Paul Gray and the 80s; A Decade of Advancement for MIT

The decade is ending and so, too, is the Gray administration nearing its 
close.

Depending on mindset, the 1980s at MIT might be called the Decade of 
Women, in recognition of the increasing influence of women on the campus 
in all realms. 

Or perhaps the Decade of the Life Sciences, epitomized by burgeoning 
research in the Department of Biology, the opening of the Whitehead 
Institute for Biomedical Research and the establishment of the new 
Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences.

Or perhaps the Decade of Space, for the new theories of cosmology that 
blossomed and the sharper focus on virtually the entire solar system 
wrought in part by investigators in many MIT laboratories. 

Or perhaps the Decade of Personal Computing, during which desktop 
computers became an omnipresent feature of campus life.

Or the Decade of the Undergraduate, in which a series of reforms were 
initiated in the Institute's undergraduate education program.

Or even the Decade of the Arts, as a tribute to the cultural activities 
that took their place alongside technology and science in the life of 
the university.

But whatever the emphasis, the 1980s were first and foremost the Gray 
Decade, the 10 years of the presidency of Paul E. Gray, who is leaving 
office to become chairman of the Corporation.

This article relates some of the highlights of the past 10 years. It 
isn't meant to be all-inclusive, and perhaps individuals at MIT will 
have special recollections that aren't included here. 



THE NUMBERS

MIT is a place that likes to measure things by the numbers, but a 
decade's events don't readily lend themselves to quantitative analysis. 
Nevertheless, some numerical comparisons can be made between September 
1980 when Dr. Gray was inaugurated, and today. Without attempting to 
interpret them or gauge their significance, here are some "then and now" 
figures:

ÑThe operating budget in fiscal year 1980 was $418 million; for fiscal 
1990 it topped $1 billion ($1.07 billion) for the first time. 

ÑMIT's endowment on June 30, 1980, was approximately $421.25 million; 
the most recent figure available, for June 30, 1989, was approximately 
$1.4 billion.

ÑGifts to MIT totalled $33.8 million in fiscal year 1980; they exceeded 
$100 million ($103.2 million) for the first time in fiscal year 1990.

ÑTuition 10 years ago was $5,300; it is $15,600 this year. 

ÑAverage financial aid for a needy undergraduate student in 1979-80, 
with total school costs (tuition, room and board) of $7,985, was $5,428; 
this past year, with school costs of $19,335, it was $14,500 and will be 
about $15,700 in the current year. The amount of unrestricted funds MIT 
allocated to undergraduate financial aid went from $637,000 to 
$9,553,000 in the ten-year period and will exceed $11 million this year.

ÑTotal campus research volume for fiscal 1980 was $163,121,000; for 
fiscal 1990 it was $310,660,000.     .

There are, of course, other specific checkpoints, and some will be 
included elsewhere in this article.

Perhaps the most telling, in terms of the changing nature of the 
undergraduate population, has been the breakthrough in attracting larger 
numbers of women to the university.

 In 1980, women made up just 19.5 percent of freshmen, but a milestone 
year was 1984, when the incoming class included more than 300 women for 
the first time. The actual number was 309, among 1,069 freshman, or 
nearly 29 percent of the class. But improvement was still to come, and 
by 1986 women made up 38 percent of the freshman class. That proved to 
be a peak for the decade, but incoming classes now regularly include at 
least one-third women; this year the figure was 33 percent, with women 
making up 34 percent of all undergraduates. 

The record for underrepresented minorities (African Americans, Hispanics 
and Native Americans) during the decade also showed some progress as the 
result of intensive recruiting efforts. The number went from 10.9 
percent of the freshman class in 1980 (116 out of 1,060) to 16 percent 
this past school year (168 out of 1,047). The percentage of all 
undergraduates went from 8 percent in 1980 (364 out of 4,517) to 14.4 
percent this year (619 out of 4,307).

The university did not make the progress it had hoped for in attracting 
women and underrepresented minorities to the faculty. At a faculty 
meeting in September, 1987, President Gray himself said that the record 
was "not satisfactory." He noted that there were 21 underrepresented 
minorities, including 19 African Americans, in 1980, and by March, 1987, 
this figure had shrunk to 17 underrepresented minorities, including 14 
African Americans. Last year, in a faculty of 969, there were 26 
underrepresented minorities (2.6 percent), including 12 African 
Americans (1.2 percent).

The situation for women faculty, he said, was more heartening, but again 
not satisfactory. The number of women faculty had increased from 16 in 
1970 to 71 in 1980 to 87 in the spring of 1987, he reported. Last year, 
women faculty numbered 96, or about 10 percent of the total.



SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY IN THE EIGHTIES 

Numbers certainly do not tell the whole story of the Gray Decade.

