in this issue we offer Rick Danheiser’s final From The Faculty Chair(page 4); “What Will Remain Post-Pandemic?,” (page 13); the naming of the Dixie Lee Bryant (1891) Lecture Hall (page 18); “On the 20th Anniversary ofOpenCourseWare,” (page 22); and “Education for Non-Robots,” (page 27).

MITFacultyNewsletter

Vol. XXXIII No. 5May/June 2021

https://fnl.mit.edu

MassachusettsInstitute ofTechnology

continued on page 10

MIT Plans for theFall Semester

Lily Tsai New Chair of the Faculty

continued on page 12

Newsletter Staff

Greetings to our Graduates in theYear of the Pandemic

WHAT A YEAR! For many of us it ishard to imagine the difficulties you havenavigated through this past year of thepandemic. MIT’s faculty values andtakes particular pride in the accom-plishments of your Class of 2021.Teaching and mentoring students hasrequired development of new skills andcommitments, but it has also been asource of deep satisfaction for us. Yoursenior year has been extraordinarilystressful due to the Covid-19 pandemic,but as you have learned and grown,absorbing and generating knowledgeand new insights, so have we. Thefuture contributions to our communi-ties and to society will be among themost gratifying outcomes of our jointacademic efforts.

EditorialI. Greetings to our Graduatesin the Year of the PandemicII. The Role and Reach ofthe MIT Faculty NewsletterIII. Thank You

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MIT Spring 2021

Cynthia Barnhart

LI LY L. TSAI, FOR D PROFE SSOR ofPolitical Science, will succeed RickDanheiser as Chair of the Faculty on July1, 2021. Lily has served as Chair-Electduring the current academic year, learn-ing the ropes from Rick to whom she isthankful for exemplary leadership duringthis particularly trying time. Joining Lilyas faculty officers this summer will beChris Schuh (Materials Science andEngineering) and Martha Gray(Electrical Engineering and HealthSciences and Technology) who will serve,respectively, as Associate Chair andSecretary of the Faculty. Born in Stillwater, Oklahoma, Lilygrew up in New Jersey. After three years ofhigh school, Lily left home at 16 to serveas a Congressional intern for Senator BillBradley and to work for the InternationalRepublican Institute in Washington, DC

AT TH E APR I L 21 AN D May 12, 2021Institute Faculty Meetings, I joinedseveral colleagues to update the MITcommunity on the state of our planningfor the fall 2021 semester. As I write this in the middle of May,we are on track to implement the frame-work President Reif announced inMarch: a return to full academic andresearch activities by the start of the newacademic year in September. All students have been invited to be inour residence halls, classrooms, and labo-ratories so that they can take part in in-person learning, research, andco-curricular and athletic activities.Faculty and staff who worked on campusbefore Covid and have not yet returnedhave been told to plan for resuming in-person work by September 7, 2021. Wewill know more later this summer about

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Vol. XXXIII No. 5 May/June 2021

Robert Berwick (Vice-Chair)Electrical Engineering & Computer Science

Nazli ChoucriPolitical Science

Christopher CumminsChemistry

*Sally HaslangerLinguistics and Philosophy

*Jonathan A. King (Chair) Biology

Helen Elaine LeeComparative Media Studies/Writing

*Ceasar McDowell (Secretary)Urban Studies and Planning

Fred MoavenzadehCivil & Environmental Engineering/Engineering Systems

Ruth PerryLiterature Section

Nasser RabbatArchitecture

Balakrishnan RajagopalUrban Studies and Planning

*Robert RedwinePhysics

Warren SeeringMechanical Engineering

David LewisManaging Editor

*Editorial Subcommittee for this issue

AddressMIT Faculty NewsletterBldg. 10-335Cambridge, MA 02139

Websitehttp://web.mit.edu/fnl

Telephone 617-253-7303Fax 617-253-0458E-mail fnl@mit.edu

Subscriptions$15/year on campus$25/year off campus

01 Lily Tsai New Chair of the Faculty Newsletter Staff 01 MIT Plans for the Fall Semester Cynthia Barnhart

Editorial 01 I. Greetings to our Graduates in the Year of the Pandemic II. The Role and Reach of the MIT Faculty Newsletter III. Thank You

From The 04 A Look Back and a Look AheadFaculty Chair Rick L. Danheiser

13 What Will Remain Post-Pandemic? Shigeru Miyagawa and Meghan Perdue

15 Don’t Renew the ICBM Force, Eliminate It Robert P. Redwine and Jonathan A. King

16 The More Challenging DEI – A Befitting Role for MIT Yossi Sheffi

18 What’s In a Name? Robert D. van der Hilst, Aarti Dwivedi, Jennifer Fentress, Bradford H. Hager, Deepa Rao, Kasturi Shah, Susan Solomon, Lily Zhang

Letters 21 Questioning the Merits of President Reif Dan Stroock

22 On the 20th Anniversary of OpenCourseWare: How It Began Hal Abelson, Shigeru Miyagawa, Dick K. P. Yue

27 Education for Non-Robots Luis Perez-Breva

contentsThe MIT FacultyNewsletterEditorial Board

Photo Credits: Page1: Gretchen Erti; Page10: Stuart Darsch; Page 19: MIT Libraries; Page 27: Luis Perez-Breva

MIT Faculty NewsletterMay/June 2021

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The class of 2021 will be entering aworld of considerable uncertainty and anincreased level of social and politicalpolarization. After the 2016 presidentialelection, many of our students and gradu-ates rose to the challenges presented bythe Trump administration and its methodof governing. You joined efforts to protectinternational members of our communityfrom the threat of exclusion or deporta-tion. You became attentive to issues suchas immigration, climate change, nucleardisarmament, the reduction of globalpoverty, and the need to protect funda-mental democratic rights. Many of youjoined or supported the Women’s March,the March for Science and the March forClimate; many of you supported thevarious efforts of the Black Lives Mattermovement. The values of scientific investigationand assessment, previously taken forgranted, have now become arenas for con-tention and even denial. Defending thesevalues will require the urgent involvementof us all. In the international area, con-flicts among nations that may have onceseemed very far away have intensified. Wehave to take more seriously our responsi-bilities as citizens to ensure that ournation’s actions in the world increase theprospects of peace and prosperity for theworld’s peoples, rather than underminingthem. During your time here the campusexperienced a revival in student engage-ment. Examples include: the fossil fueldivestment campaign; the continuingopposition to MIT’s agreements with theSaudi Arabian monarchy; the campus

die-in led by Black students; the protestand counter-forum to Henry Kissinger’srole as spokesperson for ethics in artifi-cial intelligence; the revival of MITStudents Against War; and many otherexpressions of social, economic, andpolitical concerns. During your years with us, we on thefaculty have watched the burgeoning ofyour many talents, your creative ambi-tions, your resilience in the face of set-backs, your thoughtful and quirkyself-expression, and your creative andentrepreneurial energy. We hope that, asyour individual paths unfold, you will putyour powers to work on solving some ofthe problems that confront us all, and onmaking our society more responsibly pro-ductive and more supportive of those inneed. On behalf of the entire faculty, wewish the class of 2021 – facing a moreuncertain environment than any graduat-ing class in decades – vision, strength,commitment, wisdom, and success, inaddressing the unique challenges you willface.

The Editorial Board of the MIT Faculty Newsletter

The Role and Reach of the MIT Faculty NewsletterVery few university faculties across thenation have an independent newsletter fortheir expression. Given that MIT plays asomewhat distinctive role in the nationaland international academic community,we don’t limit our scope to campus issues.The Faculty Newsletter website(https://fnl.mit.edu) is regularly visited bythousands from across the nation andfrom more than 50 foreign countries.Thus, the recent Special Edition: Womenin Biotech was of regional and national

significance. We have a long history ofattending to the danger of nuclear war,and the current issue carries an article onthe new $100 billion IntercontinentalBallistic Missile. FNL articles attemptingto address systemic racism don’t pretendit can be eliminated on one campuswithout broader social transformation.These articles represent an attempt to rec-ognize our responsibilities as broaderthan our day-to-day faculty tasks. Facultymembers are welcome to submit articlesthat address national or internationalaffairs that they believe deserve the atten-tion of our colleagues.

Thank YouThe Faculty Newsletter wishes to offer oursincere thanks and appreciation to two ofthe tireless MIT personnel who haveenabled us to increase dramatically theelectronic outreach of the FNL during theCovid-19 pandemic. Special thanks goesto Stacie Slotnick, Director ofCommunications and Michael Glynn,Senior Business Systems Analyst, in theHuman Resources Department. Withouttheir invaluable guidance and assistancewe would have been unable to notifymany of you of the publication and offerelectronic access to the current FNL issue. We would also like to thank SusanGoldhor for her most generous financialcontribution to the coffers of theNewsletter, in memory of former EditorialBoard member Professor Aron Bernstein.In particular during these financiallyrestrictive times, her generosity will allowfor the FNL to sponsor programs andevents for the edification of the widerMIT community. Thank you so much.

Editorial Subcommittee

Greetings to our Graduatescontinued from page 1

MIT Faculty NewsletterVol. XXXIII No. 5

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Rick L. DanheiserFrom The Faculty ChairA Look Back and a Look Ahead

I N T H I S , M Y F I N A L C O L U M N asChair of the Faculty, I take a look back atsome of the key contributions and accom-plishments of Faculty Governance duringthese past most unusual two years. I alsotake this opportunity to provide aprogress report on some of the moreimportant initiatives currently underwaythat I hope will be continued under theguidance of my successor as Faculty Chair,Professor Lily Tsai.

The Epstein Affair and OutsideEngagementsThe first six months of my term as FacultyChair were dominated by fallout from therevelations that began to emerge in thesummer of 2019 concerning the associa-tion of convicted sex offender JeffreyEpstein with the Institute. On January 10,2020 the Executive Committee of the MITCorporation released the long-awaitedreport by the law firm of GoodwinProcter (GP) on Epstein’s involvementwith MIT. Previously I had obtainedagreement from Bob Millard, the Chair ofthe MIT Corporation, for a group of 12current and former officers of the facultyto meet with representatives of GP follow-ing our review of the report. The meetingwith the GP lawyers took place on January13 and lasted four hours, and a summaryof our findings was sent to the Faculty onJanuary 21. I have written about thesefindings in my January/February 2020FNL column “Epstein and MIT: TheUnanswered Questions.” In August 2019, soon after the first rev-elations about Jeffrey Epstein’s donationsto the Institute, I had suggested to myfellow faculty officers and to ProvostMarty Schmidt that I believed that MITneeded a group to develop principles and

improved processes to define what wereand were not acceptable outside engage-ments. After discussions at several meet-ings of the Faculty Policy Committee(FPC), and after consultation with otherkey faculty including several formerFaculty Chairs, I convened an Ad HocFaculty Committee on Guidelines forOutside Engagements. The charge to thiscommittee was to define a set of valuesand principles, consistent with MIT’smission, to guide the assessment ofoutside engagements, where outsideengagements would include grants, gifts,and any other associations and collabora-tions involving MIT with governments,corporations, foundations, or privateindividuals, domestic or foreign. A draftversion of the report of this “principlescommittee,” chaired by Professor TavneetSuri, was posted for comment inSeptember 2020. Concurrent with these discussions,President Reif asked Provost Schmidt toconvene an Ad Hoc Committee to ReviewMIT Gift Processes, and the draft versionof the report of this “processes commit-tee,” chaired by Professor Peter Fisher, wasalso posted in September. Comments from the community onthe two draft reports were collected viawebsites as well as at an October 6Community Forum that I convenedjointly with Provost Schmidt. Bothreports were discussed extensively duringthe fall at meetings of Academic Council,the Faculty Policy Committee, and theMIT Corporation. In a letter to the MITcommunity on January 11, ProvostSchmidt and I announced the posting ofthe final, revised version of each report,and informed the community thatPresident Reif had appointed an ad hoc

advisory group including administrationand Corporation members andProfessors Suri, Fisher, and FacultyChair-Elect Lily Tsai to advise him onhow to best implement the committee’srecommendations.

