The first change was made during Mark Wrighton's last days as Provost. It was the appointment of Professor Rosalind H. Williams, Metcalfe Professor of Writing, as Dean of Undergraduate Education and Student Affairs. Rosalind replaced Professor Arthur C. Smith with whom I had previously worked for many years in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science headquarters. I strongly supported this appointment, in part because of my previous work relationship with Rosalind as Dean of Engineering. Roz is also the granddaughter of Doc Lewis, author of "The Lewis Commission Report."
Ann Wolpert, Director of the Library in the Harvard Graduate School of Business, was appointed the new Director of the MIT Libraries, replacing Jay Lucker. Ann took her post in December of 1995. In the four months between Jay's retirement and Ann's start, the two Associate Directors of the Libraries, Carol Fleishauer and David Ferriero were acting Director and Acting Co-Director, respectively. They held the fort very well and developed a good budget and Five Year Plan for the Libraries. I believe that Ann will do an excellent job in bringing the Libraries to the next level in both technology and organization.
Professor of Music and Theater Arts, Alan Brody, was appointed Associate Provost for the Arts replacing Professor Ellen Harris who was the first person to occupy that post. Alan took office in January, 1996. Alan has broad experience in the theater and I am certain he will continue in the grand tradition set by Ellen Harris in furthering the role of the Arts at MIT.
Professor J. David Litster, Dean and Vice President for Research, took on the additional responsibility of Dean of Graduate Education. We had considered continuing with a part-time Dean of the Graduate School, but decided to combine the Research and Graduate Education functions as is done at many other institutions. Dave replaces Professor Frank E. Perkins who returned to teaching and research in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Associate Dean of the Graduate School, Isaac L. Colbert, was promoted to Senior Associate Dean of
Graduate Education. Ike is expected to deal with most of the day-to-day issues in the Graduate Education Office.
Head of the Department of Chemical Engineering, Robert A. Brown, was appointed Dean of Engineering in the middle of the year. He replaced me as Dean. In the interim, Associate Dean John Vander Sande was acting Dean of Engineering and did his usual excellent job in the Dean's Office. I have known Bob for many years in the role of Department Head. I am confident that he will be an outstanding Dean of Engineering.
In the Fall of 1995, MIT announced an early retirement incentive for MIT staff age 55 and above with ten or more years of service. In conjunction with that announcement we also announced an early retirement incentive for tenured faculty. Faculty age 60 and above who qualify for the staff incentive could receive a one time payment of 150% of their salary if they elected to retire during the window (March and April of 1996) senior faculty could not be rehired and would be replaced by junior faculty. In addition, faculty age 65 or older could choose to obtain a one time payment of 100% of their salary, but could then stay at MIT for up to five years at up to 49% of their pay. These faculty would be replaced with junior faculty when their appointment period ended.
Our goals in the Faculty Program was to rejuvenate the faculty as well as save money. We were pleased that 73 faculty chose the incentive program (approximately six years worth of retirements at recent rates). In addition, six athletic coaches who are considered faculty as well, also chose to accept the incentive. At this point, we believe that this faculty program will save approximately $2 million a year, when the cost of the incentive is taken into account.
The academic departments also had significant departures of teaching, administrative, support, and research staff. It is too early to estimate the level of savings arising from this incentive program for these categories of non-faculty staff members.
One side effect of the faculty retirement incentive is the hardening of the faculty salaries. This goal was met in several different ways. Certain departments in the School of Engineering gave up faculty positions in order to use some of the funds to reduce the needed research support for other faculty during the academic year. Some of the retired faculty members had significant research support for their academic year salaries. Others had chairs that will be given in part to faculty who currently support some of their academic year salaries on research. We do not yet know who will be receiving the chairs. Thus we can only estimate the reduction of research support for the academic year salaries of the faculty. Our estimate is that it will be over one million dollars a year.
The major activity of CRSP (Committee for Review of Space Planning) in the past year has been planning for the demolishing of Building 20 in early 1998. Major renovations are being made in Buildings 16 and 56, with Building 56 stated to be reoccupied in early 1997, and Building 16 in early 1998. Plans are nearly complete for housing for the remaining occupants of Building 20, especially the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy.
The Jack C. Tang Center for Management Education was dedicated in April of 1996. It is an impressive facility which is similar to the EG&G Building in that it is devoted entirely to education. The dedication was both a moving and festive occasion, and the Tang Building is being very well utilized by the Sloan School at this time. A third stage of renovation of Architecture Department Space is proceeding. This renovation will permit several faculty now in Building N51/N52 to come back to the main complex.
The close cooperation of CAES and CECI has led to the forthcoming move of CECI from E40 to Building 9. The Knight Fellows will leave Building 9 and take over space of the Technology Licensing Office. TLO is moving to rental space off campus. The CECI space in E40 will be given to the Industrial Performance Center directed by Professor Richard Lester. The current IPC space will be given to the CTPID.
MIT recently had an opportunity to join a major consortium that is building a pair of telescopes in Chile. We decided to purchase 8-10% of one of these telescopes, to be partially funded from funds controlled by the Provost. We anticipate the overall expenditures to be between $5.4 M and $7.0 M.
We formed four councils during the year in order to pursue important directions for the Institute. The Council on the Environment is a restructuring of the Provost's Council on the Global Environment created by Mark Wrighton in 1991. The new Council has approximately thirty members from throughout the Institute. The Executive Committee of the Council meets monthly to discuss new opportunities for education and research in areas related to the environment. Its deliberations are then reported to the larger Council membership. This Council is chaired by the Provost and co-chaired by Professor David H. Marks.
A major activity related to the Council on the Environment has been the formation of the Alliance for Global Sustainability, a partnership of MIT, the Swiss ETH and Tokyo University. The Alliance was also initiated by Mark Wrighton. It is anticipated that a private donor will give the AGS a $10 million matching gift in the coming year.
