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Some years ago, Paul Gray named a task force to investigate student life and learning. That group came to the conclusion that, among other things, there was a lack at MIT of productive contact between faculty and students. In due time, a faculty committee, the Committee on Student Life (CSL), began investigating ways to address that lack. Without presuming to summarize the findings and recommendations of the CSL, of which I have been a member, I may be so bold here as to offer the Hildebidle Handy No Heavy Lifting Guide to "Humanizing" the Institute.
I start from the premise that all of us – undergraduates, graduate students, staff, faculty, and administrators – have fewer financial resources than might be ideal, and are even more crucially short of extra time and energy. My own experience has been, at times, one of frustration, when I organize encounters with students (advisees usually, sometimes members of a class) only to find it nearly impossible to agree upon a mutually convenient time. Even more demoralizing, when I have managed to scrounge and connive some funding – enough, say, for a round of pizza – students who expressed initial enthusiasm manage to develop schedule conflicts that keep them away.
But the cleverness of the plan below is that most of it demands no real expenditure of time, and no particular advance planning or coordination of schedules. The CSL did, however, come to the conclusion that student-faculty contact must be informal, extracurricular, and recurrent.
1. Make it a point, once a week or so, to walk the length of the Infinite Corridor, greeting warmly anyone who is even vaguely familiar (and perhaps even saying hello to the occasional stranger, or picking up a clue about shared interests – a baseball cap, a sweatshirt from a college you happen to know well, a book in an area of your interest or expertise).2. Have lunch in one of the two main student dining facilities, Walker or Lobdell. Talk to the people who end up at the same table as you, and perhaps even seek out some former or present students. The best course would be to do this regularly – perhaps even once a week.
3. Go to Stratton, to the lounge area newly-established on the ground floor. Take along a magazine or a newspaper or a book (preferably nothing too technical). Sit and read and allow yourself to fall into conversation. Again, this would be best done several times.
4. Let it be known, at the first meeting of your courses, that you'd like students to inform you about extracurricular activities they will be involved with – theater, MITSOS, athletics. Have them inform you of performances or games, and attend them.
5. I have little contact with grad students, but I do know that Ashdown House has regular, informal evening gatherings. Ask your teaching or lab assistants whether they are aware of such gatherings, and get yourself invited - I'd wager a few e-mails to the relevant House Masters is all it would take.
Assuming that you already eat regularly, that even the busiest of us can use the occasional break and a bit of exercise, and that the range of activities on campus (lectures, films, plays, musicals, sports) is wide enough to suit almost anyone's fancy, none of these gestures should radically inconvenience us. But then, a sea change in the atmosphere of this institution is what I am proposing, and it would be naïve to argue that such a change won't involve any effort. Two steps are plausible, to my way of thinking:
1. Get a membership in the Z-center, and use it. "The campus that sweats together gels," is my personal mantra. Half an hour on the Nautilus or the stationary bikes will help your cardiovascular system no end, and a few cordial words exchanged with the person next to you will repay the investment, in human terms.2. Sign up to offer a freshman advisee seminar. It is easy enough to think of something you'd like to talk about with a group of extremely bright young people (else why are you a college professor?). It can as easily be an avocation as your major professional interest – sports, film, music, art, television. The chance to meet and advise the newest members of our community is a richly rewarding one, in my experience; and it establishes lasting connections (advisees from years past have a way of dropping by to bring you up to date on their lives, and – yes – to ask for letters of recommendation). It is a way to do authentic good, and the cost in time and effort is remarkably small: two hours a week, or less, during the fall term.
The fact is that "community" will not just happen, nor can it be farmed out to distinct areas of the Institute. It will take continuing effort on the part of all of us. But the evidence is pretty clear – it will pay off in the classroom, as well.
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