Next Steps. In a letter to the Faculty onMay 7, Provost Schmidt announced thatPresident Reif had accepted most of therecommendations of the Fisher “ProcessesCommittee” and that he was commission-ing a six-month experiment involving theInterim Gift Acceptance Committee(IGAC) which will be expanded by theaddition of three faculty members(Professors Fisher, Suri, and Li-Huei Tsai).Effective immediately, the expanded com-mittee will apply the tools developed bythe Suri “Principles Committee” in theevaluation of potential gifts to theInstitute. After six months, the AdvisoryGroup appointed previously by PresidentReif will reconvene to review the results ofthe experiment and to advise PresidentReif on the path forward. It is important to note that gifts to theInstitute are the exclusive focus of thereview and evaluation process outlinedabove and which is currently underway.The charge of the Suri “PrinciplesCommittee,” on the other hand, includeddefining guidelines for other categories ofengagements, such as those involving cor-porations and foreign governments. Ibelieve it is important that the tools devel-oped by the Suri Committee not berestricted to the evaluation of gifts. Oncethe current review of the application ofthe Suri Committee tools to gifts is com-plete, I hope that Faculty Governance willwork with the Administration to plan the

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expansion of these procedures to encom-pass other categories of funding. Becausethe nature of other types of funding differin fundamental ways from gifts, I wouldlike to suggest that it may be appropriateto convene a new “Ad Hoc Committee onProcesses for Non-Gift Engagements,”analogous to the Fisher Committee, topropose the next steps in this direction.

Faculty GovernanceGovernance has been a major focus ofattention by the Faculty Officers and theFaculty Policy Committee during myterm as Chair. Our overarching goal inthis area has been to make our system offaculty governance more democratic,ensuring that a full range and diversity ofviews are represented in the discussion ofissues and in decision-making. I previ-ously outlined our aims in myNovember/December 2019 FNL column“‘A Peculiar MIT Concoction’: OurSystem of Faculty Governance.” Below Ioutline our progress toward achievingthese goals and the efforts currentlyunderway.

The Committee on Nominations. As I dis-cussed in detail in the above-referencedFNL column, in 2019 the Faculty Officersand the FPC began to urge that changesbe made in the way that the keyCommittee on Nominations is appointed.In contrast to the manner in which candi-dates for the other 10 StandingCommittees of the Faculty are chosen,Rules and Regulations of the Faculty calledfor the members of the Committee onNominations to be appointed by thePresident, who also selected the Chair ofthe committee. If nothing else, thisencouraged a perception that theAdministration exercised significantinfluence over the membership of thecommittees of faculty governance. At theMarch 2020 Institute Faculty Meeting, Iintroduced a motion on behalf of the FPCfor amending Rules and Regulations sothat the membership of the Committee

on Nominations would be elected by theFaculty, with the candidates for the elec-tion suggested by the elected Officers ofthe Faculty with allowance for additionalcandidates to be nominated by the usualprocess by the Faculty-at-large. Thismotion was overwhelmingly passed at theApril 2020 meeting of the Faculty.

Faculty Meetings and the Application ofElectronic Technology. In my November/December 2019 FNL column I suggestedthat the election of the faculty officers andmembers of the faculty committees mightbe carried out more democraticallythrough online voting rather than by ashow of hands at the usually sparselyattended May Institute Faculty Meeting.The aim of this change would be to enablewider participation of the faculty in theseimportant elections. As it turned out, the Covid-19 emer-gency expedited the implementation ofthis proposal, as beginning in March 2020it became necessary to hold all of theInstitute Faculty Meetings virtually usingZoom technology. Each of the Facultymeetings since then have attracted severalhundred attendees, usually includingthree times the typical pre-pandemicnumber of faculty. Voting on motions andon the election of the new faculty com-mittee members has been conducted elec-tronically, employing an online votingplatform developed by FPC membersProfessors Ike Chuang and DuaneBoning, and there is general agreementthat this system has functioned verysmoothly and efficiently. The question of whether to hold futurepost-pandemic faculty meetings virtuallyor in person has been under active discus-sion at meetings of the FPC this springand in conversations of the FacultyOfficers with the Administration. Clearly,virtual Faculty Meetings enjoy severaladvantages as compared to our traditionalin-person meetings. Participation is moreconvenient for many faculty, particularlythose with family and other responsibili-ties that make attendance in person diffi-cult and problematic. Some colleaguesfind it less intimidating to raise questions

and to participate in discussions in thevirtual format, and Zoom meetingsprovide a chat function enabling furtherlive discussion during the meeting. On theother hand, a number of colleagues havelamented the loss of opportunities forinformal interactions before and after livemeetings, and have suggested that there isintangible value to gathering all of thefaculty and administration together atleast once each month. Plans for the fallare still under discussion, but possibilitiesinclude following the lead of some of ourpeers and scheduling a mixture of meet-ings in live and virtual format, or develop-ing a “hybrid” system that would allowremote participation of some faculty in alive meeting being held in 10-250. It is clear that the application of elec-tronic technology in faculty meetingswill continue and see further develop-ment and expansion in the coming aca-demic year. If “live” meetings resume,then one innovation worth consideringwould involve providing an onlinevehicle for faculty not in attendance atthe annual May meeting to vote electron-ically on the candidates for faculty offi-cers and the members of facultycommittees. In one scenario, onlinevoting (restricted to faculty members)would be open during a period of severaldays leading up to the May meeting.Online voting on motions also deservesconsideration, but is more complicatedin view of the importance of ensuringthat those voting have full knowledge ofthe discussion of the motions that takeplace at the meeting. One concern that I share with anumber of colleagues is that the monthlyInstitute Faculty Meetings provide limitedopportunities for input from a wide rangeof faculty and for a truly substantive dis-cussion of important issues. Much of ourmonthly meetings are necessarily takenup with “housekeeping” matters – obliga-tory motions and voting on changes toRules and Regulations of the Faculty, aswell as with annual reports to the Facultythat in some cases are prescribed by Rulesand Regulations.

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During the past two years, as onevehicle to address this, the Faculty Officershave convened a series of 60-90 minute“Town Hall” meetings, each focused on asingle topic, and each including only ashort presentation in order to allow forextensive discussion by the faculty presentat the meeting. I hope that these supple-ments to our regular monthly InstituteFaculty Meetings will continue in thecoming year with the number expandedin the future, as I believe that they serve asan excellent means for more substantivediscussion of issues than is possible in ourregular meetings of the Faculty. I personally also would like to see theintroduction of an online faculty discussionforum in the future to supplement the dis-cussion of selected key issues at Town Halland Faculty Meetings. During the past twoyears, there has been some considerationof an online faculty discussion forum atmeetings of the FPC, and the creation ofsuch a forum has also been suggested byseveral faculty, including David Karger ofEECS. I would like to propose that the FPCand the Faculty Officers pilot an onlinefaculty discussion forum in the comingyear. Access would be limited to the MITCommunity and only faculty would bepermitted to post on the forum. TheFaculty Officers would set a topic for dis-cussion on the forum, which would thenbe opened for comments (with a wordlimit!) by members of the faculty. Thevalue of such a forum is that it would allowfor a true extended conversation amongfaculty members on a topic over anextended period of time, in betweenFaculty Meetings, and without the timeconstraints associated with meetings.

Faculty-Corporation CommunicationMIT operates with a system of “sharedgovernance” under which the Faculty, theAdministration, and the Corporation allhave roles in plotting the direction of theInstitute and the management of its day-to-day affairs. In the wake of the revela-tions concerning Jeffrey Epstein’s

interactions with MIT, the FacultyOfficers heard calls from a number ofquarters suggesting that the role of theFaculty in the governance of the Instituteshould be re-evaluated with the aim of“re-balancing” the Faculty’s role relative tothe Corporation and the Administration.Toward this end, a Faculty Town Hallmeeting was convened on February 5,2020 to engage the MIT faculty in a “com-munity brainstorming session” to con-sider ways in which the shared governancesystem of the Institute might beimproved. This discussion continued atthe Institute Faculty Meeting thatFebruary and resulted in a call to establisha working group on the engagement ofthe Faculty with the MIT Corporation.While effective vehicles for communica-tion between the Faculty andAdministration, and between theAdministration and the Corporationexist, there is little opportunity for directcommunication between the Faculty andCorporation aside from the VisitingCommittees which are necessarily focusedon “local” issues of concern to a particulardepartment. I began discussions with CorporationChair Bob Millard to create this workinggroup shortly after the February 2020Faculty Meeting, but these discussionswere suspended that March with theadvent of the Covid-19 emergency. Thispast fall I resumed these discussions withthe new Chair of the Corporation, DianeGreene, and at her invitation made a pres-entation on the topic at the quarterlymeeting of the Corporation in December.At the March Corporation Meeting, DianeGreene presented a resolution “To establishan ad hoc committee to review existingmechanisms of engagement between MITfaculty and the Corporation and evaluatewhether different or additional mecha-nisms are desirable . . . .” The Corporationapproved this resolution and as of thiswriting Diane and I are in the process ofscheduling the first meeting of the ad hoccommittee. Joining me on the committeeare Faculty Chair-Elect Lily Tsai andProfessors Dan Hastings and Tom Kochan,while Diane Greene has appointed Drew

Faust, Ken Wang, Colin Webb, andSongyee Yoon from the Corporation asmembers of the committee.

Promotion and TenureImproving MIT’s promotion and tenureprocesses has been among the top priori-ties on my agenda since the beginning ofmy term as Chair of the Faculty. I begandiscussing aspects of promotion andtenure with Provost Marty Schmidt in thesummer of 2019, and this has been thesubject of several meetings of the FacultyPolicy Committee during the past twoyears. Among the questions under discus-sion have been whether improvementsmight be possible with regard to fairnessand the level of transparency in ourprocesses, whether the criteria used inevaluating faculty for promotion areappropriate, and whether our currentprocedures make the most efficient use offaculty time. These conversations actually constitutea continuation of a review initiated bythen Faculty Chair Bish Sanyal in 2009which led to a report of a special ad hocfaculty committee chaired by TomKochan and Bob Silbey. One of the rec-ommendations of the Kochan-Silbeycommittee involved improvements in theprocess by which grievances related totenure are addressed, and this recommen-dation ultimately led to the developmentof the revised policy described in Section3.3 of Policy and Procedures. Unfortun-ately, no action was taken on any of theother recommendations of the Kochan-Silbey committee in subsequent years.During my term as Chair I have urgedthat a number of these recommendationsbe revisited, and discussion of theseaspects of promotion and tenure havetaken place over the past year at meetingsof Deans Council (of which I am amember) and at meetings of the DeansGroup of Academic Council under theleadership of Provost Marty Schmidt. Itshould be noted that Associate ProvostTim Jamison has joined me in helping tolead several aspects of this review. I pro-vided an interim report on progress in my

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MIT Faculty NewsletterMay/June 2021

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column entitled “Improvements inPolicies for Promotion and Tenure areOverdue” in the September/October 2020issue of the Faculty Newsletter.