The Council on Technology and Education deals with the uses of computer and communication technologies in education, both on and off campus. On campus, we need to re-examine our Athena system to determine whether it shall meet our needs in the coming years. We also need to determine how MIT can use modern technologies to educate students who reside off campus. Of course, technologies used in remote education should be available to our on-campus students, and our extensive computer system should be available to remote students.
At this time, remote education is likely to be of greatest interest to professional students in the Schools of Architecture and Planning Engineering and the Sloan School of Management. The System Design and Management Program that is joint between Engineering and Sloan, relies on such technologies. The Center for Advanced Educational Services.
The Council on International Relationships has a goal that is similar to that of the Council on Industrial Relationships. That is, the pursuit and analysis of new relationships with organizations in foreign nations. Several such relationships have begun in recent years. For example, the Sloan School has major educational programs in Singapore, Taiwan and most recently China. The School of Engineering has initiatives in Argentina and Italy, largely in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. In late June of 1996, chairman Paul E. Gray will lead a delegation to Thailand to sign a major agreement with the institute in Thailand in research and education.
The Council on International Relationships should over see them and other potential relationships and determine their situations in the MIT contest. The Council is chaired by Associate Provost Philip L. Clay and co-chaired by Professor Suzanne Berger and Fred Moavenzadeh.
In conjunction with the formation of a Council on Technology and Education, we felt the need to make a major move at MIT in remote education. We thus moved the Center for Advanced Engineering Education (CAES) from the School of Engineering to the Provost's office and renamed it the Center for Advanced Educational Services. We also appointed Professor Richard C. Larson as the Director of the CAES. The summer session that used to report to the Dean of the Graduate School will now report to the Director of CAES. This will help coordinate our various activities for professional students whose main employment is off campus. The Center for Educational Computing Initiatives, directed by Professor Steven R. Lerman, will also coordinate its activities with CAES in the future. It is our expectation that this new focus of activities will further research in new modes of education, as well as help deliver MIT education to remote sites.
We have continued the efforts of the past few years to diversify the MIT faculty. This year we appointed the first group of four Martin Luther King Jr. Visiting Professors. One of them, Dr. Wesley Harris, was later appointed Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics.
A new board on women and minority issues, chaired by Professor Gretchen Kalonji of the University of Washington, met for several times during the year. A goal of this board is to suggest programs at MIT and elsewhere that will increase the funding of women and minorities who obtain Ph.D.'s and enter the professoriate in science and engineering.
Programs to appoint minority faculty as well as senior women by creating new positions have been continued. They have led to 5 new minority hires and 9 appointments of women (including one senior woman).
Given the many changes in the Institute budget expected in the coming years, we decided that greater effort should be made to model the budget for the coming decade. One approach is to create a system dynamics model. Two Sloan faculty members and a consultant are working with the Provost to develop such a model. Data about the Institute since 1940 have been stored in the model. It is expected that the model will provide insight regarding the impacts of certain future actions by the Institute.
A spread sheet model is also being developed, and various studies by staff in the Controller's Accounting Office and the Budget Office are creating inputs to this model. Since a number of senior staff in these offices are retiring this year, we hope that their replacements can continue these studies.
There are continuing concerns over the research finding levels permitted at the Lincoln Laboratory. Lincoln is an FFRDC- a Federally Funded Research and Development Center. In the FY 96 Federal budget there was a cap of $1.2 Billion for all FFRDC's , and Lincoln's portion of it was $250 million. In spite of this, Lincoln's DOD sponsors were prepared to expend over $310M during the Federal FY 96 year. Our efforts to deal with Lincoln's cap were not successful in FY 96. It is our hope that the FY 97 budget will have a manpower cap, rather than a dollar cap. Lincoln has operated successfully for many years with a manpower cap.
Another continuing issue involving Lincoln is the so-called line. A line in the Federal budget provides Lincoln with an annual support for R&D that is relatively unrestricted, and thus permits the type of research that rejuvenates the laboratory. Maintaining the funding level in the Lincoln line requires the continuing vigilance and support of the MIT President and the Washington Office staff.
A major concern for the coming year involves overhead recovery and the overhead rate. The Institute has under recovered overhead in recent years because of earlier over-estimates of the growth in research volume. This has meant artificially low overhead rates. As a result the overhead rate will increase in the coming year. Other factors leading to an increase in the rate are: the major renovations in Building 16 and 56, lack of growth in research volume relative to inflationary growth in the budget, and the shift in the method of paying for research and teaching assistants in FY 99. Recent changes in A-21 will not permit us to recover significant costs for student services and library use. This will dampen the growth in the overhead rate, but increase the annual deficit by several million dollars each year.
The RA/TA change has the advantage of lowering the employee benefit rate by about 10 points. We are considering other mechanisms for lowering the EB rate. Thus, the overall effect of forthcoming changes in indirect costs and employee benefit costs may be positive for many research contracts at the Institute.
The Nuclear Engineering Department has proposed a new Masters of Engineering Program, and obtained the approval by the faculty and Corporation. This brings to five the number of departments in the School of Engineering that will offer a Master of Engineering Program. We understand that the Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Science Department is considering a professional masters program similar in character to the Master of Engineering Program. Such professionally oriented education is the area of greatest growth in the Institute.
A new Masters' level program, System Design and Management, was proposed jointly by the Schools of Engineering and Management. It is intended to teach how to design and manage the development of large scale technical systems, such as cars, planes, software or telecommunications systems. The founding Co-Directors of SDM are Professors Edward Crawley and Thomas Magnanti. Professor Magnanti was the founding Co-Director of the Leaders for Manufacturing Program. SDM is intended to be available in both a full on-campus version and a version that can be partially taken remotely.
