Editorial

Taking Responsibility

MIT and other research universities have a particular responsibility to bring clarity and truth to the technical issues underlying national policy decisions, whether military, environmental, or economic. MIT's reputation as an institution that deals openly and truthfully with such difficult issues is at risk. The longer the MIT administration fails to deal decisively with Professor Ted Postol's allegations of scientific misconduct at Lincoln Labs and efforts by the Department of Defense to block a fair and open examination of the case, the greater the risk of damage to our credibility and ability to convey an image as an institution that is willing to stand on principle. The national scientific journals and the popular media have reported on the controversy regularly.

The thumbnail public image of MIT with respect to this issue at this point is an administration that carefully crafts lawyerly responses to requests for information by MIT faculty, faculty at sister institutions, and the press, while acting indecisively within the MIT/Lincoln context, and gingerly stepping around the key issues in its interactions with the government.

By contrast, President Vest's decision in the spring and summer of 1991 to challenge the U.S. government's push to dismantle a carefully balanced, workable system for recruiting students and awarding financial support (the "overlap" anti-trust suit) was an example of a willingness to take political risks based on upholding bed-rock principles. We need the same courage with respect to the Lincoln Lab issues.

Many dimensions of the MIT-Lincoln relationship are not clear to most of our faculty. How deeply are our faculty and graduate students imbedded in this relationship? Who monitors the quality of research at Lincoln? How dependent is MIT on cash flow from Lincoln?

As manager of Lincoln Labs, MIT is responsible for ensuring that research results are reported accurately and honestly, whether publicly announced or privately transmitted to government agencies – just as we expect from our faculty. We cannot tolerate inaction toward even a hint of scientific fraud under the cover of government secrecy.

MIT's leadership must act decisively and with complete integrity with respect to this issue, even if taking a proactive public stand provokes negative responses at DOD. Following any other course poorly serves our colleagues, MIT, and the national interest.

This issue of the Newsletter contains a letter from Hugh Gusterson, an MIT faculty member, accompanied by an appended letter by three experts at other institutions illustrating how others are likely perceiving us. We are also publishing President Hockfield's response to the appended letter.

We encourage faculty commentary on these serious and timely issues.

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The Retirement Game at MIT

Our Policies and Procedures handbook offers a few administrative guideposts for negotiating retirement but says nothing much about the details. The devil is in the details!

MIT has never been able to create a truly graceful and uniformly equitable path to retirement for the majority of its now retired professors: For example, one distinguished retired professor is given a cubicle in a basement library as a retirement "office" while another keeps his longtime spacious office and a privileged parking space close to that office. Others are required to time-share offices in an office suite.

Why the large differences?
In the absence of an MIT-wide set of norms for allocation of space and administrative support to retired professors who wish to remain active and on campus, what each gets is determined by his or her ability to negotiate a "deal" with a department head or dean. In this setting the department's need for a potential retiree's slot, the retiree's negotiating style, and the personal chemistry between the professor and his administrative counterpart are determinants of the outcome. In addition, the outcome of the negotiation depends on available departmental space and departmental budgets for administrative services.

In the large, this is neither equitable nor collegial. The absence of a transparent policy on what post-retirement activities are allowed and what activities can be granted further muddies the waters.  The lack of clear guidelines or principles from the administration on how and why these decisions are made  renders the retirement negotiation dance awkward and unpleasant for all parties.

Over the coming year, the Newsletter intends to focus on these issues as faced by our faculty (nearly 25% of whom are 60 years old or over).   In addition to addressing the process of retirement, we plan to invite retired faculty to report directly from the "horse's mouth" what they see as issues that need to be openly aired among faculty and administrators. We welcome any contributions on this important topic.

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Join the Newsletter Editorial Board

This is an invitation to all our faculty colleagues to consider joining the Newsletter editorial board.

The Faculty Newsletter Editorial Board is composed of faculty from all schools within MIT.   Membership is on a volunteer basis, and you can serve for as long (or short) as you like.

The duties of Board members include:

• Serving on Editorial Sub-Committees which decide the theme and content for individual issues of the Newsletter
• Soliciting and submitting articles
• Participating in e-mail discussions and Newsletter policy decisions
• Attending one Editorial Board meeting per year.

The more diverse the Editorial Board is, the more representative of the entire Institute the Newsletter will be.

For more information, please contact any member of the current Editorial Board or contact the Newsletter office at fnl@mit.edu.