For example, surveys taken during the decade showed that MIT maintained 
its position of leadership in science and engineering, both in regard to 
teaching and research. All the specific accomplishments in these fields 
are too numerous to list, but Eugene F. Mallove, the News Office's 
science writer, recalls some of the highlights in the 1980s:

MIT literally went into space as researchers trained at the Institute 
took to orbit aboard the new US fleet of space shuttles, which began 
their flights in 1981. Dr. Byron Lichtenberg of the Department of 
Aeronautics and Astronautics flew aboard the first shuttle-launched 
Spacelab mission in 1983, accomplishing pioneering research in space 
physiology. A former MIT Professor, Dr. William Lenoir '61, went into 
space in 1982.

Astronaut Dr. Ronald McNair '76 was killed in the space shuttle 
Challenger accident on January 28, 1986, following his successful flight 
in 1984. Dr. Franklin Chang-Diaz '77, affiliated with the MIT Plasma 
Fusion Center, made two flights aboard space shuttles in 1986 and 1989. 
Terry J. Hart '69 flew in 1984. Space veteran Captain Rick Hauck '66 
flew in 1983 and 1984, and in 1989 commanded the first shuttle mission 
after the Challenger accident.

Professor Eugene E. Covert of the Department of Aeronautics and 
Astronautics served on the team of presidentially appointed 
investigators of the Challenger accident that helped get the shuttles 
flying once again.

MIT space plasma science instruments aboard Voyager's 1 and 2, having 
done their duty in flights by Jupiter in the late 1970s, continued 
measuring the interplanetary medium and made observations near the giant 
outer planets Saturn (1980), Uranus (1986), and Neptune (1989). The two 
Voyagers are now outward bound for the stars, carrying with them the 
furthest ranging pieces of MIT equipment. They will be last heard from 
in the 2020s, but they will cruise interstellar space forever.

The decade in space began with MIT Center for Space Research 
investigators completing the analysis of radar data from the 1978 
Pioneer-Venus mission, through which the topography of that cloud-
shrouded planet was revealed. The decade ended with the May 1989 launch 
of the radar-mapping Magellan spacecraft that arrived at Venus in 
August. In a planned year-long mission, it will make even higher 
resolution and more comprehensive maps of that world. MIT researchers 
led by Professor Gordon H. Pettengill were in large measure responsible 
for the design and integration of the superb radar technology used on 
these missions.

Knowledge of the microcosm got a boost when the Large Electron Positron 
Collider (LEP) began operating in 1989 at CERN. MIT Professor and Nobel 
laureate Samuel C.C. Ting leads an international team of physicists and 
engineers that has constructed at LEP a huge detector system, known as 
L3, that is now probing the fundamental constituents of matter in search 
of an entity, the Higgs boson, that is thought to give all elementary 
particles their distinctive masses.

In the 1980s, the evolution of the larger universe became ever more tied 
to the workings of the subatomic realm. Physicists at MIT and around the 
world built on the pioneering inflationary theory of Professor Alan 
Guth, the physical model that may explain the origin of all matter and 
energyÑhow the Big Bang got started. Physicists at MIT tinkered with 
supercomputer simulations of the evolving cosmos, and speculated on 
theories of supersymmetry, superstring particles, and vast "defects" in 
space-time called cosmic strings.

MIT radioastronomers Professors Bernard Burke and Jacqueline Hewitt made 
scientific headlines with their discovery of the effects of an unusual 
gravitational lens in space, a curious structure called an "Einstein 
Ring." Observing the planet Pluto occult a star in 1988, Professor James 
Elliot and his colleagues determined that the planet really does have an 
atmosphere.

Through the 1980s, after the energy crises of the 1970s, there was great 
activity in many MIT laboratories concerning new kinds of energy 
technologyÑfrom new processes that use fossil fuels more efficiently and 
cleanly to ones that dispense with them altogether, such as a new 
generation of safer nuclear reactors.

Research forged ahead at the MIT Plasma Fusion Center (PFC), as new 
generations of Alcator tokamak experimental fusion devices established 
new milestones in fusion power development.

When a flurry of international activity was triggered by two "cold 
fusion" announcements from Utah, MIT researchers were in the forefront 
of investigating the possible new phenomenon. A team at the PFC 
ascertained that few if any neutrons were coming out of "cold fusion" 
cells. Peter Hagelstein '76, noted laser researcher at the Research 
Laboratory of Electronics, conceived a theory of "coherent fusion" that 
postulated new kinds of nuclear reactions that might be occurring. 

In a remarkably successful project that called on the talents of 
faculty, alumni and students, Daedalus made its spectacular historic 
72.5-mile human-powered flight over the Aegean Sea in 1988, realizing 
through engineering genius the vision of an ancient myth. Earlier MIT's 
Monarch had won the $30,000 Kremer prize for the fastest human-powered 
flight in 1984, averaging 21.5 miles per hour.