Criteria for Promotion and Tenure. Thispast fall Tim Jamison and I led a discus-sion of the revision of Section 3.2 ofPolicies and Procedures, the section thatlays out the criteria for tenure at MIT. Thenew wording, which was approved byAcademic Council in December, is shownbelow. Explicit reference to mentoringand advising was added to one paragraphof this section since consideration of acandidate’s performance in these areas hasbeen part of the evaluation in promotionsfor some time. A second paragraph ofSection 3.2 was also revised, in this case toexplicitly recognize that what is consid-ered in the evaluation of scholarly impactcan vary considerably between differentdisciplines. These paragraphs of Section3.2 now read as follows:

Persons awarded tenure must be judged bydistinguished members of their discipline tobe of first rank among scholars and to showpromise of continued contribution to schol-arship. Tenured members of the Facultymust also demonstrate outstanding teach-ing, mentoring, advising, and universityservice; however, excellence in these impor-tant roles is not in itself a sufficient basis forawarding tenure.

A single standard of exceptional quality, asconfirmed by distinguished members oftheir disciplines, applies across the Institute.However, it should be noted that what isused as evidence of scholarly achievementand impact will vary based on the disciplineand its modes of inquiry and that theopportunities for mentoring, advising, anduniversity service also will vary among dif-ferent departments.

Communicating Processes and Expect-ations to Pre-Tenure Faculty. One of theconcerns raised in the Kochan-Silbey

report was that the processes and expecta-tions for tenure are not always communi-cated clearly to new faculty. This problempersists. In the 2020 Quality of LifeSurvey, 48% of the pre-tenure facultyrespondents disagree with the statement“the criteria for tenure are clearly commu-nicated.” That room for improvementexists is consistent with my own experi-ence based on informal conversationswith junior colleagues. This past fall, Isuggested to Deans Council that eachSchool create a website (possibly accessi-ble only to MIT faculty) outlining theexpectations, timetable, and processes forpromotion at each rank. “Expectations”would include the general policy withregard to the relative role of research,teaching, mentoring, and service in evalu-ations for promotion. The role of internaland external letters would be described oneach website with an indication of howletter writers are selected. In addition,these webpages would discuss the variousstages of review at the department leveland subsequently at the level of the SchoolCouncil and at the AppointmentsSubgroup of Academic Council. After considerable discussion, DeansCouncil directed each School to developwebsites along these lines with the expec-tation that the posting of these sites wouldbe completed by June. It should beemphasized that these websites do notreplace the meetings that DepartmentHeads hold with junior faculty and willnot be a substitute for other more detailedvehicles for orientation of faculty on theseprocedures.

Aligning Processes. In the course of themeetings of Deans Council on the subjectof communication and these websites itemerged that there are surprising differ-ences among Schools with regard tocertain minor aspects of the processes forpromotion and tenure. This has led to dis-cussions currently underway to increasethe alignment of some processes amongSchools.

Simplifying Faculty Ranks. MIT is almostunique in having four tenure-track pro-

fessorial ranks: Assistant Professor,Associate Professor without Tenure(“AWOT”), Associate Professor withTenure (“AWIT”), and Full Professor. AtMIT, promotion to AWOT, AWIT, and toFull Professor each involves an extensiveand rigorous review. The most importantcomponent in each review involves “exter-nal letters” which are solicited from anumber of international leaders who areasked to discuss in detail the candidate’scontributions in research and scholarship.Most of our peers have only three facultyranks, and at most universities promotionto Associate Professor carries with it theaward of tenure. Caltech, for example, hasonly two faculty ranks, having simplifiedtheir system about seven years ago tocomprise only the rank of AssistantProfessor (untenured) and Full Professor(tenured). Calls to reduce the complexity of theMIT system have been heard for decadesfor reasons that I summarized in mySeptember/October 2020 FNL column.The Kochan-Silbey report suggested thatthe promotion from AWIT to FullProfessor be conducted without the needfor outside letters and at my urging thissimplification of our system has been dis-cussed at meetings of Deans Council andDeans Group this past year. Proponents ofeliminating external letters for this pro-motion argue that evaluation of contin-ued excellence in scholarship can be madeon the basis of a set of “internal letters”from MIT faculty, who obviously can alsocomment on the candidate’s teaching andservice contributions at MIT. It has beennoted that it is extremely rare that promo-tion to Full Professor is denied after anexternal review because of weak outsideletters. This is due to the fact that under-taking a promotion to Full Professor istypically delayed by the department ifthere is any doubt about the outcome ofan external review. Unfortunately, although some Deansand School Councils favor this change,others believe that a review by outsideauthorities is essential and that the impor-tance of retaining this review outweighs

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the effort and drawbacks associated withsoliciting an adequate number of externalletters. Since there is agreement that con-sistency in policy across the Institute isadvisable, it does not appear that progresson this point is likely in the immediatefuture.

Mentoring of Pre-Tenure Faculty. TheKochan-Silbey committee found the stateof mentoring across Schools and depart-ments at MIT to be “a significant concern”and recommended that guidelines formentoring be created and made moreuniform throughout the Institute. I agreewith the importance of improvements inthis area, and strongly support the reviewof mentoring currently underway underthe leadership of Associate Provost TimJamison.

Graduate Student FundingAnother top priority on my agenda asFaculty Chair during the past two yearshas been addressing the high cost of sup-porting graduate students at MIT as com-pared to our peers. For some years I haveargued that the high cost of grad studentsis so serious as to pose an existential threatto our competitiveness as a premierresearch institution. Concerns in this area are not new, andin the fall of 2016 Provost Marty Schmidtconvened a Working Group on GraduateStudent Tuition Models to study theproblem. This committee, chaired byProfessor Steve Bell of Biology, submittedtheir report in July 2018, but no actionhad been taken when I assumed office asChair of the Faculty one year later.Beginning that summer, I communicatedmy feelings about the urgency of thisproblem to Provost Schmidt in our per-sonal meetings and also made it a topicfor discussion at meetings of the FacultyPolicy Committee. Recognizing theimportance of this issue, Provost Schmidtscheduled discussions of graduatefunding at several meetings of the DeansGroup of Academic Council during the

current academic year, and attendees atthe recent Faculty Town Hall on May 5know that the Provost and theAdministration have identified the highcost of graduate students as part of a“research deferred maintenance” problemthat is now regarded as one of the highest“strategic priorities” for the Institute. Graduate student funding is alsoreceiving attention from Task Force 2021,for which I serve as co-chair together withProfessor Sanjay Sarma. As discussed inmy January/February 2021 FNL column“Task Force 2021 and Beyond – Toward‘Building a Better MIT’,” we have assignedone of the 16 Refinement andImplementation Committees (“RICs”) ofPhase 2 of the Task Force to considerapproaches to the problem of graduatestudent funding. Both the ResearchWorking Group and the FinancialModeling Group of Phase 1 of the TaskForce had highlighted the high cost ofgraduate students at MIT as an importantpriority for attention, and RIC 15, chairedby Professor Steve Buchwald ofChemistry, is working with ProvostSchmidt to develop a plan to address thislongstanding and urgent aspect of“research deferred maintenance.”

Education and Academic ProgramsThe crisis brought on by the Covid-19global pandemic has required significantchanges in our academic policies toaccommodate the profound impact ofCovid-19 on our educational enterprise.In my March/April 2020 FNL column“Education in the Time of Covid-19” Isummarized the initial steps taken byFaculty Governance which included thedevelopment of emergency academic reg-ulations and the mandating of an alter-nate pass/no-record-type grading systemfor the spring 2020 semester.Responsibility for steering our academicprograms through the pandemic was thenassumed by a new committee I convenedin late spring 2020, the Academic Policyand Regulations Team (APART). I havechaired this committee, whose member-ship includes students and the currentand recent chairs of the key Faculty

Governance committees concerned withthe Institute’s educational mission.APART continues to work in coordina-tion with key standing committees of theFaculty and with the Administration todevelop necessary regulations and policiesin response to the challenges to our aca-demic program caused by the pandemic. Progress in improving our undergradu-ate and graduate academic programs hasbeen made in spite of the significant dis-ruption caused by Covid-19. Unfortun-ately, space constraints do not permit adetailed review in this column of all of theimportant work in this area by FacultyGovernance during the past two years. Inthis last section, I therefore focus on severalongoing efforts and initiatives planned forimplementation in the near future.

The Undergraduate Program. My interestin serving as Chair of the Faculty waslargely motivated by my desire to see theInstitute undertake a comprehensivereview of the undergraduate academicprogram including the General InstituteRequirements. It will be recalled that thelast comprehensive review of the under-graduate curriculum was by the TaskForce on the Undergraduate EducationalCommons chaired by Professor RobertSilbey. The Silbey Task Force issued itsreport in 2006 and a subcommittee ofCUP was subsequently appointed torefine the recommendations of the TaskForce and to develop motions for consid-eration by the Faculty. These motionswere presented to the Faculty for approvalin 2009. After debate spanning severalmeetings, the Faculty voted to implementsignificant changes in the HASS compo-nent of the GIRs, but a second motion, inthis case for changes in the SME (Science-Math-Engineering) component of therequirements, was not approved. I discussed my thoughts on the cre-ation of a new Task Force on theUndergraduate Academic Program withmembers of the senior leadership in early2019, prior to agreeing to be nominatedas Faculty Chair. The original plan wediscussed called for the creation of a new

A Look Back and a Look AheadDanheiser, from preceding page

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Task Force to be charged by me (as Chairof the Faculty) jointly with ViceChancellor Ian Waitz, with work by theTask Force to begin in January 2020.Unfortunately, a series of unforeseencrises – first, the “Epstein Affair” in thefall, and then the global pandemic thatbegan in March – led to the indefinitepostponement of work on this TaskForce. With prospects now appearing tofavor a return to normalcy in the fall, Ihave assigned one of the Refinement andImplementation Committees (RIC 1) ofTask Force 2021 to consider whether toconvene the postponed Task Force, and ifso, to draft a charge and suggest potentialmembership. I am chairing this RIC, andam joined on the committee by six otherfaculty: CUP Chair Arthur Bahr,Associate Faculty Chair Duane Boning,Director of Concourse Anne McCants,Dean for Digital Learning KrishnaRajagopal, Faculty Chair-Elect Lily Tsai,and Vice Chancellor Ian Waitz. We antic-ipate completing a report this summer.

The Graduate Program. Two Refinementand Implementation Committees of TaskForce 2021 are working on improvementsto the graduate program. Beginning in September, Ian Waitz,Tim Jamison and I had held discussionson the need to enhance the scope andeffectiveness of graduate student advising,and similar discussions were taking placeconcurrently in CGP (the Committee onGraduate Programs) led by ProfessorMartha Gray. For Phase 2 of the TaskForce, Sanjay and I created RIC 4 todevelop a plan to implement the recom-mendations of these groups as well asrelated ideas proposed by the StudentJourney Working Group of Phase 1 of theTask Force. RIC 4 has recently completedits work, developing a charge for an AdHoc Committee on a Strategic Plan forGraduate Advising and Mentoring whichwill be co-chaired by Professors PaulaHammond and Tim Jamison.

