and Theater Arts Section will have Professor Marcus Thompson as
Acting Head for the Fall term, while the current Head (Professor Alan Brody)
will be on Sabbatical. The Anthropology/Archaeology Program will now be called
the Anthropology Program, with Professor James Howe replacing Professor Jean
Jackson as Head. We regretfully announce that Professor Harriet Ritvo has
stepped down as Associate Dean after providing outstanding service for three
years in that post, and with great pride announce that Professor Rosalind
Williams of the Program in Writing and Humanistic Studies has been chosen to be
the new Dean for Undergraduate Education and Student Affairs.
Ms. Carol Ann Martin, appointed Director of Development for the School of
Humanities and Social Science this past September, has been hard at work
redesigning and implementing a strategic plan for the SHSS Development
Program.
Philip S. Khoury
MIT
Reports to the President 1994-95