In 1986 and 1987, the startling new phenomenon of high-temperature 
("high-Tc") superconductivity burst onto the world scene. MIT 
physicists, chemists and materials scientists and engineers were soon to 
be involved in a massive effort to understand the puzzling new 
phenonemon that allowed superconductivity to occur at economical liquid 
nitrogen temperatures and above, rather than at the much lower 
temperatures that were possible earlier.

There was both promise and disappointment, as technologists struggled to 
find ways to apply high-Tc superconductivity to practical devices. 
Toward that end, MIT joined with other major research institutions and 
formed a Consortium for Superconducting Electronics.

The world of biology blossomed in so many directions that it was 
difficult to keep pace with the quickening pace of unraveling the 
deepest mysteries of life. These discoveries were boosted in no small 
way with the opening of the MIT-affiliated Whitehead Institute for 
Biomedical Research.

There were major advances at MIT in fundamental molecular biology: new 
discoveries about cancer through the finding of oncogenes; major work in 
virology; pioneering findings in immunology (Professor Susumu Tonegawa 
won the 1987 Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine for his fundamental 
contributions); the discovery by Professor Paul Schimmel and Dr. Ya Ming 
Hou of something very intriguing about transfer-RNA, a finding that was 
hailed by a Nobel laureate outside MIT as a "second genetic code."

MIT biologists made new advances in understanding embryological 
development. The brain itself came under intense scrutiny with new 
theories of cognition as well as interest in the concept of neural 
networks. The founding of the Department of Brain and Cognitive Science 
embodied this new biological focus.

MITÕs federally-sponsored Lincoln Laboratory, always in the forefront in 
pursuing and evaluating technology for national defense, continued in 
that role as a center for research and development in advanced 
electronics. The laboratory, for example, supported studies related to 
the controversial Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). Lincoln also did 
pioneering work in a number of areas with important civilian 
applications. These advances included a new generation of weather radar 
systems for the detection of ÒmicroburstÓ meteorological phenomena, to 
improve airport safety, and an air-collision avoidance system called 
TCAS.

 Concern about the global environment emerged with new findingsÑboth 
positive and negativeÑabout the threat of global warming due to 
greenhouse gases. The "ozone hole" over Antarctica was discovered in the 
1980s and was tied to human production of the chlorofluorocarbon 
chemical. At the end of the decade, MIT began a new interdisciplinary 
initiative in research and education, the Center for Global Change 
Science, which linked programs in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric, 
and Planetary Sciences with those in Civil Engineering and Chemistry. In 
March of 1990, the MIT Energy Laboratory sponsored a conference on 
ÒEnergy and the Environment in the 21st Century,Ó which drew 500 
registrants and hundreds of others.



ARTS IN THE EIGHTIES

A major story at MIT during the decade was the emergence of the arts as 
a dominant force on a campus resolved to fully integrate humanistic 
concerns in the education of its undergraduates, not only through course 
offerings but also by making MIT an environment rich in artistic 
offerings.

China Altman, director of communication for the Office of the Arts, 
describes the progress made in the latter regard:

In September, 1989, Professor Ellen T. Harris arrived to take up the 
newly created position of Associate Provost for the Arts, the crowning 
development for a decade when arts activities flourished to such an 
extent that MIT began a re-assessment of the role of the arts in an MIT 
education. Harris is a professor of music, a distinguished scholar, an 
arts administrator, and a soprano soloist. As defined in November, 1987, 
by the Joskow Arts Review Committee, appointed in 1986 to survey MIT 
arts, the new associate provost's mission is to "take broad 
responsibility as an advocate, leader and coordinator of creative arts 
at MIT." 

Professor Harris immediately established a Creative Arts Council, 
modeled on the Academic Council, and an Office of the Arts. The latter 
is being organized in its 1989-90 start-up year as a headquarters for 
arts coordination and public relations as well as liaison with the 
Council for the Arts and management of its programs. 

As one measure of MIT arts evolution in the 1980s, an informal tally 
showed 160 on-campus arts events for the 1981-82 academic year while a 
1988-89 count numbered 251.

In addition to those mentioned above here are some other noteworthy 
highlights: 

1984: The MIT Museum was accredited as a museum; the Wiesner Student Art 
Gallery opened in the Stratton Center. 1985: The Wiesner Building, named 
in honor of Jerome B.Wiesner and Laya W. Wiesner, opened as a center of 
arts and media technology; the List Visual Arts Center was established 
in the Wiesner Building to relocate and expand the Hayden Gallery, 
adding two new galleries; the Media Lab began its operations in the same 
building. 1986: Todd Siler became the first visual artist awarded an MIT 
PhD. 1987: Music and Theater Arts were formally linked; the Elizabeth 
Parks Killian Hall, a small concert space, opened in the Hayden Memorial 
Library Building; Professor of Music John Harbison awarded Pulitizer 
Prize; The Arts Page began in Tech Talk. 