Several groups in Phase 1 of Task Force2021 proposed ideas aimed at implement-ing “holistic graduate education,” a goalthat also has been under discussion inCGP during the past year. RIC 3 has beenconvened and assigned to consider theintroduction of professional developmentopportunities for graduate students,including perhaps even a “professionalperspective requirement,” which might besatisfied by internships (both corporateand social-good), by research exchangesand research collaborations with compa-nies, and via the exploration of non-research careers through teachingexperiences and other activities. Thiscommittee will be issuing its report beforethe end of June.

Postgraduate Education. “Lifelong learn-ing” and other aspects of postgraduateeducation are central to the ideas posed byseveral groups of the Academic andAdministrative Workstreams of Phase 1 ofTask Force 2021. For example, the“Beyond MIT” Working Group notedthat “we currently lack a coherent visionand plan for an MIT ‘PostgraduateEducation of the Future’ that makes MITa pioneer in preparing people to work at‘good jobs’ of the future.” This group thenwent on to propose “an MIT PostgraduateEducation of the Future Initiative“ that“would establish a new college or univer-sity-wide unit at MIT dedicated to onlinepostgraduate education with a range ofpostgraduate subjects and coherent,intentional programs.” RIC 11 (LifelongLearning/Postgraduate Education),chaired by Sanjay Sarma, has beencharged with evaluation of this recom-mendation and related recommendationsof the Education and Financial ModelingWorking Groups, and will be proposing aplan forward in their report, due beforethe end of June. While there is no question in my mindthat programs in postgraduate educationand lifelong learning are consistent withMIT’s educational mission, I and othershave raised questions about the extent towhich the Institute should expand itsefforts in this area. Concerns include the

extent to which these efforts might divertfaculty time away from residential teach-ing, and proposals to augment facultyinstructors with non-faculty lecturersraise questions about quality control andthe impact on the MIT “brand” and repu-tation. It has also been noted that whileFaculty Governance has committees(CUP and CGP) that monitor and exer-cise general oversight with regard to ourundergraduate and graduate educationalprograms, there currently is no suchstanding committee associated with post-graduate educational programs. With theprospect of significant expansion of ourefforts in postgraduate education and life-long learning in the future, I have raisedfor discussion consideration of the cre-ation of a “Committee on PostgraduatePrograms” (CPP) as a twelfth StandingCommittee of the Faculty.

In closing, I would like to emphasizethat there are a number of other issues ofequal importance to those discussed in thiscolumn that have received attention fromFaculty Governance during the past twoyears. In particular, diversity, equity, andinclusion, climate action, and aspects ofstudent life were topics that occupied dis-cussions of FPC and the Faculty Officers. Finally, and last but not least, I want toexpress my sincere thanks to my fellowFaculty Officers Duane Boning and DavidSinger for their wisdom and counselduring the past two years. Both have sig-nificant other responsibilities (ProfessorSinger is Head of Political Science!) buthave been unstinting in their effort anddedication throughout these turbulentand eventful two years. And a very specialthanks to Dr. Tami Kaplan, FacultyGovernance Administrator extraordi-naire, whose familiarity with all aspects ofInstitute governance, command of MIT’smyriad policies and regulations, wisdomand common sense, and remarkable dedi-cation has been essential to all that hasbeen accomplished by Faculty Govern-ance during the past two years.

A Look Back and a Look AheadDanheiser, from preceding page

Rick L. Danheiser is the Arthur C. CopeProfessor of Chemistry and Chair of the Faculty(danheisr@mit.edu).

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and in Ulaanbaatar for the run-up toMongolia’s first legislative elections. Lilyattended Stanford as an undergraduate,where she double-majored in interna-tional relations with a focus on develop-ment economics, and English literature.Field research for one of her undergradu-ate theses took her to rural China, includ-ing villages where her grandparents hadgrown up poor and illiterate, only to laterflee war and instability with Lily’s parents.After graduating, Lily went to UCBerkeley to do her PhD research withElizabeth Perry, subsequently movingwith Perry to finish her degree at Harvardin 2005. Lily joined the MIT faculty at age29 as an Assistant Professor in theDepartment of Political Science. Afterstints as an Academy Scholar at Harvard,she received tenure in 2009. Lily is a scholar of governance, account-ability, and political behavior and is therecipient of various awards for herresearch, including from the AmericanPolitical Science Association and theSociety of Comparative Research. She isengrossed by the strategies that ordinarypeople use to influence governmentauthorities even in the absence of strongdemocratic institutions, how authorities

and elites seek to influence and control thebehavior of their constituents, and how tocreate public trust and trustworthiness thatlead to constructive engagement and coop-eration between citizens and government.

At its core, Lily’s research seeks tounderstand when authorities providewhat people need and want, and why theyoften fail to do so. In particular, her worklooks closely at what can be done toimprove trust and cooperation, and howto increase the motivation of authoritiesto respond to citizen needs. In her book,Accountability without Democracy, Lilyshows how citizens in nondemocraticsystems can use informal institutions toinculcate the intrinsic motivation ofauthorities to respond to citizen concernsas well as reward and punish local officialsby awarding moral standing. Her book,When People Want Punishment:Retributive Justice and the Puzzle of

Authoritarian Popularity (forthcomingthis year), continues the investigation ofmoral authority in governance to ask whysome authoritarian leaders and regimesare popular with their citizens, whilemany democratic ones are mistrusted orheld in contempt. Her research suggeststhat one of the most important publicgoods that governments can provide issocial and moral order, and Lily showsthat when rulers take actions that signalthat they uphold moral order, citizens aremore likely to support them even whenthey perform less well in terms of eco-nomic development, the implementationof democracy, or welfare provision. Building on her interest in engagedscholarship and real-world impact, Lilyfounded the MIT Governance Lab (MITGOV/LAB) in 2016 to respond to studentswho seek an active role in solving publicproblems and engaging in civic life, whilealso producing rigorous scientificresearch. MIT GOV/LAB has worked withpractitioners, including NGOs, interna-tional organizations such as the WorldBank, and governance innovation hubs tointegrate social and behavioral science

with data science and design thinking todevelop and evaluate creative solutions,policies, and practices. These collabora-tions have shown that the uptake ofresearch and policy recommendations isfar greater when communities and practi-tioners actively recruit scientists to workalongside them on problems they them-selves have identified and want to solve. Lily has been recognized with theOffice of Graduate Education’sCommitted to Caring Award for GraduateStudent Mentoring and SHASS’s James A.and Ruth Levitan Award for TeachingExcellence. Lily’s contributions to curricu-lar innovation include the development of

Lily Tsai New Chair of the Facultycontinued from page 1

continued on next page

Building on her interest in engaged scholarship and real-world impact, Lily founded the MIT Governance Lab(MIT GOV/LAB) in 2016 to respond to students whoseek an active role in solving public problems andengaging in civic life, while also producing rigorousscientific research.

Lily L. Tsai

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the Graduate Scope and Methods courseand the Second Year Paper Workshop, thatbookend the core PhD curriculum inpolitical science. Through teaching thesesubjects, Lily had the pleasure for manyyears of having every PhD student in oneof her classes. Under her direction, MITGOV/LAB also developed an intensiveshort course on behavioral science in thefield for MIT and East African graduatestudents held in Nairobi in collaborationwith the Busara Center for BehavioralEconomics, as well as a pilot mentorshipprogram that pairs Boston-area under-graduate students from underrepre-sented backgrounds with PhD studentmentors. Over the years, Lily has taughtcourses on governance and accountabil-ity, the political behavior of develop-ment, civil society and social capital,politics and religion, and the rise of themodern state. Lily has mentored morethan two dozen graduate students and isthe first from her department to serve asfaculty advisor for the MIT SummerResearch Program (MSRP).

What Lily has most valued aboutInstitute service are the opportunities forbuilding community and the shared senseof purpose that ideally emerges from therichness brought by a diversity of experi-

ences and perspectives. Lily has served onthe Provost’s Working Group on GraduateTuition Models, the Committee onNominations, the MIT Staff EmergencyHardship Fund Advisory Committee, theCollege of Computing’s SERC Group onComputing and Public Policy, MIT Solve’sChallenge Leadership Group, as well as adhoc advisory groups to the President andProvost on the Suri and Fisher committees’reports, on faculty and staff childcare solu-tions during Covid, and on MIT’s activitiesin China. Since 2015, Lily has served on thePresidential Committee for Race andDiversity and is currently a member of theSteering Team for MIT’s Five-Year

Strategic Action Plan for Diversity, Equity,and Inclusion. She was part of a facultyeffort across all five Schools to instituteSchool Faculty Gender Equity Committeeswith a male and female co-chair in each

School to review data on gender equity andformulate recommendations for policiesand practices. For Task Force 2021 andBeyond, Lily co-chaired the Beyond MITgroup in the Academic Workstream duringPhase 1, and she is currently chairing theRefinement and ImplementationCommittee on Social Responsibility forPhase 2. Outside of social science and gover-nance innovation, Lily enjoys running(though her knees now require her to runshorter distances), practicing the piano,and hiking. Big Sur and the AletschGlacier are two of her favorite places tovisit.

Lily Tsai New Chair of the Facultycontinued from preceding page

What Lily has most valued about Institute service are theopportunities for building community and the sharedsense of purpose that ideally emerges from the richnessbrought by a diversity of experiences and perspectives.

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what “in-person work” looks like for fallin terms of days and hours on campus,but faculty and staff should be in the areaand be prepared for in-person teaching,meetings, and other types of work theyengaged in before the pandemic. At the same time, the Work Succeedingeffort to define new ways of working iswell underway. Models will be piloted thisfall so that we can create a roadmap forhow to work together more flexibly, effec-tively, and equitably. And we fully expectthat many of the successful learningmethods deployed during the pandemicwill continue to be leveraged in thecoming academic year. There are admittedly many decisionsthat need to be made to give our commu-nity a more complete picture of what toexpect in the fall. We have relied on facultymeetings, 8 am morning calls, studentoffice hours, and a host of committees andworking groups with broad representa-tion to engage our community in fallplanning efforts. In order to help everyoneprepare for the fall, our goal is to maketimely decisions based on sound science;on the lessons we’ve learned throughoutthe current academic year; and in supportof creating a safe campus environmentthat will enable us to advance MIT’s aca-demic and research mission.

Summary of next steps in the fallplanning processHere is a brief summary of the decisionsthat we have already made, or will bemaking, in the near term:

• Following consultation with medicalexperts, consideration of best public healthpractices, a review of how other institutionsof higher education are approachingstudent vaccine requirements, and state andnational guidance, we are requiring everystudent to be fully vaccinated againstCovid-19 before the fall semester begins.We will work to accommodate those stu-dents who cannot be vaccinated due tomedical or religious reasons.

• We are still considering whether topursue a vaccine requirement for MITstaff, faculty, contractors, and others whowill regularly access campus in the fall. Tohelp us make an informed decision, allemployees, contractors, and otherworkers were told to share their currentvaccine status with us by May 23. Weexpect to be able to inform the MIT com-munity in early June whether an employeevaccine requirement will be implementedfor the fall.

