MIT Campaign Benefits School of Engineering
by Dean Thomas L. Magnanti, Vol. 2, No. 2, March 2005
The MIT campaign, "Calculated Risk, Creative Revolutions," closed to resounding success on December 31, 2004, exceeding the $2 billion goal by $50 million. Departments, labs, centers, and programs in the School of Engineering are already benefiting from approximately $409 million of the campaign funds designated to them. Dean Thomas L. Magnanti discusses the impact of the campaign.
Q: With the end of the campaign, what are some of the highlights for the School of Engineering from your perspective?
TLM: Perhaps the most gratifying aspect of the campaign has been the extraordinary enthusiasm and generosity of our alumni and friends over the past seven years and the great personal pleasure I've had in meeting with so many of them. If you had asked any of us in the School of Engineering at the beginning to the campaign, no one would have thought we would be able to raise over $400 million. The generosity of our alumni and friends is really impressive. I'm particularly appreciative of the time alumni have spent as volunteers and their willingness to make stretches in their personal philanthropy – from continued and increased annual giving to a number of very large gifts.
The results of the campaign have put us in good stead for the future and provide a firm base to address the increasingly multidisciplinary nature of engineering research and education. Among the notable achievements of the campaign are:
- the opening of the magnificent Ray and Maria Stata Center for Computer, Information, and Intelligence Sciences;
- a multimillion-dollar, expendable gift for two new, School-wide endeavors: the Deshpande Center, a catalyst for the development of innovative technologies; and the Undergraduate Practice Opportunities Program (UPOP) , a special program in engineering practice and mentorship for sophomores;
- fellowship and unrestricted funding for our divisions of Biological Engineering and Engineering Systems;
- 15 new endowed professorships; more than 40 endowed full-year or one-semester fellowships; and
- added support for the School's innovative middle- and high-school-level science and engineering programs for students from underrepresented and underserved communities.
Q: How are the campaign results addressing the School's priorities?
TLM: Well, one of our goals was to improve resources and education for students, both undergraduate and graduate. The pilot gift from Jaishree and Desh Deshpande to fund both the Deshpande Center for Technological Innovation and the Undergraduate Practice Opportunities Program (UPOP) is a great example of impact on both populations. Of the 250 submissions for Deshpande Center grants, the center has now funded close to 40 projects. The center's educational and community activities have engaged more than 150 faculty members, researchers, and graduate students to bring their nascent inventions to life, educate and develop their entrepreneurial skills, and connect them with the larger investment and business communities. In just three years, the Deshpande Center's grants have led to the founding of or licensing of technology by three companies, and we're looking forward to several more in the next few years.
Similarly, in its first three-and-a-half years, UPOP has helped 450 sophomores prepare for their careers. The program matches internships to students' education and provides them with an awareness of real-world engineering practice. It also gives them an introduction to the professional skills they will need as engineers and a network of people who can help them succeed in their professional lives. The participation of alumni as teaching assistants, visiting lecturers, and mentors has been wonderful.
I am also grateful for the contributions we've received for graduate support and our programs in diversity (MITES), SEED Academy, STEM, and the Women's Technology Program). These gifts are helping us ensure a steady pipeline of a diverse student body throughout our undergraduate and graduate populations so that we can continue to build excellent engineers and new faculty for the future.
Finally, our groundbreaking educational and corporate relationships have not only supported fellowships, professorships, and research, but have also enabled us to expand our educational reach, bring world-wide learning to MIT, and strengthen industrial input into our research. For this we are particularly grateful to the Cambridge-MIT Institute, the Singapore-MIT Alliance, and our alliances with DuPont, Ford, Hewlett-Packard, and Microsoft.
Q: What are some of the research areas most directly affected by the campaign?
TLM: Every one of our departments has benefited from the support of its alumni and friends and, as a result, has been able to develop and expand into new areas of research. We've seen this particularly in the areas of biological engineering, engineering systems, tiny technologies, and the environment. For example, support for the Biological Engineering Division now provides partial or full fellowships for the Ph.D. program's top five incoming students, helping us compete with other institutions in attracting the best students. Funding for the Engineering Systems Division has enabled the division to come together physically in one space, initiate the coordinated development of research and teaching with other universities that have compatible programs, and start building case studies and common curricula to set the foundation for this new area of study.
Newer activities in the environment, such as the Earth Systems Initiative (ESI), are well underway, and we expect to add an initiative in energy in the coming year. Charitable support for ESI has enabled the funding of four fellowships per year from 2003-2007. Additionally, a very generous multi-year grant through the Moore Foundation will not only increase our knowledge of the role marine microbes play in the Earth';s system but could also have important implications in bioengineering and other bio-related fields.
Q: Many have heard about the Stata Center – what's happening there and with other campaign capital projects?
TLM: The Stata Center opened in 2004, bringing together into one facility the diverse communities of computer science, artificial intelligence, communications, control, philosophy, and linguistics. The building's stimulating open architecture has already begun to have a positive impact, facilitating multidisciplinary collaboration by providing gathering places for impromptu meetings of undergraduate students, graduate students, and faculty members.
Support for infrastructure improvements within the departments has also been significant. Highlights include the NanoMechanical Technology Lab in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, the Hatsopoulos (1949) Microfluidics Laboratory in Mechanical Engineering, a forthcoming Nano- and Micro-Engineering Lab in Mechanical Engineering, the Laboratory for Complex Systems in Aeronautics and Astronautics, and the renovation of the Parsons Lab in Civil and Environmental Engineering.
Q: Are there other particular efforts within the departments that have benefited from the campaign?
TLM: Specific results within all of the departments are too numerous to cover here, but of the 15 new professorships, several are in the critically important, emerging areas of information engineering, tiny technologies, and computational and systems biology. Similarly, we have made important progress toward the long-term goal of increased funding for graduate students, with 20 endowed full-year or one-semester fellowships within the departments and another 20 across the School, as well as partial or full funding of many non-endowed fellowships.
Q: What do you expect in the next five years and what directions do you see the School emphasizing in the longer term?
TLM: With increased collaborative research in nano- and micro-technologies, I would very much like to see the construction of a central tiny technologies/nanofabrication facility, as its benefits will extend to almost all of our departments and divisions, particularly Aeronautics and Astronautics, Biological Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Materials Science and Engineering, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and Mechanical Engineering.
I would also like to ensure permanent funding for both the Deshpande Center and UPOP. We're very fortunate to have gotten them started, but in a few years, the initial funding will run out, and we want to ensure both programs' longevity before that happens. Some alumni are already donating to help sustain both programs; so we have made a good beginning.
In terms of future emphasis, what happens here is too extensive and too interdisciplinary to cite just a few areas. In overall terms, I see us continuing to emphasize our themes of developing leaders with technical excellence, discovering new areas of critical research, and ensuring we have the infrastructure to do so. With the vibrant environment of ideas we have, we will always have need for funding – it's these ideas and the funding to support them that keep us at the top. As one of our faculty recently stated, our overarching objective is nothing less than inventing the future.