1988: Advanced Music Performance program began to provide scholarship 
study with professional musicians for the highest ranking music 
students; Music & Cognition Group established in Media Lab. 1989: The 
Visual Arts Program was established to renew commitment to instruction 
in the visual arts in the School of Architecture; faculty and classes 
increased in theater arts making it possible to obtain an undergraduate 
minor in that subject; six dancers from the professional dance company 
of MIT Dance Workshop director Beth Soll were named artists-in-
residence; construction began on a 17,500-square-foot addition to the 
Rotch Architecture Library (which is dedicated to architecture, art, and 
planning) to allow for new acquisitions, to expand the library's 
abilities to display its resources, and to alleviate overcrowding.



PUBLIC POLICY

President Gray himself made news during the decade by taking positions 
on a number of public policy issues. Most notably, he decried scientific 
illiteracy and called for more effective teaching of science and 
mathematics in public schools; he promoted ties between universities and 
industry; he proposed ways for American industry to become more 
productive and thus more competitive; and he championed nuclear power as 
an energy source through reliance on a new generation of fail-safe power 
plants. 

And, with an eye on the next decade and even the next century, he 
launched MIT's "Campaign for the future," so successfully that the five-
year campaign's $550 million goal was raised to $700 million. He also 
instituted the first comprehensive review of the MIT undergraduate 
program in 25 years, and he spoke out as a strong advocate of diversity 
and pluralism in the MIT communityÑin race and sex, in social 
backgrounds, and in intellectual commitments.

In a summary of the Gray presidential years in MIT Spectrum, John I. 
Mattill, editor emeritus of Technology Review, said everyone seemed to 
agree that three "powerfully developed attributes" were most 
representative of the qualities and skills Dr. Gray brought to MIT's 
"oval office"Ñhis manifest integrity, his deep knowledge of MIT and his 
administrative and budgetary skills.

And what did all this produce?

"Though there have been the inevitable inclement moments," Mr. Mattill 
wrote, "the sun has shone on MIT and its president during the 1980s."

The New England Association of Schools & Colleges, which in April, 1990, 
renewed MITs accreditation following its comprehensive decennial 
evaluation, agreed. In its letter to President Gray, the association 
wrote: ÒFinally, we wish in particular to commend the extraordinary 
leadership you have provided the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 
The sensitivity, energy, and competence with which you have directed the 
institutionÕs affairs, and your commitment to confront boldly and at 
times courageously the many difficult challenges facing the institution 
during your tenure have resulted in an indelibly and profoundly stronger 
MIT.Ó



UNDERGRADUATE EDUCATION

 A major theme of the Gray years was undergraduate education or, more 
specifically, undergraduate renewal.

Midway through his presidency, Dr. Gray initiated the first 
comprehensive review of undergraduate education at MIT in 25 years. As 
part of the process, the provost, Professor John M. Deutch, reorganized 
his office to include an associate provost for educational policy and 
programs (Professor Samuel Jay Keyser) and a dean for undergraduate 
education (Professor Margaret L.A. MacVicar).

The process of reformulating the undergraduate programÑin both its 
curricular and co-curricular dimensionsÑwas expected to take at least 10 
years. And by the time Dr. Gray was preparing to leave office, progress 
had been made in several areas, particularly in strengthening the 
humanities, arts and social science core requirements. 

The process of examining the undergraduate educational experience was 
seen as a vehicle for renewing and refining an overall sense of 
institutional mission, in order to serve the needs of graduates who will 
spend almost all of their adult lives in the 21st century. It is also a 
vehicle, Dr. Gray said, for recognizing and abetting a shift of MITÕs 
cultural center, which traditionally has been virtually coincident with 
engineering, to one that more fully takes into account the social, 
economic and political contexts in which technology is developed and 
deployed.

ÒMany of us believe,Ó Dr. Gray wrote in The Chronicle of Higher 
Education, Òthat a richer educational environment will be required for 
the undergraduates who will come into their prime early in the new 
millennium. The growing impact of science and technology on public 
affairs and human well-being will require that the people who shape or 
influence these fields appreciate the diversity and complexity of 
societies and human values and have the ability to understand and 
respect the economic, political, social and environmental issues 
associated with technological developments and applications of science.Ó

 

THE YEARS IN REVIEW

Finally, any summing up of the decade requires a look at some of the 
major developments and events that shaped the 1980s at MIT, some of them 
important enough to have made news off the campus and others primarily 
of importance to the 18,000-member MIT community (students, faculty and 
staff).