• As the vaccination rate within ourcommunity increases, the need for poli-cies to keep our community safe fromCovid decreases. We fully expect thatmany of the Covid-era limitations oncampus and building access, room capac-ity, guests in residence halls, and eventsand gatherings will either be much lessrestrictive or eliminated in the fall. We donot know yet whether additional visitingappointments such as visiting studentsand scholars will remain paused for fall aswe increase the MIT community density.We do, however, expect to expand thetypes of campus visits that enable, forexample, admissions tours, workshops,and other campus events and academiccollaborations.

• As noted above, we expect that stu-dents and faculty and instructors will beteaching and learning in-person. We rec-ognize that there could be exceptional sit-uations to this requirement and we willevaluate them on a case-by-case basis.

• To support the “slow dialing-up” forsummer that President Reif described inhis March letter, capacity restrictions inlabs and offices will be lifted in early Juneto accommodate employees and studentswho are currently in Covid Pass andworking on campus and in off-campusresearch facilities such as Bates. Whileeating indoors together has been limitedintentionally in our non-residential build-ings, this restriction will also be relaxedwith some prudent guidelines for thoseworking on campus this summer.

• We will continue to evaluate allother areas of Covid policy, and be pre-pared to make changes based on thelatest public health data and state andcity requirements.

In conclusionWe owe an enormous debt of gratitude tothe students, faculty, and staff who cameto campus throughout the current aca-demic year as well as those who have beenstudying or working remotely. It hasn’tbeen easy, but we have our sights on thefuture as we look forward to the fall and areturn to the rhythms and connections ofcampus life that we have all sorely missedduring the pandemic.

Please note that a decision on whether toimplement an employee vaccine require-ment was expected to be announced to theMIT community the week of May 31, 2021.Check MIT Now for the latest updates.

MIT Plans for the Fall SemesterBarnhart, from page 1 As the vaccination rate within our community increases,

the need for policies to keep our community safe fromCovid decreases. We fully expect that many of theCovid-era limitations on campus and building access,room capacity, guests in residence halls, and events andgatherings will either be much less restrictive oreliminated in the fall….We expect to expand the types ofcampus visits that enable, for example, admissions tours,workshops, and other campus events and academiccollaborations.

Cynthia Barnhart is Chancellor and the FordFoundation Professor of Engineering (cbarnhar@mit.edu).

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Shigeru MiyagawaMeghan Perdue

What Will Remain Post-Pandemic?

AS U N IVE R S ITI E S R ETU R N TO in-classroom teaching, what practices thatemerged during the pandemic will carryover? While we are all anxious to get back toteaching and working on campus, it isunlikely that we will go back completely tothe pre-pandemic ways, given the enor-mous disruption we are living through.We interviewed more than 30 MIT facultymembers about teaching and workingduring the pandemic, and these inter-views gave hints of what we might expectwill remain once we begin teaching face-to-face again. While adoption of technol-ogy naturally played an important role,we found even more striking a fundamen-tal shift in the faculty’s attitude towardstudents and teaching. We believe that thiswill have a deep and lasting impactbeyond the pandemic.

Educating the whole studentA task force charged with planning MIT’sfuture in education has expressed “thehope that MIT will provide a more holis-tic education, with yet more focus on nur-turing our students in intellect and spirit”(MIT News, 2/16/2021). Knowing stu-dents beyond just their academic interestschanges the way one teaches. In remoteteaching, we have often found ourselves inthe students’ own living quarters, haveseen and heard the challenges they arecoping with. Many students do not have aquiet space for studying, forcing faculty tovie with their family and even pets fortheir attention. Others had trouble access-ing suitable WiFi. The struggles that theinstructors saw unfolding in front of themhave allowed them to understand their

students in ways that are not readily possi-ble in an in-person class. Instructors got glimpses into students’lives in other ways as well. Knowing thestress that the students are under during

the pandemic, many faculty members setaside time before, after, and even in themiddle of class, for students to informallyinteract with their teachers and eachother. Instructors were surprised by howmany students took advantage of thesefree-form sessions, and equally surprisedby questions and answers that had inten-sity not seen in in-person meetings. Theseexperiences have opened the instructors’eyes to the strains that life has imposed onthe students, including inequalities,which, in remote learning, have becomeamplified. This keen awareness of the“whole” student will carry over to post-pandemic teaching. It will serve as a wayto educate students more holistically, andwith empathy.

Keeping student attentionIf students are going to learn, they need topay attention. In a classroom, we take forgranted that students pay attention, or at

least that they are supposed to. But inonline class, as an instructor lamented,“attention is a scarce resource.” To combatthe scarcity of attention, instructors haveexperimented with ways to keep students

focused on the lesson, and this awarenessthat one has to be creative in keeping stu-dents engaged, instead of taking it forgranted, will carry over to teaching prac-tices in the post-pandemic era. Faculty experimented with differenttechnology to engage with their studentsin the online space. As a replacement forthe chalkboard, some turned to tablets todraw and animate their lectures in realtime. Some created a green screen so thatthey could embed themselves into differ-ent settings, allowing the impression ofbeing on stage with the slides splashed inthe background. In this way the studentscan focus their attention on one imagethat renders the faculty and the slidestogether. Many faculty have reported thatthey will continue to make recordings oftheir lectures available to students as aresource, even when they are teaching oncampus again.

continued on next page

Faculty experimented with different technology toengage with their students in the online space. . . . someturned to tablets to draw and animate their lectures inreal time. Some created a green screen so that theycould embed themselves into different settings, allowingthe impression of being on stage with the slidessplashed in the background. . . . Many faculty havereported that they will continue to make recordings oftheir lectures available to students as a resource, evenwhen they are teaching on campus again.

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One faculty member built what iscalled a Lightboard in his office foronline teaching. Lightboard, which isoften used in creating MOOCs, is asimple technology in which a large paneof glass is placed between the camera andthe instructor. The instructor writes onthe glass while lecturing, and the imagethrough the camera is reversed, giving amirror image, like the old Daguerreotypephotography. In this way, the student cansee the instructor looking at them at thesame time that they can see the writingon the glass. He was thrilled with theresult, and received many positivereviews from the students. When askedwhat he will do post-pandemic, he saidthat he was “scared of going back tousing the board.” If an award is to be given for the mostraves from instructors across disciplines, itis the chat feature in video conferencingplatforms. One instructor said that whenhe first started to use Zoom, he saw astream of postings on the chat, not onlyaddressed to him but also to each other.He was puzzled by what appeared to be adistraction, but then saw that the studentswere engaging with the lesson andencouraging others to ask and answerquestions. In a large lecture class, studentsliked the fact that their questions werepromptly answered by a TA, which helpedto keep their attention on the lesson.Many other faculty reported that the chatallowed students who weren’t comfortablespeaking up in class an opportunity toparticipate in the discussion. Many arethinking of how they can recreate the chatexperience when they return to in-personteaching.

Transcending the physical space leadsto convenience and inclusivenessBeing online allows us to transcend therestrictions imposed by the physicalnature of the in-person class and work-place. Some of these benefits will likelycarry over to the post-pandemic era.

By working online, we live “above thestore,” and the sheer convenience of it hashad some surprising results. It has led tobetter attendance at meetings, leading tolarger and more inclusive participation.Institute faculty meetings before the pan-demic were not always well attended, andas a faculty officer pointed out, it wassometimes uncertain whether they wouldattain the quorum of 30. During the pan-demic, the attendance has skyrocketed to170 faculty members at its peak. Some ofthis is attributable to people wishing tointeract with their colleagues during theisolation, but the sheer convenience of nothaving to commute is surely a factor. Inaddition to the faculty, 125 non-facultysuch as staff also attended, an unusuallylarge number; they apparently felt morecomfortable attending online. Not onlydid the online meeting bring in morefaculty, it became more inclusive inmaking it inviting for non-facultymembers to participate in governance. Itis likely that, post-pandemic, meetings ofall sorts will be in hybrid mode, and insome cases, completely online. Some faculty want to keep the sheerconvenience of online teaching, at leastpart of the time. Many appreciated thereduction in time spent commuting eachday, noting that they were able to devotethat time to their families or hobbies.Others are interested in the possibilitiesthat remote teaching could add, observingthat they could attend conferences thatthey would otherwise have missed, orpotentially participate remotely fromdistant research or study sites. Onlineoffice hours also worked well for manyinstructors, especially when the slots weremade in 10-minute, one-on-one sessionswith students. Many faculty reported thatthey would continue online office hoursgoing forward, because they were muchbetter attended than the in-person officehours before the pandemic. Ever since the Internet took over ourlives, the local and the global have beensteadily merging, and this trend has hit acrescendo in the pandemic. Instructorsinvited speakers from institutions around

the world to join their online classes, oftenscholars whose work the students read, sothat the students could engage with themdirectly. It also helps to bring variation;instead of hearing just one instructor, stu-dents are exposed to multiple points ofview. In one case, a class had 32 outsidespeakers, each joining for around 20minutes. Others used the opportunity toengage communities they ordinarilywouldn’t have access to, such as one facultymember who had her students do a jointproject with a middle school class. And themerging of the local-global was not limitedto teaching. Reading groups and researchpresentations, an essential component ofresearch, found participants from acrossthe globe. The benefits for teaching andresearch are so clear that it is hard toimagine that we would want to reverse thecontinuing merging of the local-global forteaching and research after the pandemic.

In summaryWe believe that the experience of the lastyear, while certainly a disruption, hastransformed the way that faculty interactwith students and the community theywork in. This attitude shift will carry overto the post-pandemic era. Faculty will bemore aware of the “whole student,” takinginto account their lives outside the class-room. Also, they have an increased aware-ness of the need for creating teachingpractices that keep the students engaged.They can continue using technology toolsthat enhance their teaching, fromrecorded video lectures to real-time chats.Finally, by teaching online, faculty canintroduce their students to a larger worldof scholars beyond their own campus,thereby substantially broadening theirlearning opportunities. Beyond teaching,the online mode has made it possible formany more people to participate in meet-ings, including non-faculty, making gov-ernance more inclusive.

What Will Remain Post-Pandemic?Miyagawa and Perdue, from preceding page

Shigeru Miyagawa is Senior Associate Deanfor Open Learning and Professor of Linguistics(miyagawa@mit.edu);Meghan Perdue is Digital Learning Fellow inthe School of Humanities, Arts, and SocialSciences (mperdue@mit.edu).

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Robert P. RedwineJonathan A. King

Don’t Renew the ICBM Force, Eliminate It

A PR E S S I N G I S S U E THAT I S cur-rently under consideration inWashington, DC is whether to replace theaging deployment of InterContinentalBallistic Missiles (ICBMs) with a new fleetof missiles. The Defense Department ismoving forward with a plan to deploy aGround Based Strategic Deterrent(GBSD) which would require an initialinvestment of about $100B and an esti-mated overall investment of $264Bthrough 2075. Critics assert that suchactions by the U.S. might lead to a newnuclear arms race and would actuallydecrease national security by increasingthe risk of intentional or inadvertent useof nuclear weapons. Senator Ed Markey(MA) and Representative Ro Khanna(CA-17) have recently introduced theInvesting in Cures Before Missiles (ICBM)Act that would shift funds from the GBSDto investments in the battle against bio-threats. There are indeed serious issues to con-sider related to the deployment ofground-based missiles in general. TheUnited States nuclear arsenal currentlyhas three components: ground-basedmissiles, submarine-based missiles, andweapons to be delivered by airplanes. Thefleet of ICBMs is composed ofMinuteman III missiles and is deployed inrelatively uninhabited areas of the westerncontinental U.S. The idea is, of course,that if the ICBMs were attacked by anenemy the resulting casualties wouldhopefully be minimized. However, weknow now that if any significant numberof nuclear weapons are exploded on theEarth it will be an existential threat to allhumankind and to the planet.