Joel Moses
On September 1, 1995 the Center for Advanced Engineering Study was renamed and dramatically reorganized. The mission of the new Center for Advanced Educational Services (CAES) is to create and distribute educational services world-wide. The off-campus offerings leverage the growing capabilities of computer and telecommunication technologies, including interactive multimedia, the Internet, the World Wide Web (WWW), videoconferencing (or "compressed video"), satellite TV, MIT Cable, as well as more mature delivery mechanisms such as videotapes and books. CAES provides facilities, equipment and expertise to the MIT community for the educational, research, and creative uses of video and multimedia. In support of its primary goal and as a service to participating organizations, the Center has traditionally supported short term (non-degree) programs having both on-campus and off-campus components. All with MIT faculty as teachers, the three thrusts include non-credit, MIT for-credit courses, and courses with academic credit to other universities. The on-campus offerings, particularly the Advanced Study Program (now in its thirty-third year) and the Professional Institute's Summer Session Office (in its forty-sixth year) are the major programs which provide educational experiences for professional women and men who wish to keep pace with developments in their fields.
As part of its mission to facilitate the use of the new technologies for educational purposes, CAES includes an applied "research arm," the Center for Educational Computing Initiatives (CECI). The mission of CECI is to carry out research linking the emerging technologies to education, facilitating both the creation and the distribution of educational products and services towards the goal of improving the effectiveness and productivity of learning and education. In effect, part of CECI's role is to explore the possible strategic directions the campus computing environment should take and to identify those directions that, at least in small scale experiments, seem the most promising.
Together under the CAES umbrella, these organizations assist in the creation of Institute-wide policies, procedures and operations related to MIT's "virtual campus," i.e., MIT's implementation of "distance learning" offerings. Policy/procedure topics to be addressed include electronic cross registration of subjects (by students at other universities registering for MIT subjects and by MIT students registering for subjects elsewhere), distance degree programs, policies regarding public as well as tuition-based distribution of MIT subjects, and guidelines for the presence of onscene teaching support. Operational topics are more complex, involving virtually all MIT schools and several MIT support functions. The educational offerings created by our collective efforts are built upon MIT's leadership in science and engineering, management, economics, humanities, and architecture and planning. The audiences for our products and services is broadly distributed, by age, geographical location and educational interest. We stand prepared to assist in the development of both the physical and intellectual infrastructure required to build MIT's distance learning capabilities to world class standards.
This year the Center for Educational Computing Initiatives (CECI) was part of the winning consortium competing for one of the three awards under the new, Army Research Federated Laboratory program. The ATIRP Consortium includes Lockheed-Martin, Motorola, GTE, Bellcore, the University of Maryland, the University of Delaware, Howard University and Morgan State University. The five year, $50 million research project will explore advanced telecommunications and multimedia technologies.
CECI was funded by Electricite de France to develop an extension to the AthenaMuse 2 authoring system that will support the storage and retrieval of both application components and multimedia content from an object oriented database. In addition, CECI won a research contract with France Telecomm to undertake a three year project to develop innovative, multimedia computer-human interfaces.
We also were funded by the US. Environmental Protection Agency to develop a Windows version of XFLOW, a simulation game about ground water pollution. This project, originated by Prof. Dennis McLaughlin of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, is funded for two years and should lead to a publishable, multimedia software application.
CECI has provided the technical staff for the MIT Shakespeare Archive project under the direction of Prof. Peter Donaldson, the Head of the Literature Section of the Department of Humanities. All the software that will be developed in this project will be created by CECI staff and students.
The ASP continues to be CAES's primary on-campus mid-career educational program. Under new leadership, we plan to grow the ASP substantially via advanced technologies to distant learners in North America and overseas. During the 1995-1996 academic year the Advanced Study Program hosted 33 foreign and 22 US professionals who attended graduate and undergraduate courses throughout the Schools within MIT. A number of them pursued individual studies of interest to them and their sponsors. This brings the cumulative number of ASP alumni/alumnae to over 1,700.
During the 1996 Spring term, ASP offered the course on Management of Technological Change (13.651) taught by Professor Ernst Frankel by video conference to 20 students from a major oil company in Argentina. All 20 students received the course live, interactive, in real time while seven students received the course live on-campus.
Effective January 1, 1996, the Summer Session Office moved under the CAES umbrella. This program, which in the future will be known as the MIT Professional Institute, administers an extensive series of one- and two-week special programs for professional men and women who wish to keep pace with developments in their fields. This activity has prospered each summer since its initiation in 1950. A comparison of the last two year's registration follows:
Summer 1994: 1252 registrations 51 special programs by 1199 registrants
Summer 1995: 1274 registrations 53 special programs by 1222 registrants
Foreign students comprised approximately 13 percent of this registration.
In April, 1996 at the Industrial Liaison Program's Research Director's Conference, the first distance learning initiative since the CAES reorganization was implemented. Eight week long special programs chosen from the Summer 1996 course offerings were announced under pre-paid annual educational site licenses. (See Product Development and Strategic Marketing below for specifics.)
MVP has been expanded to include working more closely with MIT faculty in the utilization of advanced technologies for the delivery of MIT courses. Institute awareness and utilization of the valuable services provided by MVP continues to grow as we delivered services this past year to every Institute academic department. CAES provided student and administrative space for Systems Design and Management Program and MVP provided technical assistance and equipment in launching of MIT's first distance dual graduate degree initiative. A combination of delivery methods were utilized including live multi-point videoconferencing from the Tang Center, and the periodic delivery of classes on videotape. CAES video conferencing systems have served an expanding range of campus requirements this year. We launched two distance learning initiatives between MIT and an oil company in Argentina and between MIT and the University of California at Berkeley. During this past year MVP installed a digital non-linear editing system. This system delivers BetaSP quality images and can easily import and export a variety of digital file formats. This system provides the Institute with reasonably priced digitization/compression capability.
CAES and the Industrial Liaison Program (ILP) launched a Distinguished Lecture Series with invited presentations by Professors Hawley, Thurow, Dresselhaus, Bose, and Mitchell. These live lectures were simulcast over MIT Cable and ILP member companies received videotaped copies of each lecture.
This academic year marks the first time CAES has halted larage-scale video course production and refocussed its attention to the initial entrants in a series of new international distance learning offerings which have been developed, tested, and successfully launched by CAES within nine months. The new programs contain some key features:
Many corporations, educational institutions, and government organization are currently in site license negotiations. Executive Economics for Industrial Engineers, Design and Analysis of Experiments, and Programming Content on the World-Wide Web were recently produced and comprise the first educational products under this initial offering.