Here then, at the risk of leaving out certain highlights, is an academic 
year-by-year recapitulation of life at MIT in the Gray Decade.



1980-81 

Paul Gray became the Institute's 14th president in an inaugural ceremony 
in Killian Court. . . A formal statement of MIT policy barring 
harassment was adopted by the Academic Council. . . The Sloan School of 
Management and the School of Engineering inaugurated the nation's first 
advanced program focusing on the management of technology. . . An 
affirmative action plan was inaugurated for employment of the 
handicapped. . . MIT undertook for the Department of Energy a major 
study of the policy issues involved in the energy situationÑdescribed as 
"the single most important economic and security challenge facing the 
world and nation today.". . . The MIT Press bookstore opened. . . Vice 
President Walter F. Mondale, in a speech at MIT, pledged his 
administration's support for the nation's research universities and 
their efforts to help modernize declining American industries. . . 



1981-82 

Agreement was reached to establish the Whitehead Institute for 
Biomedical Research as an organization affiliated with MIT, with Dr. 
David Baltimore as its director. . . A new dormitory was opened at 500 
Memorial Drive. . . Vice President George Bush, in a speech to MIT's 
Sustaining Fellows that triggered a demonstration, defended nuclear 
modernization of NATO forces and said the real threat of nuclear war was 
posed by the Soviet Union, not the United States. . . MIT opened its new 
Athletics Center. . . Faculty and staff moved into the new Whitaker 
College of Health Sciences, Technology, and Management. . . The faculty 
adopted a Writing Requirement for undergraduates beginning with the 
class entering in 1983. . . Chairman and former president Howard W. 
Johnson announced he would retire at the end of the 1982-83 academic 
year. . . Katharine Graham, chairman and chief executive officer of The 
Washington Post Company, was the first outside commencement speaker 
since 1963.



1982-83

Faced with several years of deficits, the Institute announced plans to 
reduce operating expenses by $11 million over the next three years. . . 
In his annual report, President Gray said the nation's industrial 
strength and military security would be weakened if America's research 
universities were forced to withdraw from areas of basic science because 
of federal insistence on secrecy. . . In what some called the greatest 
college prank of all time, MIT fraternity members planted a remote-
controlled device in Harvard Stadium that deployed and inflated a 
weather balloon with MIT markings during the Harvard-Yale football game. 
. . Dr. David S. Saxon, noted physicist and educator and an MIT alumnus, 
was elected to become Corporation chairman. . . President Gray told the 
faculty the major issues facing the Institute were the mission and 
character of undergraduate education, the ultimate size and scale of 
MIT's operations, the scope and range of its intellectual enterprise and 
the cost of doing research. . . MIT announced a major educational 
experiment linking computers to teaching, called Project Athena, to be 
funded by MIT, the Digital Equipment Corporation and the IBM 
Corporation. . . Eight writers and broadcasters were selected for the 
first Vannevar Bush Fellowships in technology and science journalism 
(now known as the Knight Science Journalism Fellowships). . . MIT 
dedicated its first residence for women graduate studentsÑthe former 
infirmary buildingÑin the name of Ida Flansburgh Green. . . Former West 
German chancellor Helmut Schmidt told graduates the western allies must 
develop "a common grand strategy" for dealing with the Soviet Union that 
does not over-emphasize military deterrence and defense.



1983-84

MIT dedicated the five-story EG&G Education Center. . . The Media 
LaboratoryÑemphasizing the invention and creative use of new media in 
the fields of education, entertainment, communications, design and the 
artsÑwas established. . . For the first time in its long association 
with the space program, MIT had a man in orbit aboard Spacelab 1 as a 
"payload specialist," Dr. Byron K. Lichtenberg of the Center for Space 
Research. . . This time it was Caltech pranksters, as the Rose Bowl 
scoreboard was sabotaged with a microprocessor to read Caltech 38, MIT 
9. . . The second space shuttle flight in a row carried an MIT alumnus 
aloft, Dr. Ronald E. McNair. . . Five MIT faculty members were among 200 
engineers and scientists to receive the nation's first President Young 
Investigator Awards. . . President Gray urged Congress to distinguish 
between basic research and industrial products in applying controls on 
exports. . . In another matter, he joined with the presidents of five 
other universities urging Konstantin Chernenko, the Soviet leader, to 
allow Andrei Sakharov to leave Russia. . . Shirley Chisholm, a former 
Congresswomen and the first African-American woman ever elected to 
Congress, was the commencement speaker. . . Another woman of note, Mary 
Frances Wagley of Baltimore, a 1947 graduate of MIT and the first woman 
to serve as a member of the Corporation, became the first woman 
president of the MIT Alumni Association. . .  