Because the locations of the ground-based missiles, unlike those of the subma-rine-based and airplane-based weapons,are well known to our enemies, they canbe viewed as attractive targets for thoseenemies. In fact, the U.S. policy is that theground-based missiles would be launched“on warning” so as to avoid destruction byan enemy targeting them. In today’sworld, cyberthreats to the launch onwarning system are an increasing concern.Several experts have indicated that theground-based missile system has becomea larger threat to our safety than a deter-rence to our enemies. For example,William J. Perry, Secretary of Defenseduring the Clinton administration, hasargued that “we simply do not need torebuild all of the weapons we had duringthe Cold War” and singled out the GBSDas unnecessary. Also, James Mattis, aretired Marine Corps general who servedas Secretary of Defense in the Trumpadministration, has stated that getting ridof ICBMs “would reduce the false alarmdanger.” There are other disadvantages associ-ated with the lack of mobility of ICBMsthat have become more important inrecent times. Both China and North Koreaare nuclear-armed states and viewed aslargely our adversaries. However, wewould not be able to launch ICBMs in thedirection of China or North Koreawithout violating Russian airspace, whichwould create a serious separate problem.Therefore, in practice our nuclear deter-rence relative to China and North Koreadepends only on submarine-based andairplane-based weapons.

Considering all of these issues, it seemsclear that it makes no sense to continuewith the GBSD program. The UnitedStates should instead decommission itsground-based missile system, as it posesmore of a risk than a benefit to ournational safety. We also hope that ifindeed the ground-based missile system isdecommissioned, it will serve as recogni-tion that nuclear weapons systems poseexistential risks to all of humanity andthat the world should move as quickly aspossible to eliminate all nuclear weapons. Returning to the cost issue, even ifthese missiles are never used the high costof their design, manufacture, and mainte-nance would rob desperately-neededcivilian programs. Over the past few years,the Pentagon budget has accounted formore than half of the entireCongressional discretionary budget – ourincome tax dollars. One of the reasons theNIH budget – responsible for tackling allof the diseases and ills that afflict our pop-ulation – is only ~4% of the Congres-sional budget has been the diversion ofour tax dollars to weapons purchases. Thecontributions of our MIT faculty, stu-dents, and staff to national well-being areprimarily in the civilian sector. We hopethat the readers of the Faculty Newsletterwill become active in opposing thedeployment of the GBSD system. In thenear term this would include supportingthe Markey/Khanna legislation to movefunding from the GBSD system to neededbiothreat prevention.

Robert P. Redwine is Professor of Physics,Emeritus (redwine@mit.edu);Jonathan A. King is Professor of Biology,Emeritus (jaking@mit.edu).

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Yossi SheffiThe More Challenging DEI –A Befitting Role for MIT

I R EAD WITH I NTE R E ST MIT’s newDEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) plancirculated by the Provost. It is an impres-sive document and obviously the productof a lot of thought. Unfortunately, I thinkthat as laudable as this document and theinitiative itself are, we are missing a largerpart of the problem: a national gap ininclusivity.

Toward a More Inclusive DEIMIT, of course, is not the only institutionengaged in DEI efforts. On most univer-sity campuses as well as in many institu-tions, notably media outlets and somecorporations, DEI efforts are focused oninternal staff. At universities, these reformefforts have centered on students’ admis-sions, faculty hiring, and a plethora ofactivities aimed at re-education. Thoseefforts, as well as MIT’s, define DEI interms of race, gender, sexual orientation,and related parameters. In particular, uni-versities argue that diversity of race,gender, and sexual orientation is impor-tant to generate a vibrant learning andresearch environment. As notable and commendable as thesegoals may be, they miss an importantaspect of inclusivity by a significantmeasure. While “standard” DEI effortsaim to help the 13% Black, or 4.5%LGBTQ in the U.S. population, they missthe vast number of people who voted forTrump in 2020. As the 2020 elections proved, more

than 74 million Americans think differ-ently from the prevailing wisdom foundon most American university campuses.Yet on many campuses, this near-majorityof voters is branded as stupid, racist,

misogynistic, or other “deplorables.” Boththe left and the right look more and morelike religions: righteous, moralistic, unfor-giving, and dismissive of any other belief.An imminent challenge facing this nationis to unify the country after the con-tentious 2020 elections. I would like to see the ideas of Diversityand Inclusion broaden beyond the currentdefinition and beyond the institutionalfour walls. Universities have a special partin this national reunification effort, whichMIT can lead. At the same time that MITcontinues its internal efforts – includingevents, proclamations, and re-educationaimed at internal, standard DEI – weshould think more expansively, and tacklethe more critical issue of a divided nation,starting with four principles.

Principles of Expanded DEIFirst, we must acknowledge the gulf ofunderstanding between the political fac-tions. Just as progressives are baffled andworried by the existence of so manyTrump-supporting Americans, many ofthe initiatives in progressive institutions,such as at elite universities, baffle andfrighten conservatives. Both sides arefearful of each other and just don’t under-stand how they can think the way they do.So, it is incumbent on elite universitiessuch as MIT – which has always looked to“make the world better” and answer thenation’s calls – to step into the breach. Second, we must avoid convenientpolitical stereotypes spawned by theworst-case acts of a few of each group’smost violent members. We shouldacknowledge that just as not all BLM pro-testers were breaking glass and looting

stores in Minneapolis, Portland, anddowntown Boston, not all 74 millionGOP voters participated in or supportedthe January 6 insurrection. Vilifying anentire group for the acts of a few is a recipefor useless recrimination and hate crime. Third, more generally, we can have nodouble standards for disrespecting thosewith whom we disagree. Currently, con-servatives can still be ridiculed, calleddegrading names, and dismissed fromuniversity campuses. Using the same lan-guage to humiliate racial minorities ordifferent genders is a cause for punish-ment and cancelation, yet no such disap-probation comes from denigratingconservative voters. I mention this doublestandard to make the point that purity israre. Fourth, violence on either side must beequally condemned. Sadly, it is not onlythe media and many academics thattended to ignore, or justify, violence onthe left. When pictures of broken glass andlooted stores in downtown Boston wereplaying on TV screens, MassachusettsAttorney General Maura Healey, said:“Yes, America is burning. But that’s howforests grow . . . .” Thus, we tend tocondemn violence on the right (andrightfully so) while “spinning” it as justifi-able on the left (which is too bad).Violence and its tacit support only servesto perpetuate mutual fear and furtherentrench divisions.

What Would a National DEI EffortLook Like?Imagine a call by MIT to all universities tojoin us in this effort comprising two broad

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initiatives: (i) educate ourselves about “theother side” through primary engage-ments, both by visiting the other side andby inviting their representatives tocampus for thoughtful presentations anddebate, and (ii) expose many of the peopleon the “other side” to progressive valuesand thinking, in a respectful way. (Thisarticle’s original draft advocated exposingthe other side to the scientific methoduntil a friend pointed out the anti-sciencestand of many progressives on GMOs andnuclear power.) Can we develop a set of outreach, sem-inars, expositions, etc., aimed at under-standing the “other America”? Can weengage rather than dismiss? Can we, in theelite academic institutions, go deep into“Trump country” to have open dialogueand debate in universities, high schools,churches, diners, meeting halls, and soforth? One of the first challenges will be tobring different voices into our campus, sopeople cannot complain that we are notpracticing what we preach. Can we ensurethat these voices will be heard despite theleft-wing pressure groups causing suchvoices to be canceled? Can we find ways tohire people with divergent points of viewabout immigration, racial preferences,role of religion, abortion, etc.? Is there aroom on the MIT campus for a civilizeddebate and discussion on sensitive issues?Can we expose our students to a range ofideas and beliefs rather tacitly propagatingdivisiveness by shielding these youngadults with “trigger warnings” from ideasor data they may not agree with? Of course, there is always the “paradoxof inclusion,” which means that if every-body needs to be included, there is noright and wrong and the inclusivenessmandate rules. For dialogue and mutualunderstanding to be workable, there willhave to be boundaries for inclusivity,which means that inclusivity is notunbounded. So, while one can argue thatthe moon landing was a hoax, that theholocaust never happened, that wide-

spread fraud beset the 2020 U.S. elections,that the Republican tax plan increasedtaxes on most Americans, or that it iseasier to get a Glock than a library book,some rules of evidence should apply.

Many beliefs on both sides, however,are not based on unbiased evidence but onuntested hypotheses, selective anecdotes,biased information flows, the need tobelong, and so on. Exposing those ideas ina supportive and respectful environmentcan start a dialogue in which minds maynot change but understanding will grow. Moreover, we can also find morecommon ground than we thought we had.These may be the importance of family,hard work, equal opportunity, support forthe military, and many more, which canstart to change the tone in both camps.Perhaps sharing some time with someoneof the opposite political persuasion mighthelp reveal our shared humanity. We should still be able to debate Roevs. Wade and respect people with a differ-ent opinion. Similarly, we should be ableto disagree about immigration, nationalhealthcare, police reforms, racial prefer-ences, education platforms, gun laws,voting regulations, or any other policywithout dehumanizing people who thinkdifferently. A core goal of any inclusive-ness and diversity training is on dampen-ing people’s natural fear of “other,”different people as well as questioning thenatural convictions that “what I and mytribe believe in is ‘right.’” Let’s apply this toMIT and to the nation.

MIT’s Civic Duty to Be Non-PartisanNot finding a way to include “the otherside” would be a sad failure of academia. Itis also a disservice to our students, whowill inevitably be forced to live with these

“other Americans” among their co-workers, bosses, customers, familymembers, and neighbors. Retreating intoour ivory towers, comforted by our ownechoes that our ideas are correct and true

will only exacerbate the divisions in theU.S. and serve the goals of our enemies.Unfortunately, most universities, espe-cially the elite ones, have so far been partof the problem with their elitist, intolerantmonoculture. It is high time for universi-ties to recognize the issue and start beingpart of the solution. Universities, maybe especially STEM-focused ones such as MIT, have an essen-tial civic duty to be neutral rather thanpartisan arbiters of evidence. In contrast,if elite universities are perceived as biased,much of the data and knowledge flowingfrom these institutions will be branded aspartisan “fake news.” If the United States does not addressthis deep political division, many of itsnational efforts regarding vaccination,climate change, inequality, immigration,and even internal, “standard,” DEI effortswill fail. They will fail because we will notbe able even to discuss these issues andthey will all become political and toxic toone side or the other. MIT and other progressive institutionscannot remain blue islands in a red sea inwhich pounding waves of divisivenesserode all that MIT, universities, and theU.S. have fought to build. I hope MIT willlead the way with this new Institute-wideand academia-wide initiative to build amore inclusive America for all.

The More Challenging DEISheffi, from preceding page

Can we develop a set of outreach, seminars, expositions,etc., aimed at understanding the “other America”? Canwe engage rather than dismiss? Can we, in the eliteacademic institutions, go deep into “Trump country” tohave open dialogue and debate in universities, highschools, churches, diners, meeting halls, and so forth?

