Rationale for InterLink
If forty percent of our campus is hurting, all of us, the
entire MIT community, is hurting.
-- MIT Chancellor Phillip Clay
Rapid and substantial changes in visa laws and regulations have left international
students, postdoctoral fellows, visiting scientists, exchange visitors and international
faculty with a sense of anxiety and isolation. As recently reported in The Tech,
approximately forty percent of all graduate students and nine percent of all
undergraduate students are not US citizens or permanent residents. Approximately
thirty percent of the faculty were born and raised outside of the US and most
members of the MIT community have been immigrants or are descendants of immigrants.
In the post-9/11 United States, the political climate has changed profoundly
towards foreign nationals and nationals alike. Recent changes in laws and regulations
have left the international community at MIT feeling isolated and sometimes
distanced from the MIT community. Under today’s circumstances, unfortunately,
past experiences of living in the US as a foreign national are not entirely
helpful in dealing with this newly experienced anxiety exacerbated by the absence
of peer experience.
New regulations and stricter laws have caused (and will cause) sudden personal
hardship for some community members. In such cases, the affected unfortunate
individual finds him/herself in “uncharted territory”, where not
much peer support is available in dealing with the situation. MIT students,
staff, faculty and administration are trying to provide some support but most
of the MIT campus is still uninformed, unaffected and unable to support the
international MIT community. Given this situation, many students have expressed
the wish for a community forum wherein the entire MIT community can come together
and share experiences. These experiences would not only empower the community
members to deal with INS/visa-related issues, but will also help build a stronger,
inter-connected and supportive network within the Institute.
The reasons for the formation of a network for international community fall
under three broad categories:
- Many international and American MIT community members feel that there is
some lack of information on rapid changes in visa laws and regulations. Given
that this lack of information can lead to a loss of legal status in the US,
possibly threatening the continuation of studies in the US, the well-informed
members of the MIT community are quite concerned about this issue. Several
offices at MIT have the official responsibility of conveying news to international
community members but they also depend on various student, ethnic and intercultural
groups to convey their messages and make them ‘stick’ with the
community. Unfortunately, sometimes this leads to the spread of urban myths
and rumors that are not factual.
- While we continue to hear of individual cases of community members whose
visas were delayed or refused, there is no coordinated effort to provide emotional
and peer support for these individuals. In some rare cases family members
of ‘delayed’ individuals are left in the US and may require additional
support. In other cases, it may be helpful to have a network of friends as
support while undergoing INS-related investigations. If left stranded in another
country, or detained, the value of such a peer-support network grows tremendously.
Needless to say, the entire MIT community needs to be informed about situations
that affect their community members, to increase understanding of the difficulties
being faced by their colleagues and to enhance the sense of community at MIT.
- While homeland security measures need to be adhered to and should not be
avoided, it is also important to maintain and support the terrific community
that is MIT. International students, researchers, faculty members and administrators
have been a tremendous asset to the institute, to the local Massachusetts
community and to the country. There is a need to highlight those achievements
on a regular basis to create a space at the Institute where international
students feel comfortable and welcome.
Description of InterLink services:
1. Information dissemination
InterLink will be a group run by and for the MIT community. It will be open
to all members of the community: faculty, staff, postdoctoral fellows and students;
national and international. Interlink, as evident by its name, will provide
a forum and a space to link members of the MIT community to each other, with
the aim of bringing the international community tighter into the main campus
and promoting their sense of belonging to the institute in these times when
there is an increased distance between those who hold US citizenship and those
who don’t. Each department will ideally have at least one InterLink member
as well as any group on campus that expresses the wish to have an InterLink
member. The main task of InterLink members will be to help distribute official
written information prepared by the ISO and related offices about visa/INS rules
and regulations and other news regarding laws and regulations affecting the
MIT community. As a body of volunteers, InterLink members will poster information
material on notice boards (local to their segment of the MIT community) and
forward official broad-cast emails to their research groups or living groups
(this will broaden the distribution of mass emails and also increase community-wide
awareness about international student issues). Members will also distribute
any further written material that the MIT administration feels valuable to be
distributed (such as INS change of address forms, notification of IAP lectures
and workshops etc.). In addition, Interlink will be the eyes and ears for departments
and the MIT administration. Interlink will be in close contact with MIT community
members and relay back information regarding specific student experiences to
increase the Institute’s awareness of student concerns and issues.
InterLink will be an outreach group in nature, modeled after the MIT medical
center’s MedLink program. Danielle Ashbrook-Guichard, the director of
the ISO, is fully aware of this proposal and in full support of this effort.
2. Community coffee hours
InterLink will host a weekly coffee hour open to the entire MIT community where
the community can share their feelings and experiences. Great effort will be
made to specifically invite other student groups to attend these coffee hours
to familiarize them with interlink and to create possibilities of collaborations
on future seminars, publications etc. Occasionally these events will also be
used to highlight significant contributions to MIT and to the US by international
MIT alumni, faculty members and other community members. The coffee hours will
essentially be a way to enhance the community feeling at MIT, to promote excellence
and to provide a forum for candid discussion on how international community
members at MIT can best integrate into the Institute and exceed their own achievement
standards.
