The School of Science at MIT continues to play a leadership role in science education and research both nationally and internationally. Our faculty received a broad array of honors and awards during the past year, the most notable being the receipt of the 1995 Nobel Prize in Chemistry by Mario J. Molina Professor of EAPS and Chemistry. This is the first Nobel Prize in Chemistry awarded to one of our faculty. The 1995 NRC study of Research Doctorate Programs in the United States showed that our graduate programs quite broadly are ranked among the top few in the Nation. The one exception is neuroscience where we are in a building phase. Of course, maintaining this high standard in the future will require continued dedication and diligence by all of the members of our community, especially in an era of diminishing resources.
Our education programs continue to evolve and improve in response to ever-changing conditions. Mathematics has extensively revised introductory calculus 18.01 and has introduced an "intermediate difficulty" freshman calculus sequence 18.01A and 18.02A. Biology has been successfully introduced into the core curriculum and is continuing quite successfully. One result of adding Biology to the core is a dramatic increase in the number of Biology majors over the past two years. Physics introduced a major change in the structure of 8.01 with most of the teaching taking place in small sections of ~ 20 students. Further refinement of this novel approach is underway. EAPS is revamping its educational program, especially at the graduate level, with an emphasis on a systems approach. In particularly, EAPS is in the process of introducing a professional masters degree in Geosystems. BCS has revamped its Cognitive Science major dividing it into four core areas and is designing a neuroscience major to be introduced in FY1997. Overall, after EECS, the departments with the largest number of undergraduate student contact hours at MIT are, in order, Mathematics, Physics, Biology and Chemistry. Thus, the School of Science continues to carry a major part of the undergraduate teaching responsibility at MIT.
In 1993 the School of Science established the "School of Science Teaching Prize for Graduate Education" to complement the prize for undergraduate education established by John Deutch in 1983. The 1996 winner of this award was Professor Marcia McNutt of EAPS. The School of Science Teaching Prize for Undergraduate Education was won by John Essigmann of Chemistry and Toxicology. Two School of Science faculty were chosen as MacVicar fellows in FY96; they are Rick Danheiser and Bob Silbey.
The quality of an academic enterprise such as the School of Science is determined primarily by the caliber of the faculty who make it up. Thus, one of the highest priorities of the current administration in the School has been to support properly our existing outstanding faculty as well as recruiting to MIT exceptionally talented young educators and researchers including especially women and underrepresented minorities. In 1995-96 seven new faculty joined the School as assistant professors; one as an associate professor; and two additional faculty were appointed as full professors. We also have had to stave off an unprecedented number of outside offers to our most distinguished faculty.
One of the most significant events of the recent past was the formation of the Committee on Women Faculty in the School of Science. This committee was created as the result of an initiative which involved all of the senior women in the School of Science. The committee has multiple purposes and responsibilities. First, the committee has collected data to be used in assessing the status and equitable treatment of women faculty in the School of Science. Second, the committee is facilitating communications between the women faculty and the dean and department heads. Third, the committee is acting as a resource for the Dean of Science and the department heads. Finally, the committee is also serving as a resource to the MIT community as a whole to provide advice about issues of concern to women faculty at MIT. The committee's first official report is due shortly.
There are many new research initiatives in the School of Science. One of the most significant is our newly established partnership with the Carnegie Institution, the Harvard Smithsonian, the University of Michigan and the University of Arizona in the Magellan Project; this involves the design and construction of twin 6.5m telescopes at Los Campanas in Chile. In addition, the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) is scheduled to be one of the premier scientific experiments on the International Space Station to be launched in 2001. The AMS project, which involves an international consortium, will look for anti-matter and dark matter candidates above the Earth's atmosphere. MIT, in partnership with the Whitehead Institute, continues to play a leading role in genome research. A new three-year 26 million dollar program to begin sequencing specific portions of the human genome has begun.
There were 913 undergraduates in the School of Science during the past academic year, a 1.44% increase from the previous year. The number of minority students at the undergraduate level changed as follows:
Blacks
|
Increased
from 25 to 37 (48.00% increase)
|
| Hispanics
|
No
change (48)
|
| Native
Americans
|
Increased
from 7 to 8 (14.29% increase)
|
| Asian
Americans
|
Increased
from 276 to 289 (4.71% increase)
|
The female undergraduate population increased from 372 to 418 (12.37%). Twenty percent of the Institute's upperclass undergraduates were enrolled in the School of Science.
Graduate enrollments in science decreased from 1,084 to 1,059. The total enrollment represents 20 percent of the graduate population at MIT. The number of minority students at the graduate level changed as follows:
Blacks
|
No
change
|
| Hispanics
|
Increased
from 14 to 19 (35.71% increase)
|
| Native
Americans
|
No
change
|
| Asian
Americans
|
Increased
from 47 to 51 (8.51% increase)
|
The number of female graduate students increased from 245 to 316 (28.98%).
There were 277 faculty members in the School this past year. This represents a slight increase from the previous year. The undergraduate student-to-faculty ratio was 3 to 1, and the graduate student-to-faculty ratio was 4 to 1.
Research Volume
The FY96 research volume was $123 million, a 2% decline over the FY95 research volume.
Robert J. Birgeneau