Yossi Sheffi is Elisha Gray II Professor ofEngineering Systems, Director, MIT Center forTransportation and Logistics, Professor, Civiland Environmental Engineering, Professor,Institute of Data, Systems, and Society(sheffi@mit.edu).

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Robert D. van der Hilst (alphabetically)Aarti DwivediJennifer FentressBradford H. HagerDeepa RaoKasturi ShahSusan SolomonLily Zhang

What’s In a Name?

TH I S I S N’T A B US I N E SS-AS-USUAL

donor recognition story. The Department ofEarth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences(EAPS) is of course delighted to acknowl-edge Shell for making a gift to support therenovation of MIT’s 54-100 lecture hall,which is housed in the Cecil and Ida GreenBuilding (Building 54), our primarycampus home. But perhaps even more,we’re delighted and proud to announce thename for this space – the Dixie Lee Bryant(1891) Lecture Hall – and to tell the remark-able story of the significance behind thatname and how it came to be. In 1891, Dixie Lee Bryant became thefirst student to receive a Bachelor ofScience from the newly-establishedCourse XII at MIT – a milestone that inand of itself warrants commemoration,and one which started the trail for genera-tions of women in geosciences at MIT tofollow. And yet, the decision to ultimatelyrecognize Bryant as a pioneer didn’tfollow a standard course. The storyunfolded as MIT’s practices surroundingdonations were being called into question.While Institute-level committees workedto define values, principles, and processesconcerning gifts, EAPS, too, found itselfreckoning with tough questions from thecommunity around giving. This is a storyabout the importance of listening, engag-ing in inclusive dialogue between donorsand departments about shared goals andvalues, and being willing to course-correct. It is also a success story (resultingin the first major MIT venue named afteran alumna) which we hope will inspirecolleagues at MIT (and other institutions)to engage with their communities as theyconsider naming gifts.

First, Some ContextRenovation of the 54-100 lecture hall ispart of a larger Building 54 capital renewalproject, which includes a prominent12,000-square-foot addition right in theheart of campus. The vision for this“Earth and Environment Pavilion” is tocreate a vibrant center for Earth systems,

climate science, and related topics, thatwill welcome students and scholars fromacross the Institute. Including the 54-100renovation brought substantial advan-tages for the design and integration ofthese spaces and for realizing the project’sfundraising goals. To that end, Shell’sinvestment to renovate 54-100 helpedEAPS to achieve both the pavilion’smission for education and collaborationand get the overall green light from MIT.

New Space, New NameThis gift provided a naming opportunity,and in August 2019 a news story suggestedthat 54-100 be named the “ShellAuditorium.” Although no decisions orproposals to that effect had been made orpresented to MIT’s Building Committee,the idea of having a prominent space inthe Green Building named after a fossilfuel company triggered a strong reactionfrom students and other members of theEAPS community who felt that it was

inconsistent with what the departmentstands for. What would it imply about usas a leader in climate science? In response, Rob van der Hilst, EAPSdepartment head, called a town hall toopen a conversation about EAPSfundraising activities, including the deci-sion to accept the Shell social investment

grant. Recognizing that community inputand values needed greater considerationin the decision process, Van der Hilstraised these concerns with the Shell team.This marked the start of a constructive, attimes difficult, but always respectful dia-logue about the symbolism and expecta-tions of space naming and the values andvisions of both organizations.

The ChallengeOn the one hand, we recognize that pastactions of many fossil fuel companieshave had negative ramifications forEarth’s climate, local environments, andclimate policy. On the other hand, we areencouraged by the promises that majorenergy companies are making to advancea green energy and a carbon neutralfuture, Shell chief among them with itsrecently announced goal to reach net-zeroemissions by 2050. Meeting that goal andmoving toward sustainable fuels and

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In 1891, Dixie Lee Bryant became the first student toreceive a Bachelor of Science from the newly-established Course XII at MIT – a milestone that in andof itself warrants commemoration, and one which startedthe trail for generations of women in geosciences at MITto follow.

MIT Faculty NewsletterMay/June 2021

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economies on a global scale, in view of agrowing population, and doing it with theurgency that is required, is an enormoustask. In our view – which is consistentwith MIT’s position – finding realisticenergy and climate solutions will requirethe capital, know-how, infrastructure, andglobal reach of forward-looking energycompanies as well as the intellect and cre-ativity of universities like MIT. Energy companies have partnered withMIT for decades on research and supportfor students, helping to develop next-gen-eration energy technologies whileenhancing our understanding of Earthsystems, and propelling the careers offuture leaders in science and engineering.Shell and MIT are working on severalenergy and climate-related initiatives,focusing both on technology and poten-tial scenarios for a future that meets theParis Agreement goals. However, sponsor-ing research is different than naming acampus space, and Shell representativesagreed that including the company namewould not achieve its intended goal, thatis, inspiring new generations of studentsin STEM fields, especially those interestedin working together to tackle climatechange. Moreover, it risked distractingfrom the larger goal of constructiveengagement between Shell and MIT onthe ambitious agenda of creating path-ways – in fact, speedways are needed – tolow carbon economies. Ultimately, inno-vation and capital are required rightalongside trust and collaboration betweenacademia and industry – themes thatcame up frequently in conversations withShell and the EAPS community.

A Community SolutionIn September 2019, we began workingwith the Shell US External Relations teamin Houston to find a solution for anaming that recognizes the company’sgenerous support and aligns with the mis-sions of both organizations. Engagementwith MIT leaders (including VicePresident for Research Maria Zuber,

MITEI Director Robert Armstrong, andESI Director John Fernandez) and withEAPS faculty and a group representingstudents and postdocs (including organiz-ers of a teach-in on “greenwashing”)yielded fruitful suggestions that all partiescould feel good about. In February 2020, it was jointlydecided that Shell would retain the rightto name the lecture hall but that thechoice of the name would be determinedby a transparent, department-wideprocess, reflecting current communityvalues. Given our shared dedication to sci-entific research and education for a betterworld, Shell suggested a public “contest”to solicit names that reflect innovationand vision in the geosciences, energy tech-nology, or STEM education. Names cele-brating unsung heroes of EAPS, especiallywomen or minorities who made impor-tant contributions but had not receivedthe deserved historical recognition, wereencouraged. In consultation with Shell, an ad hoccommittee consisting of EAPS faculty,

postdocs, and students defined the guide-lines for a three-phase naming contest:

Phase I: Nominations were solicitedfrom the EAPS community, includingalumni;

Phase II: The nominations wereannounced and discussed (online) byEAPS students, researchers, faculty, andstaff, and the top seven were determined byranked-choice-voting (RCV);

Phase III: Through discussion andRCV, a committee of five EAPS and twoShell representatives narrowed the list tothree finalists, which were then submittedin order of preference to Shell and theMIT Building Committee for vetting andapproval.

This process raised awareness of EAPShistory and captured the input of morethan half of its current community.Alumni, students, faculty, researchers,

What’s In a Name?Van der Hilst et al., from preceding page

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Dixie Lee Bryant

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and staff alike were able to see their ideasreflected in the process and, in turn,became more invested in the outcome –that is, a lecture hall name of whicheverybody can be proud. As a studentwho originally voiced objections to thegift wrote, “Congratulations to the teamwho worked so hard and volunteered somuch of their time to come to a decisionthat clearly demonstrates the values ofthe department.”

Dixie Lee Bryant (1891), TrailblazerDixie Lee Bryant came to MIT fromTennessee in 1887 as one of the first recipi-ents of a Joy Scholarship, established in 1886by Miss Nabby Joy (a Boston philanthro-pist) “for the benefit of one or more womenstudying natural science at the Institute.”After completing her degree in 1891 withhonors (studying the fossil record of theCharles River Basin), she became a chartermember of the faculty and head of thescience department at the North CarolinaNormal and Industrial School for Women(now UNC Greensboro), where she estab-lished what one would now call a STEMcurriculum. In 1901 she took a leave topursue doctoral studies, earning a PhD ingeology in 1904 from Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen, Germany – the firstPhD awarded to a woman by the school.(Notably, this occurred almost 20 yearsbefore MIT granted its first PhD to awoman.) Bryant returned to the NormalSchool as its first PhD-holder, but her statusand salary remained less than her male col-leagues. Soon after, she moved to Chicago,where she taught high school science untilher 1931 retirement. Her drive to achieveand her contributions to education are allthe more impressive in light of women’sstatus at that time. MIT has been a pioneer in educatingwomen in technical fields since the 19thcentury – starting in 1873 with EllenSwallow Richards, its first female Bachelorof Science. The geosciences at MIT wereno exception, although initially progress

was slow. It took almost 40 years afterBryant’s graduation for Frances Parker tobecome Course XII’s first woman to earna master’s degree, in 1930. Katharine W.Carman followed in 1933 with the first

doctoral degree awarded to a woman inCourse XII, and it took over eight decadesafter Bryant for a woman (Dr. EugeniaKalnay) to be appointed, in 1975, as afaculty member in the department nowknown as EAPS. Although much work remains to bedone to achieve the desired systemicchange, at the contemporary end of thishistory, EAPS women continue to breakglass ceilings. Former EAPS professorMarcia McNutt became the first womanto lead the US Geological Survey, in 2009,and the first woman to serve as Presidentof the National Academy of Sciences, in2015. MIT Vice President of Research andE. A. Griswold Professor of GeophysicsMaria Zuber became the first woman tolead a NASA space mission, in 2011, andjust this year she became the first womanto co-chair the Presidential Council ofAdvisors on Science and Technology. In2018, Susan Solomon, the Lee andGeraldine Martin Professor ofEnvironmental Studies, became the firstwoman to receive the Swedish Academy’sCrafoord Prize for Geosciences. The Dixie Lee Bryant (1891) LectureHall is an overdue recognition of womenin science at MIT, and we anticipate hersis just the first name among many whowill be memorialized across campus inyears to come – a fitting tribute to herstatus as trailblazer, and one which wehope will inspire future generations ofMIT students.

AcknowledgementsIn closing, we would like to thank Shell fortheir generous grant, and the Shell team

(including Dirk Smit, Lauren Meadors,Akilah Leblanc, and Julie Ferland) fortheir openness and active participation inthis inspiring example of donor engage-ment. In equal measure, we thank EAPS

students Catherine Wilka, Mara Freilich,Julia Wilcots, Henri Drake, and TristanAbbott for their voice on climate changeand community values, and for their helpin turning this opportunity from concernto success. We thank Angela Ellis forhelping to reach the fundraising goals forthis capital project, and MIT’s ResourceDevelopment Office for input to an earlierdraft. Finally, we thank the larger EAPScommunity who participated in thenaming process – students, staff, postdocs,research scientists, faculty, and alumni –for their thoughtful engagement andinsightful feedback.

What’s In a Name?Van der Hilst et al., from preceding page

MIT has been a pioneer in educating women in technicalfields since the 19th century – starting in 1873 withEllen Swallow Richards, its first female Bachelor ofScience.