1984-85

MIT placed controversial restraints on the showing of sexually explicit 
or pornographic films on campus. . . Provost Francis E. Low announced he 
would leave the post at the end of the academic year. . . Professor 
Emeritus Claude E. Shannon won a Kyoto Prize for his pioneering work in 
information theory. . . The Whitehead Institute was dedicated in a week 
of ceremonies. . . The MIT Museum received official accreditation from 
the American Association of Museums. . . Michael C. Behnke was appointed 
director of admissions. . . Professor John M. Deutch was named as the 
next provost. . . The Albert and Vera List Visual Arts Center was 
dedicated. . . MIT and Harvard signed an agreement to extend and expand 
the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture with an additional grant 
of $9 million over 10 years. . . The Provost-designate announced plans 
to reorganize the office in order to implement a major new initiative 
for the improvement of undergraduate education at the Institute. . . The 
National Science Foundation said it would give MIT up to $20 million 
over five years for the establishment of a center focusing on 
biotechnology process engineering. . . MIT faculty members joined in the 
national debate over the Strategic Defense Initiative. . . The faculty 
chairman, Arthur C. Smith, responding to concerns expressed by faculty 
and students, appointed a committee to study military influences on MIT 
education. . . MIT announced that the new Arts and Media Technology 
Building would be named for former President Jerome B. Wiesner and his 
wife, Laya. . . Chrysler Chairman Lee A. Iacocca, the commencement 
speaker, told graduates to "get mad" about America's national debt and 
trade deficit.



1985-86

MIT celebrated the dedication of the Wiesner Building. . . The 
Smithsonian Institution and MIT announced a study into the feasibility 
of flying a human-powered aircraft from Crete to the Greek mainland. . . 
The Sloan School embarked on a "Management in the 1990s" program to 
examine the impact of information technology on organizations and 
management practice. . . Constantine B. Simonides was elected secretary 
and ex officio member of the MIT Corporation in addition to his 
responsibilities as vice president. . . Professor Franco Modigliani won 
the Nobel Prize in Economics. . . Dr. Eric S. Chivian, an MIT staff 
psychiatrist, was invited to the presentation of the Nobel Peace Prize 
to the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, of 
which he was a founder. . . Building 39, renovated to become a major 
focus of MIT's microsystems program, was named for Gordon Stanley Brown, 
former head of the Department of Electrical Engineering and former dean 
of the School of Engineering. . . Professor Sheila E. Widnall was chosen 
to become president of the American Association for the Advancement of 
Science. . . Still another alumnus, Dr. Franklin R. Chang-Diaz (PhD 
'77), went into space aboard the shuttle Columbia. . . Less than a month 
later, Ronald McNair (PhD '76) was one of seven killed when the Space 
Shuttle Challenger exploded. . . MIT began celebrating its 
quasquicentennial, or 125th anniversary. . . The MIT administration 
removed a shanty town put up two weeks earlier on Kresge Plaza by 
members of the MIT Coalition Against Apartheid. . . President Gray 
announced at commencement that the building housing the MIT Center for 
Space Research would be named for the late astronaut, Ronald McNair. . . 
William R. Hewlett, vice chairman of the board of Hewlett-Packard Co., 
was the commencement speaker.



1986-87

A groundbreaking marked the beginning of Phase I of University Park on 
Massachusetts Avenue, on land leased from MIT by a private developer, 
Forest City Development. . . President Gray explained the trusteesÕ 
position against the divestiture of Institute funds in companies that do 
business in South Africa. . . The Minority Student Issues Group 
presented its report on ÒThe Racial Climate on the MIT CampusÓ following 
a two-year study. . . MIT began a unique effort to explore how 
universities can help overcome the nation's declining productivity of 
industry through a newly appointed Commission on Industrial Productivity 
made up of 15 leading faculty members. . . President Gray was one of 24 
leaders of US business, labor and academia named to a national Council 
on Competitiveness. . . Former President Jerome B. Wiesner returned from 
the Soviet Union saying he was convinced of Mikhail Gorbachev's 
sincerity in espousing a more open and democratic society. . . MIT 
announced that smoking would be prohibited in all academic and service 
buildings in the Institute. . . The Knight Foundation of Akron, Ohio, 
committed $3 million for long-term continuance of MIT's mid-career 
fellowships for technology and science journalists. . . As part of the 
first intensive review of the undergraduate program in 25 years, the 
faculty gave its approval to curriculum changes that strengthened the 
humanities, arts and social science core requirement for graduation and 
established a minor in those areas. . . Kenneth H. Olsen, an MIT 
graduate who founded Digital Equipment Corporation, talked of the need 
for integrity, responsibility and honesty in professional endeavors in 
his commencement address. . . 



