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From The Faculty Chair
This is my last column as the Chair of the Faculty. As I don't have a pressing topic to discuss, I thought I'd end with a few observations.
The past two years have been quite challenging for MIT by any measure
With September 11, we were faced with unprecedented questions: How do we secure the campus against a possible terrorist attack? How do we preserve openness on campus and protect our international students, faculty, and staff? How do we maintain community in light of the inevitable tensions? And how should MIT contribute to the war against terrorism? With the war in Iraq, we have had to revisit several of these questions.
At the same time, we have faced a fiscal challenge as our endowment has declined for three consecutive years, dropping by one billion dollars in value.
Finally, there have been attacks on our affirmative action efforts to diversify the campus. In particular, we have been forced to change the admission policies for summer programs that are targeted towards underrepresented minorities. And MIT, along with other universities, awaits the outcome of the Supreme Court case that is likely to decide whether or not we can continue to use race as a factor in admissions.
Unfortunately, I do not
foresee any of these issues going away in the near future. As the war
on terrorism proceeds, we will still struggle with how to sustain a
safe and open campus for an international community. I also am not
optimistic that the economy will turn around soon, and I fear we will
see even tighter budget constraints in the immediate future. And even
with a favorable ruling from the Supreme Court, I suspect that our
affirmative action efforts will continue to be subject to extreme
scrutiny from those with differing viewpoints.
Having said all of this, I have been quite impressed with how our
administration has dealt with these challenges – although,
possibly, I have been co-opted by all of the good food and
camaraderie at the Academic Council. I have found that our
administration has approached each of these challenges in a quite
deliberate and principled way, guided by our fundamental values as a
research-based institute of higher learning. For the most part, the
administration has been careful to engage faculty in the
consideration of how best to move forward, and has been reasonably
sensitive to faculty concerns.
Yet I'd also observe that we have ceded a great amount of authority to the administration. There would be benefit from having more open discussion and debate between the faculty and administration on how MIT should grapple with some of the tough tradeoffs and choices that will undoubtedly arise in the future. From sitting on the Academic Council over the past two years, I, along with Nancy Hopkins, have had the opportunity to represent a faculty perspective. But we are only two voices among a group of 20, and it can be difficult to represent fairly the full spectrum of faculty views on the various issues. There is power in numbers and I'd suggest that the faculty seek more seats at the table. This would provide for better representation of the faculty, allowing the faculty to have a greater input and providing for more transparency on our decision processes. This would give the faculty at large a better appreciation of the challenges we face, and would provide the administration with a better sense of the faculty.
We need more housing
A year ago, the decision to eliminate crowding in our undergraduate residencies was a bold and courageous move. It sent a strong signal that we were serious about improving student life. In particular, as we brought all of the freshmen to campus, we assured them that they would have a normal room and not be relegated to living in a converted lounge or squeezed into an overcrowded room. To fulfill that commitment, the administration made several tough choices, such as limiting the size of the entering class and commandeering some graduate housing for upperclassmen.
I fear though that this commitment to no crowding is impossible to sustain. There is continuing pressure to increase the size of the class we admit. And in order to free up on-campus beds for the next class of freshmen, we need a sizable percentage of upper class students to move off campus, particularly to the independent living groups - which are primarily fraternities. Yet, key indicators suggest that we are unlikely to get the necessary numbers to move. The percentage of women undergraduates continues to increase, and there are fewer off-campus options available to them. There is a long-term trend in which fewer men are joining fraternities. And even for those who do join a fraternity, I suspect many will remain living on campus. Certainly, part of this is because we have made significant investments to improve the on-campus residential system – so why would they move? Finally, the use of graduate housing for undergraduates is not ideal, and there will be increasing pressure and expectations for these beds to be returned to graduate students.
Admittedly we are still in a transient phase as we bring the freshmen to campus, add capacity such as Simmons Hall, and work with the fraternities to try to make them more competitive. Possibly we will be successful at utilizing the off-campus capacity provided by the independent living groups so that we can achieve no crowding on campus. But I seriously doubt this. From my standpoint, it is absolutely clear that we are in an untenable position. We need more undergraduate housing and we need this as soon as possible. We should be actively making plans for a new undergraduate dormitory.
While on the topic of housing, I can't resist to add that we also need housing options near campus for faculty. In the previous Faculty Newsletter, Dean Bob Redwine makes a very compelling argument to use 100 Memorial Drive for subsidized housing for faculty. This is a wonderful idea, the time is right, and we should do it. This would certainly help in attracting and retaining faculty. But more importantly, as Dean Redwine suggests, having as many as 80 faculty members residing there would have unimaginable benefits to our efforts to improve student life and community.
The good and the bad of the job
By far, the worst part of being the faculty chair was dealing with student complaints about violations to our term rules and regulations. Inevitably, these come as a batch at the end of the semester – when time is most precious. In many instances, students have legitimate gripes. Too often, though, the student expresses a fear of repercussions and is unwilling to raise the complaint directly with the faculty; this is a sad state of affairs. My experience has been that most violations are inadvertent, the faculty member is embarrassed by whatever lapse created the violation, and the faculty member is most accommodating in trying to create a fair resolution, provided the complaint is raised early enough. But it seems that some students are intimidated by the faculty and need some other entity to intervene on their behalf.
I expect there is a better way to deal with this irksome part of the job – but I didn't find it.
The best part of the job was meeting faculty from across the Institute. I continue to be awed by the accomplishments, dedication, and commitment of our faculty. After sitting on the eastern edge of the campus for most of my career here, it is hard to fully appreciate all of the amazing and wonderful things that my colleagues do – but over the past two years, I have had a unique opportunity to learn about and see some of this. It makes me even more proud to be part of MIT.
I have also been most grateful for the service provided by faculty through their participation in our faculty governance system. There has been extraordinary generosity of time and effort on the parts of many – and I wish to thank all, for the great help over these past two years.
I have been asked repeatedly whether or not I enjoy being the faculty chair. I honestly have never known quite how to answer this question. I think service to MIT is an important and critical part of our job as faculty, and I have been willing to do my share. But I am relieved that my term is now done, and I look forward to handing off this assignment to Professor Rafael Bras – who is going to do a great job. Good luck Rafael! I am pleased to become just a full-time faculty member again!
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