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From The Faculty Chair

Preserving the MIT Community

Rafael L. Bras

Call me a romantic. What has kept me at MIT for so long is the sense of loyalty created by respect of my colleagues, awe at the quality of students, and gratefulness to the institution that makes it all possible. My feelings are not based on naiveté and certainly not on the belief that all is perfect at MIT. They are based on the humbling realization that despite my talents, my accomplishments are inexorably linked to the Institute.

What makes the Institute? I believe first is the commitment to truly being a university dedicated to generating new knowledge within the context of educating individuals. I emphasize the meaning of "university": entertaining intellectual diversity, bringing together and promoting a world of ideas within old and new disciplines. This is unquestionably a far cry from a narrowly defined institute of technology. Second, is the response that the Institute elicits from all of us. That response has elements of loyalty and dedication.

Will the MIT of the future have the characteristics I have described? There is no clear evidence to the contrary, but there are, in my opinion, disturbing cracks in the façade. Let me end with a few anecdotes, collected as I meet more and more colleagues.

More than once I have heard that the Institute is becoming too "corporate." Some believe that market forces are the only forces operating and we are losing our soul as an institution of higher learning.

Far too many times I have heard colleagues expressing unacceptable derision of other colleagues. Words like "those that we, after all, do not respect" are devastating to a healthy institution. Putdowns of whole fields, at the highest levels of decision-making, are equally common.

Finally, not long ago I heard, from a faculty member, words to the effect that after all "I am just renting space from MIT." This is coming from more than one faculty member who, in the eyes of some of us "lifers," were receiving the largesse of the Institute. This is disturbing; not the fault of the individuals, but a reflection of a change of character of the Institute that, if it were to continue, will undermine the reason why most of us are here.

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