CECI's Director, Prof. Steven R. Lerman, was reappointed for three years as the Class of 1922 Distinguished Professor. He also won a Mitsui Award for research in multimedia research done at CECI.
Since this is the first Report to the President that the reorganized CAES has prepared and the amount of change and new initiatives is formidable, it's extremely difficult to differentiate between what should be distinguished as Highlights of the Year and those which can be attributed to Program Highlights. Indeed, this first year has been simultaneously exciting and very demanding for each and every individual in the CAES family. The launch of distance learning initiatives has consumed much of the talent, time and resources of CAES this year. Key feedback from parties interested in all of our initiatives has focused on the need for customization, strategic alliances, and academic credit. Although we expected interest in our efforts from large domestic and international corporations who have large training and development programs; an unexpected result has been shown by our sister US and foreign colleges and universities in acquiring MIT experience in technology and management. We are working closely with several of these institutions of higher education to develop credit and non-credit graduate-level offerings. (Please see Highlights of the Year above for specifics.)
CECI continues to focus on the development and application of emerging technologies that can be applied to enhance the quality of education at all levels. During the past year, we have completed a major new release of the AthenaMuse authoring system that provides a wide range of capabilities, including: the ability to store and retrieve both applications and multimedia content from diverse databases; the ability to fetch and display documents in the World Wide Web; support for Internet messaging between AthenaMuse applications and with other, networked software systems; tools for extending the capabilities of the authoring system; a sophisticated, object oriented scripting language that supports multiple inheritance.
CECI and CAES have jointly staffed the Networked Multimedia Information Services project supported by ARPA and the NSF. As one of its major sub projects, this effort digitizes, segments, stores, indexes and makes accessible over the Internet thirty minutes of broadcast content daily provided by Turner Broadcasting. This service is made available to secondary schools connected to the Internet.
CECI have recently completed our work on a CD-ROM about the life and work of Prof. Harold Edgerton. This CD-ROM is scheduled to be released by a major publisher early in 1997.
MVP productions range from a software demonstration videotape for Lincoln Lab's Speech Cognition Group to a semester long documentation of a new subject, Archaeological Science, team taught by 15 faculty members from seven Boston-area institutions.
MVP also produced a variety of scripted video programs ranging from a Student Services Reengineering overview to a series of Lemelson/MIT Prize recipient profiles. During the past year MVP produced reports on research, including human resources training tapes, documentation of an arts installation, and video news releases in support of waste vitrification research programs.
CAES wishes to thank and acknowledge the many years of guidance and leadership of Professor Shaoul Ezekiel who stepped down as CAES Director on September 1, 1995. His enthusiasm and dedication guided the directions of the Center for many years and we wish to acknowledge and applaud his outstanding service to CAES and MIT. At the time this report is being written, the CAES family has not dramatically increased in personnel. CECI's staff consists of seven full time research staff and seven visiting scientists and engineers. In addition, CECI supported seven graduate research assistants last academic year and had approximately 15 UROP students working on various projects. The MIT Professional Institute has three full-time administrative staff. The remaining CAES personnel number 17 full-time and two part-time administrative staff. We expect our staff to grow over the next two years.
The Advanced Study Program has had the great fortune of having outstanding leadership by one individual, Dr. Paul E., Brown MIT'61 who retired after 32 years of service to the program. Ms. Diana García-Martínez, MIT '78, joined CAES in April from ILP to spearhead the domestic and international development of both on-campus full-time and distance part-time ASP Fellows Programs. Internal staff changes: Tracy Pierce to Sr. Multimedia Producer, this past year she completed the Physical Measurement video course series; Edward Moriarty to Sr. Multimedia Producer and Technical Producer of the MIT Shakespeare electronic archive.
The most significant new direction for CAES is developing many more discreet distance learning educational opportunities for the MIT community, alumni, corporate affiliates and our government sponsors. CECI's future plans involve developing a closer working relationship with its new parent organization, CAES. The merger of the two organizations is well underway, but we see the potential of much greater synergy in the future.
This coming year CECI will move from Building E40 to Building 9, where CAES is currently housed. This will facilitate collaboration between the CECI and CAES staff on a wide range of current and planned projects and eliminate the need for staff working on some of our projects to travel between the two sites. CAES and CECI have developed a major proposal to create a network-based course in the area of project management that could be taken by employees of a world-wide organization in these areas.
CECI also plans to continue developing new software development tools that are suited to the needs of educators and non-profits. The technology base for this work will continue to evolve, reflecting the growth of the World Wide Web, new software tools such as VRML, and the emergence of new languages suited to network use such as Java. CECI expects to be working on a set of software templates that would make it easy for faculty and other teachers to organize and deliver digital information to support teaching and learning. CAES will offer workshops and one-on-one instruction for MIT faculty and instructors to use these new tools and methods.
The ASP and the MIT Professional Institute will undergo reorganization to incorporate MIT's desire to offer the broadest range of educational opportunities throughout the year. An analysis and exploration of what corporations and industries needs will be comprehensively explored.
CAES will continue to pursue possible new affiliations with other MIT entities that share its vision. Three such entities currently in negotiations with CAES are TILT (The Institute for Teaching and Learning), LATH (Laboratory for Advanced Technologies in the Humanities) and the Hypermedia Teaching Laboratory (of Mechanical Engineering). Professors Lerman and Larson also plan to convene this fall a group of "CAES-affiliated faculty" to act as an advisory board and broad-based constituency for CAES and CECI going forward.
CAES has embarked on an aggressive program in plant and equipment modernization to bring MIT into the forefront as a showcase facility for commercial and educational video-conferencing systems. We hope to have CECI moved into Bldg. 9 in early 1997 and have both the largest single video-conferencing learning hall in 9-150, as well as the largest selection of services and conference room sizes at MIT. This new technology will be integrated with CAES software via strategic alliances with major international technology suppliers. New alliances already in place are with PictureTel Corporation and ADCOM Communications. Others are in negotiations.
