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Editorial
In January of 1997, after many discussions and negotiations, President Vest signed an agreement to fund the Faculty Newsletter and to provide administrative support for another five years. The continued editorial autonomy of the Newsletter was confirmed, and a review by a committee appointed by the President would take place in 2002. Last January that review committee (headed by Chair of the Faculty Steve Graves) began meeting.
The Committee sought out and interviewed faculty from across the Institute, including all the current members of the Editorial Board of the Faculty Newsletter. They released their report late last summer. The purpose of this editorial is to provide you with some highlights of that report, and to seek your assistance in complying with the Committee's major recommendations.
The Report notes that virtually all faculty value the Newsletter and wish it to continue. Suggestions were made about types and length of articles, topics to be addressed, and other ways to improve the publication. But the strongest recommendation concerned the need to continually renew faculty participation.
We need you to help us with this. It is your Newsletter, and your articles and e-mail comments and suggestions will make this a better, more representative voice of the faculty. But the most important need is for you to join the Newsletter Editorial Board. It's really not much work – the Board meets a couple of times a year in a cordial setting (usually someone's department conference room) and we even serve refreshments. Board members are asked to serve on an Editorial Committee for an upcoming issue, which involves one or two brief meetings and subsequent e-mail communications to solicit articles from faculty members we think would have something interesting to say on the topic we have chosen. And that's about it.
We wish to thank President Vest and the Graves Committee for providing valuable input and constructive suggestions for the improvement of the Newsletter. But it's really you, the MIT faculty we want to thank for your past help, and we'd like to be able to thank many more of you for future help making The MIT Faculty Newsletter continue its unique role as a voice for the faculty. Please contact us by e-mail (fnl@mit.edu), snail mail (Bldg. N52-419a); telephone (x37303), or by contacting any member of the Editorial Board. Please – we can't do this without more help from you.
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