In her column "From the Faculty Chair" in this issue of the Newsletter (see page 3), Professor Lotte Bailyn reviews the latest Carnegie Foundation (Boyer Commission) Report: "Reinventing Undergraduate Education: A Blueprint for America's Research Universities." As she notes, the report is consonant with the call for an MIT freshman year that is inquiry-based and intellectually integrated. Pertinently, an article in the May/June '98 issue of Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning describes a similar program that has already been in effect for several years at Holy Cross College. (We thank our colleague, Chris Luebkeman for bringing this article to our attention.) Professor Bailyn mentions "the scarcity of time." It is our contention that it is still not too late for MIT to put such a program in place for incoming first-year students this coming fall.

Much of the groundwork has already been laid. Discussions along these lines have been ongoing here for at least a year. In an effort to advance the process, one of us (Steve Chorover) reported to more than four score MIT faculty colleagues in early May on the initial meeting of the Muddy River Education Initiative (MREI) held at Northeastern University on April 23. The meeting included individuals affiliated with many different citizens groups and organizations. Many of the 74 attendees and other interested people representing or affiliated with 22 institutions were identified as sharing an interest in collaborative education programs focused on the ongoing revival of the historic Muddy River (water quality improvement, flood mitigation, and ecological restoration). Some financial resources were identified that might be available to support the establishment of such a program in the near future.

The Muddy River watershed and floodplain contain a unique concentration of educational institutions, museums, and health care facilities and provide a superb setting for the integrated study of often-separated issues of urban ecology and basic science. A study of the urban environment through which the river flows offers insights into the relationship between the natural and the built landscape.

The MIT campus is not situated in the Muddy River watershed or floodplain. Why then should we participate in an educational initiative that takes it as the focus? At least two of our independent living groups are located in the floodplain, as is the Museum of Fine Arts, which the Institute participates in operating. Moreover, the Muddy empties into the Charles directly opposite our doorstep. Its effluent directly affects the quality of the waters on which we sail and row and along and across which we travel daily on our ways to and fro.

The general idea that emerged from the meeting is to draw on the intellectual resources available among the stakeholders to create new approaches to collaborative and integrative learning. It was agreed to apply for support under a recently announced NSF program: Urban Research Initiative: The Dynamics of Change in Urban Environments. Under this program, 10-20 awards totaling $6-10M will be made to U.S. colleges and universities for the support of inter-institutional partnerships dealing with "functional interrelations among physical, biological, social and engineered systems and processes." The deadline is mid-July (for further information, see <http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/1998/nsf9898/nsf9898.htm>).

The authors of this article agreed to participate with others in the development and submission of the proposal. In preparation, a second communication was sent to essentially the same group of MIT faculty colleagues in mid-May, inviting interest in an MIT role in the project. It was further suggested that the MIT component be an alternative first-year undergraduate program like the one described in a previous Faculty Newsletter article ("I Have Truly Found Paradise",Vol X No. 1, September 1997). A more specific purpose of this second message was to determine whether or not there is any serious interest in MIT serving as "lead institution" in the prospective collaborative submission to NSF.

The answer remains – muddy. To begin with, only 13 replies were received from the people to whom the second message was sent. Most of those replies were supportive of the idea, but pessimistic about the capacity of MIT to mount such a program. The following excerpts are representative:

"It would be great if we could apply these ideas in our own back yard, so to speak, as well as in Bangkok, Mexico City and other far-flung locales. I think the most appropriate response would be from the Civil & Environmental Engineering and Urban Planning folks – I hope this works out, but...."

"I think it's a terrific idea. My problem is I'm so overwhelmed....

"It's unclear to me that MIT's senior administrators would commit to any educational initiative without more of the MIT community involved. (However), I really don't believe that the...faculty will take on an initiative...unless it is legitimized by the President and/or Provost. So, this becomes very problematic. I have been struggling with this for several years at this point, and I don't have an answer. I used to think that if I had lots of money people would show up. I no longer believe that, because the real currency of academic life at MIT is tenure and promotion and in that sense, education...does not now really make a good case. Without a change in the faculty incentives and reward structure, I'm not optimistic. I do regret coming off so negative, but I really do believe that the above is at work in this instance. I am not negative about what you are trying to do, as I suspect you already know."

"I wish you well in this... if you don't get overwhelming support, there are other ways for you to proceed that may be easier."

"I am just overloaded and trying as I have been for a long time to do something worthwhile here at MIT with little or no support....I see no institutional interest here for this kind of project....I won't tell you what you should do, but I am limiting my horizons and muddling through, as I have, in fact, been doing for some time. So, you have my heart in this one but not my body...."

The Muddy River Education Initiative is conceived as a scientifically informed education action research project. Its goal is to create some much-needed cross-disciplinary, hands-on, inquiry-based learning and teaching programs that connect science subjects – e.g., math, physics, chemistry, biology – to their social, cultural, and historical context, as well as to each other. The NSF initiative specifically focuses on "functional relationships among physical, biological, social and engineered systems and processes." This makes it easy to imagine the outlines of a proposal directly responsive to the NSF agenda.

In sum, MIT could and should be playing a leadership role in a partnership under which innovative and effective educational programs would be collaboratively developed. Each of the participating educational institutions would develop and use educational materials in its own way, and all would exchange information of common interest. As an educational resource, the Muddy River contains all the elements needed to develop and test such programs. Here is an opportunity to serve the educational interests of MIT while enabling the development of pedagogical models that would be transferable to any educational program in which an urban waterway is available as a resource. Is this not an end worth pursuing?

A second meeting of those interested and willing to get involved in the MREI project will be held at MIT on the morning of Wednesday June 10. At that time, or soon thereafter, the lead institution will have to be definitely determined, so that a proposal to NSF can be prepared. Whither MIT vis-à-vis the MREI?