Pockets of effort in the area of distance learning efforts in the five schools will be further consolidated under the CAES umbrella, as an example; administration and registration of off-campus registrants in various industrial programs including the General Motors Technical Education Program, will take place this Fall. Since there is continued interest in receiving by video conference live courses offered at MIT, we are presently planning our course offerings in the 1996 Fall term. Further marketing activities will be pursued in order to increase the numbers of both the on-campus as well as the off-campus participants in all CAES programs.
CAES will hold two special Fall, 1996 conferences. The first featuring Dr. Timothy Berners-Lee and the W3 consortia will take place at Endicott House this Fall. Also scheduled for this Fall is a joint CAES/CECI/ILP Conference and Trade Show on the state-of-the art in Distance Learning: Corporate Strategies for Professional Development and Employee Education. The latter event will be held simultaneously at three sites in North and South America while proceedings will be transmitted via satellite and the Internet.
Richard C. Larson
With the goal of establishing at MIT an undergraduate major in Archaeology and Archaeological Science, the Center for Archaeological Materials (CAM) offered a new subject, Archaeology and Archaeological Science, which will become a core subject in the new curriculum. Designed by the curriculum committee of the Center for Materials Research in Archaeology and Ethnology (CMRAE), the subject was taught by 15 faculty members from six CMRAE institutions: MIT, Harvard, Boston University, the University of Massachusetts, Wellesley College, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Each faculty participant is a specialist in the area of archaeological science/engineering presented. Thirty-two students enrolled: 21 from MIT, seven from Harvard, and the others from Boston University, Brandeis University, the University of Massachusetts, and Wellesley. Next year this subject will be jointly offered by CAM/Department of Materials Science and Engineering, and the Chemistry Department at MIT. All sessions were videotaped to encourage dissemination of an unusual approach to archaeology and to capture the expertise of an uncommon roster of scholars.
For the first time in its 19-year history, CMRAE issued a 25-page brochure describing the consortium's philosophy and mission and its educational programs. The Center's broad research activities are provided in brief biographies of its 25 faculty members who represent all eight consortium institutions. The CMRAE brochure will be entered on our WEB site so that it can be internationally available.
Professor Dorothy Hosler received a grant from the American Smelting and Refining Company (ASARCO), Southern Peru Copper Corporation, and Industrial Minera Mexico S.A. to support her ongoing field work and laboratory studies of the metallic ore mining, processing, and extractive metallurgy technologies carried out in ancient Mexico. Her lead isotope analysis of Mexican copper ores and ancient copper and bronze artifacts to establish the natural resources exploited in the production of those artifacts is the first use of this technique in the archaeology of Latin America. Professor Heather Lechtman received a grant from the American Philosophical Society which supported a three-month summer of field work in Peru and Bolivia to determine when prehistoric bronze metallurgy was developed in the Andean culture areas. In examining and analyzing metal artifacts from the ancient city of Tiwanaku in the Bolivian altiplano, she determined the presence of a ternary copper-arsenic-nickel alloy that has not previously been reported. This bronze alloy, rarely seen in either the New or the Old Worlds, was widely used by the Tiwanaku polity and by peoples with whom the state interacted. It is distinct from the copper-arsenic bronzes typically produced by northern Andean peoples during the same period.
Heather Lechtman
The Council on Primary and Secondary Education (CPSE) develops and oversees programs that bring the strengths of MIT to the American K-12 educational system.
CPSE has entered a transitional phase during the past year. While it has created high-quality programs, CPSE is now faced with the challenge of finding financial and organizational support to sustain them. Council members are looking at ways to conduct programs through a fee-for-service format and/or using advanced communication technologies to reach a larger audience nationally, perhaps even globally. Plans are underway for some programs, such as The Institute for Learning and Teaching (TILT), to move under the umbrella of the Center for Advanced Educational Services (CAES). The CAES emphasis on distance learning dovetails nicely with TILT's new emphasis on reaching more people at a lower cost.
CPSE is pleased to acknowledge a generous gift from Beymon ('50CH) and Phyliss Blanchard in 1995. Funds from the Bey and Phil Blanchard Fund are being used to help sustain K-12 efforts at MIT, including support for a large team of educators from Ashtabula County, OH, the Blanchard's home county as well as the location of Plasticolors, Inc., where Bey Blanchard is Chairman.
TILT provides professional development for educators that uses a project centered around a common technology, such as water delivery systems, as a vehicle for developing skills in team building, group dynamics, effective communication, negotiation, grant writing, brainstorming, mind mapping, working with different learning styles, group reflection and debriefing, and computer use. The traditional TILT model is a community-based team of teachers, school administrators, and their champions in the community (parents, school board members, university representatives, or industrialists) that spends three-weeks in July in residence on MIT's campus followed by a year of planning how to implement and integrate TILT ideas back in the team's home community.
The TILT Design Team is now looking at ways to provide this professional development using different models, ranging from changing the composition of the team attending TILT to using advanced communication technologies to interact with teams. For example, TILT has been asked by the community college system in Massachusetts to redesign the TILT model for use by the Commonwealth's 15 community colleges. TILT personnel are also negotiating with the University of Natal in South Africa to adjust the TILT model to their need for professional development that links schools of education with businesses in that country. In addition, TILT's model of professional development has been adopted by the seven universities that make up the Coalition of Schools for Excellence in Education and Leadership (ECSEL), which is supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF).
In 1995, TILT's summer residential component ran from July 10-28 and teams attending came from Lynn, MA; Pittsfield, MA; Springfield, MA; Worcester, MA; New Bedford, MA; Shiprock, NM; Middlebury, VT; and the School-to-Work Program in Massachusetts. Each year, TILT chooses two different technologies to investigate, in the past looking at water treatment and delivery, construction, mass transportation, telecommunications power generation, and health care. In 1995 teams explored either air transportation or fish processing. Each team was linked to a site (a business or facility engaged in the technology) and explored in detail one technical aspect of the technology, determining who it serves and how it serves them. Teams examined how the sciences, mathematics, and the social sciences intertwine to produce the technology, how it might be changing, and how it compares with trends in education. All teams returned to their communities in August with the charge to share their experiences with colleagues in their home community and to promote school improvement. To help them maintain communication with TILT, MIT, and other community groups, each team was given seed money and was loaned a laptop computer with a subscription to America Online for one year.