3. Networking and visibility
InterLink members will be strongly encouraged to actively and visibly become
a part of different sections of the MIT community. Interlink members will be
a support group for two-way communication between the administration and the
MIT community. While all existing communication channels have tremendous value,
Interlink will enhance the ability of the Institute to accurately and quickly
collect and distribute information. As a representative body of volunteers on
campus, Interlink officers will remain in close contact with graduate student
and undergraduate student administrators, department heads, Deans’ offices
and student groups across campus.
InterLink Committee Composition:
1. Executive committee
InterLink will have an executive committee, with a president, vice president,
secretary, web master and treasurer. Anyone who wishes to be an InterLink member
and who attends weekly info-session meetings with the ISO for the duration of
3 months will be an InterLink member. To remain a member no more than 3 consecutive
info-session meetings may be missed. Officers will be elected January 31st each
year (if this date falls on a weekend, elections will be held the Monday following
the weekend) by the majority of a vote by all present InterLink members. InterLink
will seek ASA recognition.
2. Board of directors
InterLink will be advised by a board of directors consisting of 14 members.
Directors will be appointed by the officers of InterLink on June 30th each year.
There will be 2 undergraduate directors, 2 graduate directors, 2 postdoctoral
fellows, 2 alumni, 2 staff, 2 faculty members, the director of the ISO, and
a MIT medical mental health representative. The board of directors will meet
quarterly and advise the executive committee on broader issues affecting the
MIT community. It is anticipated that the board of directors will have a broader
vision of matters that affect the MIT community than the executive committee.
Therefore the board of directors will have to approve the allocation of resources.
The board of directors is also urged to represent InterLink on the MIT campus
as well as give input about community concerns to InterLink.
Reporting:
1. Campus publications:
In order to keep InterLink visible to the MIT community and to increase accountability,
InterLink will seek a standing column in the Graduate Student Newsletter (monthly
newsletter) and will seek frequent publications in The Tech and TechTalk. Publications
will include personal accounts of international community members of their experiences
and statistics provided by the MIT administration to increase the awareness
of international students about the scope of changing visa/INS rules and regulations.
Knowing that 100 students of almost 1600 international students who traveled
in the summer of 2002 had a substantial delay will lend facts to the discussion
about issues of international community members. Additionally, the publications
will also be used to highlight the role of international researchers and students
at MIT and to promote a better knowledge about the various nationalities and
cultural groups that exist at MIT.
2. Monthly seminars
To increase the flow of information to the MIT community, InterLink will host
a monthly seminar series appealing to the MIT community as a whole, not just
the international part of the MIT community. Seminars in addition to coffee
hours will serve as an effort to reach out to the non-international part of
the MIT community. Speakers will be chosen on their merit to MIT community concerns.
At every seminar, Interlink will seek input from the audience using questionnaires
asking for suggestions of future seminar topics and speakers and to assess satisfaction
of the audience about the presented seminar. The following is a list of suggested
topics and speakers:
Faculty panel on the contributions of international community members
at MIT:
- Prof. Rodney Brooks (MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab)
- Prof. Mario Molina, Nobel Laureate, Institute Professor
- Prof. Wolfgang Ketterle, Nobel Laureate
- Prof. Hargobind Khorana, Nobel Laureate
Legal Rights of visitors to the US
- American Civil Liberties Union Massachusetts: Exec. Director Carol Rose
Contributions of International MIT community at local, regional
and global level:
- Keenan Sahin, Alum, Founder of Sahin Networks
- Shaheen Husain, Alum, Founder of MIT Arab Alumni Association
- Prof. Nouebar Afeyan, Lecturer in Sloan School
Importance of international research collaborations:
- David Marks (Alliance for Global Sustainability)
- Prof. Edward Crawley (Executive Director, Cambridge MIT Institute)
- Prof. Nicholas Negroponte (vice-chairman of the Asia Media Lab)
Timeline:
Formation over February 2003:
- Initial InterLink members will be self-appointed
- Info sessions will start mid January
- Election of InterLink officers by all attending MIT community members on
January 31st
- appointment of board of directors who will serve until June 2003
March 2003:
- weekly coffee hour will start
- weekly info-sessions with ISO will start
Evaluation:
Attendance at coffee hours will be used as a measure of interest and outreach
to the MIT community. The size of the InterLink membership will be a measure
of interest and need of InterLink. Attendance at seminars will be an indicator
of how InterLink manages to engage the MIT community as a whole. Much of InterLink’s
success will be hard to measure. InterLink will be truly successful if there
is open discussion about and within the international community of MIT. If,
as a result of InterLink’s intervention, international community members
stay in legal standing and therefore will not have to leave the US, the overall
objective of informing the community will be reached, even though it will not
be assessable.
Budget:
The budget proposed will fund InterLink for the duration of 6 months. Interlink
will seek ASA recognition and will seek further funding (in fall 2003) from
the GSC funding board.
item - amount - times needed - subtotal
coffee hour - $150 - 26 - $3,900
discretionary money for publications - $1,000 - 1 - $1,000
seminars - $200 - 6 - $1,200
total $6,100