1987-88

MIT's Charles S. Draper, pioneer in inertial guidance and founder of the 
laboratory carrying his name, died at 85. . . MIT removed people from a 
"tent city" for the homeless set up several weeks earlier on its 
property near Central Square on the former Simplex company site. . . 
Institute Professor Emeritus Morris Cohen won a Kyoto Prize for 
contributions to the understanding of the structure of matter. . . The 
Federal Aviation Administration presented special awards to Lincoln 
Laboratory and several of its engineers for their contributions to the 
development of an aircraft collision avoidance system. . . In a decade 
of generous alumni giving, MIT received one of its most unusual 
bequestsÑa delayed $10,418,467 gift from the estate of an alumnus who 
had died 70 years earlier, William Hadwen Ames. . . James R. Killian, 
Jr., former MIT president, first science advisor at the White House and 
a key figure in developing American educational and scientific policy 
during the mid-20th century, died at 83. . . Capt. Anne P. Glavin was 
named chief of the MIT Campus Police, succeeding James Olivieri, who 
retired after 30 years at MIT. . . Two more MIT professorsÑRobert M. 
Solow and Susumu TonegawaÑwon Nobel Prizes, Dr. Solow in economics and 
Dr. Tonegawa, a molecular biologist, in physiology or medicine. . . The 
Institute launched a five-year, $550 million "Campaign for the future.". 
. . MIT named the Athletics Center for former MIT president and chairman 
Howard W. Johnson in dedication ceremonies that included a day-long 
program of games for the MIT community. . . In an event watched by the 
world, MIT's ultra-lightweight human-powered aircraft, Daedalus 88, 
established world distance and endurance records in a 72.5-mile flight 
over the Aegean Sea from Crete to the island of Santorini. . . A. 
Bartlett Giamatti, president of baseball's National League and former 
president of Yale University, told MIT graduates at commencement that 
"the open life of the mind in the service of a more just society" should 
be their guiding principle (Mr. Giamatti died the next year after he had 
become commissioner of baseball.). . .      



1988-89 

Professor Noam A. Chomsky won a Kyoto Prize for his theories on the 
nature of language. . . MIT solar-powered cars gained widespread 
attention by competing in national and international races. . . MIT 
reentered the ranks of varsity college football after a lapse of 87 
years. . . The first issue of The MIT Faculty Newsletter appeared. . . 
In a move that generated controversy, Dean Gene M. Brown of the School 
of Science announced that the Department of Applied Biological Sciences 
would be phased out. . . Dean Gerald L. Wilson of the School of 
Engineering called for abandonment of "the delusion" that four years of 
undergraduate education can prepare a student for a professional 
engineering career. . . A computer virus infected thousands of computers 
in the nation's major universities and research laboratories, including 
some at MIT. . . Professor Phillip A. Sharp, director of the Center for 
Cancer Research, was named to share the 1988 Albert Lasker Basic Medical 
Research Award, two weeks after he received the prestigious Horwitz 
Prize with Professor Thomas Cech. . . Tue Nguyen, a 26-year-old 
Vietnamese-born student who came to the US nine years earlier met the 
requirements for his seventh degree from MIT, the most ever granted to 
an individual. . . Jonathan Schlefer became editor of Technology Review, 
succeeding John I. Mattill, the editor-in-chief since 1966, who retired. 
. . Gov. John H. Sununu of New Hampshire, holder of three MIT degrees, 
was named chief of staff to newly elected President Bush. . . A 
ceremonial ground breaking heralded a new 190-bed graduate student 
dormitory at 143 Albany Street in a renovated industrial building. . . 
Professors Samuel C.C. Ting of the Department of Physics and Edward N. 
Lorenz of the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences 
were elected as foreign members of the USSR Academy of Sciences, a rare 
honor. . . Glenn P. Strehle, vice president and treasurer, announced 
that the "Campaign for the future" exceeded $355 million as of January 
31, 1989, $75 million ahead of target. . . A "major transition in the 
leadership of MIT" was announced, with Chairman David S. Saxon to retire 
in July, 1990, and President Gray to be nominated to succeed him. A 
committee was formed to search for a new president. . . MIT and Cray 
Research, Inc. announced a five-year joint effort in supercomputer 
research that will include the installation of a Cray supercomputer at 
MIT. . . A special committee studying minority student concerns at MIT 
called for a long-range plan that would address "the lack of engagement 
in these issues by the faculty". . . The faculty voted to retain the 
freshman pass/no record grading system adopted in 1972, but to make "C" 
the passing grade rather than "D". . . At a New York City news 
conference that precipitated a flood of attention worldwide, the MIT 
Commission on Industrial ProductivityÑappointed by President Gray and 
chaired by Professor Michael L. DertouzosÑissued a report describing 
ways to revitalize American industry. The product of a two-year study by 
16 MIT faculty members of eight major industries on three continents, 
the work was published by the MIT Press as a book titled Made in 
America:Regaining the Productive Edge. . . In an appearance before a 
Congressional committee, MIT officials defended Dr. David Baltimore's 
handling of an allegation of academic misconduct relating to research 
results published in the journal Cell. . . Construction began on an 
addition to the Rotch Library of Architecture, Planning and Art. . . A 
faculty committee issued a report recommending greater faculty 
involvement in the admissions process and calling for more offers of 
admission to applicants with the "very highest" test scores and high-
school grades. . . MIT, AT&T and IBM formed a research consortium to 
explore high-temperature superconductivity. . . After meeting with 
minority students, Dean for Student Affairs Shirley M. McBay and faculty 
members agreed to initiate Project XL (pronounced as in excel), a fall-
term voluntary program to help first-year students achieve academic 
excellence at MIT. It will supplement Project Interphase. . . The 
commencement ceremony, at which former US Senator Paul Tsongas was the 
speaker, was marked by expressions of dismay over the killing of student 
protesters in China. . . MIT experienced its first budget deficit in six 
years in Fiscal 1989 and set "stringent" budget-control targets to 
return the Institute to a balanced position. . . The state made the 
"smoot" measurement marksÑnamed for MIT alumnus Oliver R. Smoot, Jr.Ña 
permanent feature of the reconstructed Massachusetts Avenue Bridge. . . 
President Gray told a Congressional committee that MIT policies on 
technology transferÊ"strike an appropriate balance" between fostering 
practical applications of new technologies and the need to avoid 
conflicts of interest. . . Entrepreneurial MIT alumni have created more 
than 600 companies in Massachusetts, according to a Bank of Boston 
study.