TILT'95 was funded by the Alden Trust, James A. Daley Fund, General Telecom, author Tony Hillerman, the Robert M. Noyce Foundation, the Pew Charitable Trusts, ComEnergy Service Corporation, Polaroid Corporation, National Science Foundation's Engineering Coalition of Schools for Excellence in Education and Leadership, Raytheon Corporation, Plan for Social Excellence, the Bey and Phyliss Blanchard Fund, Vermont Institute for Science, Math & Technology, Commonwealth of Massachusetts School-to-Work Office, Lynn Public Schools, Massachusetts Department of Education Goals 2000 Grant, Pittsfield Public Schools, and Springfield Public Schools. Support for the UROP students was provided by the MIT Class of 1992.
In 1996, TILT will begin with its three-week residential workshop running July 8-26 and will focus on power cogeneration, MIT's ID card system, and ATM machines. Teams attending will represent Ashtabula County, OH; the ECSEL program; and Boston Public Schools. An impact study, funded by the Noyce Foundation, is being developed to evaluate TILT's impact on education.
TILT has a World Wide Web page at http://web.mit.edu/tilt/www/.
To foster the growth of a cadre of new teachers who meet MIT's standards of excellence in science and mathematics, yet appreciate the value of different ways of approaching and understanding a problem, MIT has created a joint program with Wellesley College, the Teacher Education Program (TEP). It prepares undergraduates for Massachusetts State Certification in mathematics and science at the middle and high school levels. This program, started in the fall 1993, has now been integrated into MIT's Department of Urban Studies and Planning. Enrollment in TEP's introductory Course 11.124 has steadily increased, from 8 students the first year it was offered, to 14 the second, to 25 in 1995's fall semester. In 1996, six students in the program completed the certification process, while 12 students are applying to graduate schools of education or to Wellesley's Fifth Year Program to complete their teacher certification. Four students will be teacher in private high schools.
Undergraduates in the program must complete a major in the subject area in which they wish to teach. In addition, they must complete three courses at MIT and two at Wellesley; one of the latter is a seminar taken in conjunction with the required 150 hours of supervised practice teaching. Students must also complete 75 hours of supervised classroom observations; these observations often take place in the classrooms of teachers participating in the MIT Teacher Fellows Program at Cambridge Rindge and Latin High School.
TEP is currently funded by the National Science Foundation through a collaborative called TEAMS-BC (Teacher Education Addressing Math and Science in Boston and Cambridge), which consists of MIT, Harvard, UMASS Boston, Wheelock College, and the Boston and Cambridge school systems. NSF has awarded TEAMS-BC a grant of $5,000,000 over five years. TEP is supervised by Professor Jeanne Bamberger.
The Noyce Prize, a $10,000 prize provided by the Noyce Foundation, is awarded each year to an outstanding graduating senior who has chosen a career in teaching and who has completed (or will complete) certification requirements to teach math or science in a public school. This June, the award was given to Catherine Lavelle, a graduating senior in mathematics. The first recipient of the prize, Sally Buta (Course 3, 1994) is now teaching physics at Cambridge Rindge and Latin High School, in Cambridge, MA. The second recipient, Ricardo J. Campbell (Course 10, 1995), is teaching 8th grade science at the Longfellow School in Cambridge while completing his certification in the Wellesley Fifth Year Program.
The Teacher Fellows Program in 1995 focused on six master teachers at Cambridge Rindge and Latin High School, four in mathematics, two in science. With the enthusiastic support of their school administration, they were released from 20% of their teaching responsibilities; they continued to teach their regular classes in the remaining time. During their released time, they visited one another's classrooms, discussed, discovered, clarified, and documented as a group the practice and the strategies that they find are most effective in encouraging students to learn, understand, and practice mathematical reasoning. Periodically, the teachers led meetings of the school's mathematics staff and disseminate their insights to these teachers.
This program is supported with a two-year grant from the Department of Energy that began in the fall of 1994.
In the spring of 1996, CPSE launched a continuing series of seminars, the Forum on Public Education. Paul Reville from the Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education kicked off the series on March 11 with "Education Reform
in Massachusetts and the Nation: How Are We Doing?" Bruce Alberts, President of the National Academy of Sciences, delivered the second seminar entitled "Science Education: A Wedge Revitalizing Our Nation's Schools," on May 31. The next in the series is tentatively scheduled for early September. The Forum on Public Education is sponsored jointly by MIT's Council on Primary and Secondary Education and the Boston Museum of Science. The purpose of the seminar series is to foster conversation between leaders in the educational reform movement and the public at-large.
ScienceMedia, Inc., is a toy company created by MIT alumna Joan Roth that promotes science literacy through toys and TV, the goal being to attract children usually turned off by science. The company produces science kits that contain all necessary equipment for an experiment, full instructions, and science trading cards. The first product line focused on Better Sports Through Science, and is in its second production run. A new product line focusing on earth science is in development. MIT's name and logo appear on the kit box, and royalties from sales are shared with CPSE.
Professor Ron Latanision, Chairman of CPSE, is also a co-principal investigator for the NSF-supported statewide systemic initiative in Massachusetts, PALMS (Partnerships Advancing the Learning of Mathematics and Science). As such, his primary areas of responsibility are outreach to the community and enhancing educational technology. Professor Latanision and PALMS personnel have established the Massachusetts Software Partnership Task Force as part of the statewide technology initiative Mass Ed Online. The task force is establishing partnerships between school members and software developers that will enable them to work together to design/develop curriculum soft-ware that will provide students with high quality, hands-on learning experiences. The task force has set up criteria for software developers and school districts to participate in this partnership, and will evaluate its effectiveness.
