MIT Provost Joel Moses has announced his intention to resign his position on August 1st and return to teaching and research on a full-time basis.

I would like to begin with some educational issues:

1) There was some concern that with Travis Merritt no longer cajoling faculty members to teach Freshman Advisory Seminars that we would have far too few such offerings next fall and beyond. I am pleased to note that once we announced a $1500 grant to faculty teaching such seminars (and a similar grant for staff) we were able to get commitments for over 130 such seminars for next fall.

2) Several people have noted with understandable frustration that educational proposals made by faculty committees often do not get implemented. One reason that has been suggested for the lack of implementation is that there was little analysis of the cost of implementing the proposals.

At a recent meeting of the Education Committee, a subcommittee of Academic Council that is chaired by the provost, a process for dealing with this issue was discussed. We wish to continue having educational proposals arise from and be discussed by faculty committees. We recognize, however, the need to alert the academic administrative structure early on about the proposals and their possible implications. It was agreed by the Education Committee that chairs of faculty committees, such as the chair of CUP, should discuss proposals on educational initiatives with the deans on the Education Committee. Deans can then alert department heads about the possible changes. I expect that this simple change in the process by which educational proposals are discussed will have very beneficial consequences.

3) Several long term interdepartmental teaching programs have encountered a similar difficulty. The faculty originally passionate about the programs have retired, are on leave or have simply changed their areas of interest. New department heads have not been involved in the original discussions leading to the creation of the programs. Departments feel that their core educational missions must be served first and foremost. Thus, faculty interested in teaching in the interdepartmental program are either not available or else are strongly advised to teach in departmental core programs. In order to deal with this issue I believe that new interdepartmental teaching programs should obtain written guarantees by relevant departments that they will provide a specified minimum amount of faculty effort each year. Similar arrangements should be attempted for existing interdepartmental programs.

I would like to make some comments regarding the budget:

MIT is undergoing significant structural changes in its finances at this time. For the past 50 years we have been one of the universities most reliant on federal support for research. In recent years, as we are all painfully aware, changes in accounting rules have reduced our annual support from overhead and employee benefits by an estimated $50M a year. Fortunately, our endowment has doubled in the past four years, and our annual gifts have also grown significantly. I am optimistic that by fall the Corporation will agree to new operating assumptions for the Institute for the coming years, and in addition approve a major increase in the endowment payout and a new capital campaign. The current payout is approximately 3.2 percent of the present value of the endowment.

The transformation to an Institute that is much more heavily reliant on private support than it has been in the past will not come about without some stresses in the community. The stresses can arise because some parts of the community will no doubt benefit more than others from this transformation. In order for us to avoid the frictions that such a situation may entail, it is time for MIT to recommit to core principles, such as those established by the Lewis Commission nearly 50 years ago. One such principle is that we have a single faculty with no distinction between those who teach undergraduates and those who teach graduate students. I would add to the Lewis Commission principles certain operating principles, namely that we have a single overhead rate and a single endowment payout rate.

At this time, it is especially important that we permit the central administration to smooth out some of the differences among our units that are likely to arise as we transition to a period of much greater reliance on private support. The forthcoming capital campaign must also be one that deals with community-wide issues as well as local ones. Thus continued attention to scholarships, undergraduate educational initiatives, and unrestricted funds needs to take place along side support for particular research, educational, and construction initiatives. I firmly believe that with some care to such issues, the Institute will achieve continued greatness in the coming decades.

Finally, let me point out a common theme in several of the initiatives in which I have played a role in the past dozen years. I am thinking of the Faculty Lunchroom, the Keyser dinners, the Symposium (a monthly dinner discussion by a group of about two dozen faculty), and the "Moses" seminar (a biweekly faculty seminar on issues related to the brain, learning, and complex systems). In each case I have tried to foster the notion that MIT is a collegial community of scholars. In each case we have also tried to engage faculty from all parts of the Institute in discussion of issues. The reason that these initiatives have been successful has been in part because of the existence of that four-letter word, food. Of course, Jay Keyser has played a crucial role in a couple of these initiatives, and I am pleased to say that he will continue to do so in his retirement. I am very optimistic that all these gatherings will continue in the coming years. I hope that we can create new ones as well.