1989-90

MIT joined the new NCAA Div. III Eastern Collegiate Football Conference. 
. . Ellen T. Harris, distinguished music scholar and soprano soloist, 
became MIT's first Associate Provost for the Arts. . . MIT's Haystack 
Observatory in Tyngsboro marked its 25th year. . . The National 
Aeronautics and Space Administration designated MIT as a Space Grant 
institution. . . The Freshman Housing Committee recommended that all MIT 
students be housed in dormitories in their freshman year and that the 
fraternity rush be moved to the spring term. . . A new policy on 
pornography, allowing pornographic films to be shown only in the privacy 
of a student's room, was proposed. . . An interim report was issued by 
an ad hoc Committee on Family and Work, which surveyed Òthe policies and 
procedures that influence the conflict between family and workÓ. . . A 
faculty committee that studied Lincoln Laboratory recommended that MIT 
continue to operate the federally funded research and development 
center, terming the arrangement "highly advantageous to the nation". . . 
Two other study committees were continuing their work, one dealing with 
the issue of sexual harassment and the other reviewing MITÕs 
international relationships. . . David Baltimore was named to become 
president of Rockefeller University. . . Professor Marvin L. Minsky won 
the prestigious 1990 Japan Prize, worth $350,000, for his pioneering 
work in artificial intelligence. . . Professor Phillip A. Sharp, noted 
biologist and director of MIT's Center for Cancer Research, was 
nominated to be the Institute's 15th president, to succeed Dr. Gray, but 
subsequently declined the nomination. . . One of MIT's greats, Professor 
Harold E. (Doc) Edgerton, died at 86. . . In a renewal of the divestment 
issue, a number of students were arrested during demonstrations by the 
Coalition Against Apartheid calling for MIT divestment in companies with 
ties to South Africa. . . After an MIT senior was dismissed from the 
Naval ROTC unit because he acknowledged he was gay, the MIT faculty 
voted to support a resolution opposing the Department of Defense policy 
that bars homosexuals from military service, including participation in 
ROTC programs. . . Virgilio Barco, president of Colombia and an MIT 
alumnus, was the commencement speaker. . . President Gray, in his last 
charge to graduates, urged them to accept the challenges of rapid 
changes in social, political and economic realms throughout the world. . 
. Charles M. Vest, provost of the University of Michigan, is selected by 
the MIT Corporation as the next president of MIT. . . A new campaign 
goal of $700 million is announced. . . Dean Ann F. Friedlaender of the 
School of Humanities and Social Science stepped down to return to 
teaching and research in the Department of Economics, and Associate Dean 
Philip S. Khoury was named acting dean. . . Dean of Student Affairs 
Shirley McBay resigned to become president of the national Quality 
Education for Minorities Network, and Professor Arthur C. Smith was 
named to a one-year term as acting dean. . . Dean Gerald L. Wilson 
announced his intention to resign the post.