Through the efforts of another PALMS co-principal investigator, Dr. Pendred Noyce, the Noyce Foundation has lent support to the Council's TILT program for the past three years, most recently supporting teams from Pittsfield, Springfield, and Lynn, MA. Dr. Noyce is the daughter of MIT alumnus Robert Noyce, founder of Intel.
Linda Breisch, Communications Manager for CPSE, also assists PALMS by acting as a regional coordinator for the central part of Massachusetts. In this capacity, she provides a working link between PALMS, TILT, and other groups at MIT.
The white paper Role Of Universities In K-12 Education, written by Professor Latanision in conjunction with the Association of American Universities, considers the potential roles of the academies and of research universities in confronting the national challenge posed by K-12 education. In the upcoming year, Professor Latanision will go on sabbatical to implement the recommendations presented in the paper. During this time, he will also work with the federal School-to-Work (STW) Office to bring it together with the business community and business schools around the school-to-work theme.
Professor Latanision is also a member of an ad hoc admissions committee at MIT which includes Michael Behnke, Director of Admissions; Professor Robert Birgeneau, Dean of the School of Science; and Professor Rosalind Williams, Dean for Undergraduate Education, that is looking at how education reform and the changing K-12 experience for students in Massachusetts and the nation at large will impact their admissions credentials. In addition, the committee is considering both MIT's position on the new education standards developed by the National Research Council and the potential for modifying MIT's undergraduate science core to reflect K-12 educational reform and include more experiential learning like that found in Course 8.01X.
Professor Latanision directs the Science and Engineering Program for Middle and High School Teachers, which shares the Council's goal of science literacy for all students. Key to a good education is an enthusiastic, knowledgeable teacher. Since 1989, this program has endeavored to give educators a unique perspective of how the basic sciences, mathematics, and engineering are integrated to meet the technological challenges and needs of commerce and society. In 1996, the program ran from June 24-28 and had 65 participants from across the United States.
The alumni of this program, now totaling approximately 400, become members of the New England Science Teachers (NEST). This year, NEST members came to MIT's campus on June 28th for a two-day meeting to assess the program and determine future directions for the organization. NEST now has its own World Wide Web page at http://web.mit.edu/nest/www/. NEST will be supported by a grant from Raytheon through 1998.
R. M. Latanision
Reporting to the Provost, the Facilities Use Committee formulates and implements policy for the use of Institute facilities by recognized MIT groups, guests from off-campus, and by non-MIT organizations hosted by Faculty and recognized campus groups.
Chaired by Stephen Immerman, Director of Special Services, Office of the Senior Vice President, this year's committee membership included Mary Callahan, Assistant Registrar, Schedules; Nancy Cavanaugh, Administrative Officer, Music and Theater Arts; Gayle Fitzgerald, Director Conference Services, Events and Information Center, Public Relations Services; Michael Foley, Assistant Director, Campus Activities Complex; Elizabeth Garvin, Director, Class Programs, Alumni Association; Anne Glavin, Chief, Campus Police; Margaret Jablonski, Associate Dean, and Section Head, Residence and Campus Activities; Sandra Lett, Administrative Assistant, Facilities and Scheduling, Athletics; Paul Parravano, Assistant for Community Relations, Office of the President; Mary Tobin, Supervisor, Operations Center, Physical Plant; Susan Tomases, Program Director, Alumni Association; Tina Trager, Event Coordinator, Campus Activities Complex; and Phil Walsh, Director, Campus Activities Complex.
A few changes in committee membership occurred this year. Eliza Dame, and Susan Allen both left the Institute to pursue other opportunities. Susan Tomases and Margaret Jablonski joined the committee to fill these vacancies.
In reaction to re-engineering activities and event safety concerns the committee was kept informed on a range of issues including introduction of metal detectors at large student events, moratorium and subsequent changes to student party policies, privatization of campus parking as it related to guest parking, and ongoing discussion of scheduling and event planning processes. The Committee also reviewed plans for the merger of Alumni Reunion activities and Commencement.
During the 1995-96 year, in addition to a number of smaller meetings, the Institute hosted the Massachusetts State Science Fair, the American Computer Express, Pre MBA Summer Institute, Massachusetts Biotechnology Council, National Coalition of Education Activities, Career Connection Job Fair, Society for Environmental Journalists, City Year National Conference, Special Olympic Games, and a fund-raiser for The Cambridge Hospice.
Stephen D. Immerman
The Office of Educational Opportunity Programs was created in January of 1992 to organizationally locate both the MIT/Wellesley Upward Bound and MIT Educational Talent Search Programs. MIT has operated the Upward Bound Program since 1966 and began operation of the Educational Talent Search Program in September of 1991.
Upward Bound and Educational Talent Search are two of six US Department of Education: Special Programs For Students From Disadvantaged Backgrounds (TRIO Programs) created under the Higher Education Act of 1965.
The goal of these Programs is to provide college admission and preparatory information, academic support, advising, career information, and college and career exploration opportunities to the economically and/or educationally disadvantaged youth of Cambridge and Somerville.
To a large extent, the development of both Programs was influenced by the research done by psychologist Kurt Lewin and his associates. Lewin's hypothesis was that ego growth and academic performance were closely related. Moreover, he concluded that a developing ego needs to experience success in a warm and personal, structured environment for greatest development, in both a personal and social sense. Lastly, it was determined that this personal and social growth could be achieved through intervention outside of the institutions of family and school. Educational Talent Search and Upward Bound, through their year-round academic support and advising, represent just such interventions.
It has been long established that the effects of failure can be reversed through gradual structured achievement. Moreover, the result of the increasing success is a corresponding increase in the individual's level of aspiration. The Educational Talent Search Program, now in its 5th year, is reporting increasing success. Further, the Upward Bound Program continues its lengthy record of success (90+ percent college enrollment of graduates and 70 percent retention of participants annually) achieved during its 29 year existence through the application of Kurt Lewin's theory and careful attention to the impact of Program expectations.
Finally, since much of what students think they can achieve has been directly related to what others think they can accomplish, the participants' perceptions of their abilities are, to a significant degree, determined by staff expectations. Thus, and largely due to this quasi-parenting relationship, the Programs are able to exert such an influence upon the participants that their academic persistence grows and results in increased post-secondary enrollments.
The MIT Educational Talent Search Program is a year-round, co-educational, program, located in Building 20, designed to assist participants, in grades 6-12, who live and/or attend school in Cambridge and Somerville to continue in a course of education leading to graduation from secondary school and enrollment in post-secondary educational programs. The Program is funded to serve 675 participants from disadvantaged backgrounds.
The following is an overview of the Program's year-round operation:
The academic year program is designed to inform, assist and support participants during the school year through a number of after school, evening, weekend, and school holiday activities.
The Educational Talent Search office is open for supervised study, on a drop-in basis, four days a week: Monday - Thursday from 3:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. Staff are available to provide assistance with homework or provide tutorial assistance in content areas. Students are assigned to group or individual study skills workshops on an as needed basis.
The Program offers workshops to supplement the instructional support provided to participants. The workshops are offered to provide more specific support or to address special interests (e.g., SAT preparation, Word Processing, Time Management, Peer Pressure, Computer Skills, etc.) and are offered on a regular and as needed basis.
In an effort to assist participants as they attempt to cope with problems of an academic, social, family or personal nature, the Program offers support and referrals in the areas of school guidance, academic and vocational preparation, and personal adjustment.
In an effort to provide both participants and their families with information relative to college; choice, preparation, and the admission and financial aid processes, the Program held four parent and eleven student information nights, took participants to four local College Fairs and sponsored fifteen college visits. The Program also visited Middlesex Juvenile Court, Cambridge Police Headquarters, SEA Engineering Consultants, as part of its career exploration effort.
The Program provided five field trips for the purpose of increasing the intellectual, social, and cultural development of the participants. Some of the sites visited were; Museum of Science, New England Aquarium and Butternut Basin Ski Area. In addition, the Program regularly visits several points of interest, i.e., libraries, museums and laboratories, on the MIT campus.
The summer program provides both academic instruction to 65 (6th - 8th) grade participants and a continued college information and exploration program to participants in grades 9-12.
The summer academy for (6th - 8th) grade students provided classes in Mathematics, Language Arts, and Reading. The classes, held Monday-Thursday, are designed to provide both developmental assistance and enrichment and are taught by experienced teachers from the greater Boston area. Field trips are taken every Friday to various points of interest.
Since many of the participants in grades 9-12 hold summer jobs, the Program provides continuing support through dissemination of information about area college fairs, hosted a weekly career speaker series and sponsored two college visits.
The MIT/Wellesley Upward Bound Program is a year-round, co-educational, multi-racial, college preparatory program for high school youth who reside or attend school in Cambridge. Currently in its 29th year, the Program serves 70 academically promising young men and women from disadvantaged backgrounds. The goal of Upward Bound is twofold: (1) to motivate client high school youths such that they persist on to post-secondary education; and, at the same time, (2) to provide them with the fundamental skills necessary for success at the collegiate level.
The following is an overview of the Program's operational phases:
The six week summer program, conducted in residence at Wellesley College, is designed to provide the participants with a rigorous academic experience. Classes are taught by experienced high school teachers, and graduate and undergraduate students from MIT, Wellesley College and other local colleges and universities. Upward Bound participants must enroll in three classes, each of which meets for an average of five and one-half hours per week. Also, participants may request or be assigned to tutorials whenever the need arises. Each participant is required to enroll in a Mathematics course, an English course and an elective course (Social Studies, Science or Foreign Language). Science electives include; physical science, biology, chemistry, physics and computers while Social Studies address United States, African-American and World Histories. The Foreign Language electives are Spanish I and II as well as French I and II. The Mathematics courses range from arithmetic to calculus and Language Arts courses cover basic English and grammar through research paper writing and literature. Lastly, due to an agreement with the Cambridge Public Schools, students may receive summer school credit for failed courses taken for review.
The academic year program located at MIT, plays an equally important role in the educational development of participants. Building upon the motivation and enthusiasm developed during the summer, the academic year program is designed to assist and support the participant while in school. To accomplish this task, the following programs, staffed primarily by MIT and Wellesley College students when appropriate, (We continually strive to maintain MIT and Wellesley College students' participation through our continued involvement as a pre-practicum site for the Wellesley College Teacher Certification Program and through various outreach efforts.) have been developed:
The Upward Bound office is open for study, on a drop-in basis, four days a week: Monday and Thursday from 3:00 to 6:00 pm and Tuesday and Wednesday 3:00 to 8:00 pm. Tutors are available to assist participants with homework problems in addition to meeting individuals and/or small groups for specific content area tutorials.
The Program offers classes, specifically for the 9th grade students, in Mathematics and Language Arts to supplement the instruction received at the target school. Also, workshops are offered to address more specialized participant needs (e.g., SAT Preparation, Computers, Study Skills Development, Time Management, Job Readiness Skills, etc.).
In an effort to help participants cope with the myriad of problems; academic, social, family, etc., the Program offers support in the areas of guidance, college, career and personal adjustment. The college advising component includes campus visits to many of the local colleges and universities, while the career advising component offers exposure to career options through our Speaker Series and Job Site Visitation Program.
The Program provides numerous field trips which have as their purpose, the intellectual, social and cultural development of the participants. Such trips included; the Museum of Science, the New England Sports Museum, skiing, bowling, and roller-skating.
Ninety-four percent of the Program's graduating seniors have enrolled in the following institutions: Bentley College, Boston University, Burdett School, Bunker Hill Community College, Lasell College, Massachusetts Maritime Academy, Mount Holyoke College, Mount Ida College, Suffolk University, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and Wentworth Institute of Technology.
Ronald S. Crichlow
Evette M. Layne
MIT Reports to the President 1995-96