Robert D. van der Hilst is the SchlumbergerProfessor, Department Head, Department ofEarth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences(hilst@mit.edu);Aarti Dwivedi is a Graduate Student in theDepartment of Earth, Atmospheric andPlanetary Sciences (adwivedi@mit.edu);Jennifer Fentress is Communications Officerin the Department of Earth, Atmospheric andPlanetary Sciences (jfen@mit.edu);Bradford H. Hager is Cecil and Ida GreenProfessor in the Department of Earth,Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences(bhhager@mit.edu);Deepa Rao is a Postdoctoral Associate in theDepartment of Earth, Atmospheric andPlanetary Sciences (drao@mit.edu);Kasturi Shah is a Graduate Student in theDepartment of Earth, Atmospheric andPlanetary Sciences (ks7@mit.edu);Susan Solomon is Lee and Geraldine MartinProfessor of Environmental Studies in theDepartment of Earth, Atmospheric andPlanetary Sciences (solos@mit.edu);Lily Zhang is a Senior in the Department ofEarth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences(lnzhang@mit.edu).

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lettersQuestioning the Merits of President Reif

To The Faculty Newsletter:

I AM WON D E R I NG WH ETH E R othersshare my feeling that it is time to replaceMIT President Leo Rafael Reif. From apurely financial perspective, Reif has donea splendid job. Under his leadership, theMIT endowment reached $18.38 billionin the fall of 2020, and so nobody canquestion his ability to deal with donors,no matter how unsavory some of themmay be. Of course, his success hasrequired him to occasionally rewarddonors in questionable ways for their gen-erosity. One such reward being hisappointment of David Koch as a lifetimemember of MIT’s Board of Directors. I do not know Reif personally. Theone time that I saw him, he was pretend-ing to listen to the concerns that theMathematics Department had about theSchwarzman College of Computing. Hedeftly avoided addressing those concerns

and politely excused himself as soon ashe felt he had expended sufficient timeon that charade. I have difficulty decid-ing what sort of person Reif really is. Is hethe hard-nosed character who has nocompunctions about breaking breadwith the likes of the Koch brothers andBlackstone’s chairman Schwarzman, or ishe the bleeding heart nanny who bar-rages the MIT community with comfort-ing notices whenever there is adisturbing event that he thinks we areemotionally incompetent to handle onour own? Maybe he is both, but he isn’t the cre-ative leader who will prepare MIT for itsrole in the mid-21st century. At the timewhen MIT was searching for PresidentGray’s successor, a concerted effort wasmade to choose a president with the imag-ination to envision the demands that MITwould have to face if it were to maintainits standing as a foresighted leading center

of science and technology. The list offinalists for the job was impressive. Eventhough none of those on that list endedup in the president’s office, Charles Vest,the man who did, moved the Institute inthe right direction when he oversaw thecreation of the Department of Brain andCognitive Sciences. As distinguished fromthe creation of the Schwarzman Collegeor the Koch Cancer Center, this was notsimply an exercise in gilding a lily forwhich MIT’s superb Biology Departmentwas already famous, it was a courageousand educated guess about direction inwhich biological sciences would go. I believe that MIT should once againmake a search for a leader with that kindof courage and imagination.

Dan StroockProfessor (Post Tenure)Department of Mathematics

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Hal AbelsonShigeru MiyagawaDick K. P. Yue

On the 20th Anniversary ofOpenCourseWare: How It Began

ON APR I L 4, 2001, M IT PR E S I D E NT

Charles Vest announced that the Institutewould make course material from virtu-ally all undergraduate and graduatecourses “accessible to anyone anywhere inthe world, through our OpenCourseWareinitiative” (Vest 2004). The decision defiedthe dot-com trend in academia at the timeand garnered a front-page story in theNew York Times. Today, MIT OCW offershigh-quality educational materials frommore than 2,500 MIT courses – themajority of the MIT graduate and under-graduate curriculum, spanning all fiveMIT Schools and 33 academic units. Onemillion unique users from every corner ofthe globe visit ocw.mit.edu each month(see figure), making it one of the largestonline educational sites in the world. In the beginning, OCW was “just anidea – an informed leap of faith that itwould be the right thing to do and that itwould advance education” (Lerman2004). OCW had a humble beginning in asmall faculty committee formed in thesummer of 2000 to develop a proposal forfinancially sustainable online course dis-semination. The idea of giving away thecourse material was not even remotelypart of the group’s charge. What happened that led the commit-tee, at the very last moment before thereport deadline, to advocate for openness,and how this idea took on a life beyondanyone’s wildest imagination, is a study inhow an academic institution can tap thetalents of its faculty, delve into its values,and exercise academic leadership to forgean innovation that, in tandem with thetechnological and societal forces of thetime, takes on global significance.

Why Openly Share TeachingMaterials?Shortly after the announcement, a facultymember told us, “The day MITannounced OCW was the proudest day ofmy career at MIT.” This sentiment wasshared across the Institute and led to avast majority (as high as 75 percent) oftenured and tenure-track faculty con-tributing their teaching material to OCW(Abelson et al., 2012). It is not surprisingthat the idea of openness resonated withthe MIT faculty – sharing knowledge is acore value of the Institute, as articulated inthe MIT mission statement1:

The Institute is committed to generating,disseminating, and preserving knowledge,and to working with others to bring thisknowledge to bear on the world’s greatchallenges.

MIT traditionally fulfilled this missionlargely through basic research. Now OCWalso substantially supports the mission. The committee that proposed OCWexplored a number of possibilities.Having failed to come up with financiallyviable and exciting e-learning options forMIT to pursue, the members reacheddeep into the school’s core values and hiton the idea of opening up the Institute’steaching materials. When asked why MITdecided to give away the teaching materi-als for free, Charles Vest said:

“When you share money, it disappears; butwhen you share knowledge, it increases.”

This captures the essence ofOpenCourseWare and celebrates theprinciple of openness that is at the core ofMIT’s mission.

1 Available athttp://web.mit.edu/facts/mission.html.

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Monthly visits to the MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW) website, February 2004–October 2020

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Origins of OCWThe emergence of the World Wide Webcoupled with the dot-com frenzy of the1990s sparked a boom-town atmosphereamong leading universities, stimulatingambitious ventures in distance education.Some of these were UNext (which beganwork with Stanford, Chicago, Columbia,and CMU), Pensare (Harvard BusinessSchool and the Wharton School ofCommerce), Caliber Learning(Georgetown, USC, Wharton, and JohnsHopkins), the Princeton-Oxford-Stanford-Yale Alliance for LifelongLearning, Columbia’s “Fathom”Knowledge Network for online learning,and e-Cornell. e-Cornell is the only one ofthese ventures that survives today. MIT, not immune to these currents ofchange, commissioned several strategycouncils to chart a course through themurky future. These included the“Committee on Education via AdvancedTechnologies (EVAT)” (1994-1995), theThe (First) Council on EducationalTechnology (1995-97), and the Task Forceon Student Life and Learning (1996-1998). The final committee reports revealedtwo very different visions. On the onehand, there was the promise of expandingMIT education worldwide, “the death ofdistance” as the EVAT report trumpeted.On the other, there was the Task Force’sthorough endorsement of the essentialrole of informal education and the resi-dential campus as an essential environ-ment for student life and learning, and avision of the future where

“MIT will continue to attract the best stu-dents, faculty and staff by offering an excit-ing mix of excellent educational andresearch activities that take place within aresidential campus community” (MIT TaskForce on Student Life and Learning, 1998).

Faced with this divergent guidance, theMIT administration chartered anothertask force, the (Second) Council on

Educational Technology, to seek a synthe-sis. The goal of the Council would be “toenhance the quality of MIT educationthrough appropriate application of tech-nology, to both on-campus life and learn-ing and through distance learning” (MITNews Office, September 29, 1999).2

The Council was co-chaired by ProvostBob Brown and Computer ScienceProfessor Hal Abelson. It chose to workwith an outside consulting firm,McKinsey and Company, in defining andevaluating MIT’s strategic options in achanging educational environment. Theidea of working with an outside consult-ing group was suggested by SanjaySarma’s partner, Dr. Gitanjali Swamy, whoworked for Booz Allen Hamilton. InSarma’s discussions with her about MIT,she convinced him that getting a profes-sional consulting team to do an MIT-widestrategic plan, pro bono, would offer abetter perspective. At the end of a three-month engagement, the MIT-McKinseyteam had outlined a few strategic themesfor possible implementation. It chose thebanner of lifelong learning and recom-mended that MIT undertake a study tolaunch “Knowledge Updates,” mini-courses based on MIT’s strength incutting-edge science and technology,designed for MIT alumni. In April 2000, Provost Brown createdthe Life-Long Learning Study Group, ledby Associate Dean of Engineering DickYue, charged with formulating a plan for“Knowledge Updates,” with up to $2 million in startup investment to launchan enterprise that should be financiallyself-sustaining within two years (Abelson,2008). Shigeru Miyagawa was a memberof this group. The group chose to engageBooz Allen Hamilton to conduct adetailed analysis of options and businessplans for the proposed initiative. Giventhe specific charge, this group pursued theKnowledge Updates project with thegenuine hope of creating a successfulenterprise.

By fall 2000, with the deadline for afinal report looming, the group was readyto recommend the rollout of MITKnowledge Updates (KUs), which, thanksto the support of Booz Allen Hamilton,was backed up by extensive market surveyand analysis and a detailed financialmodel. The proposal was that, in order fora meaningful impact and reasonablechance of financial sustainability in thenear future, MIT needed to pursue KUs ata significant scale at the Institute level.Some in the group, including Miyagawa,had expressed concerns about KUs fromearly on. There were many risks andunknowns: Would the venture divertresources from MIT’s core mission?Would it dilute MIT’s brand? Would thisnegatively impact the Institute’s cultureand faculty unity? Given the late start rel-ative to many of our peer institutions inthis space, what were the chances that wewould be successful? These and otherquestions were discussed extensively inthe group’s final deliberations. After months of strenuous work, whatwas on the table was reasonable but farfrom spectacular. Many on the team hadharbored aspirations that this could be aunique opportunity for MIT to exert lead-ership, set an example for its peers, andmake a truly significant impact. In con-trast, the KUs struck them as under-whelming. It was against this backdropthat the idea of OCW was born and tookhold. In one of the last meetings of thegroup in October 2000, Yue laid out thebasic idea that MIT could aim for leader-ship and impact by simply giving away allthe teaching material without chargingfor it. That was to be the recommendationto MIT and that MIT would make aninstitutional commitment to making thishappen. The idea was remarkably simpleand could be articulated succinctly. Onceunderstood and embraced by the group,they quickly worked out some of the keyissues and prepared the final recommen-dations and report, which followed essen-tially what was originally proposed in thatOctober meeting. They came up with thename OpenCourseWare, drawing both the

2 “Provost announces formation of councilon educational technology,” MIT News,September 29, 1999. Available athttp://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/1999/council-0929.html.

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name and inspiration from an earlier MITeffort, open source software.

OCW Is BornIn October 2000 the Life-Long LearningStudy Group presented its report to theAcademic Council. The report containeda treasure trove of data gleaned frominterviews with 50 external organizationsengaged in e-learning, responses to anextensive survey sent to 2,500 alumni(deemed potential clients for KnowledgeUpdates), interviews with 60 MIT facultymembers who had already put theirteaching materials on the Web, and aseries of elaborate business models, alldone in collaboration with a team fromBooz Allen Hamilton. The reportincluded – “almost as an afterthought”(Abelson, 2008) – the following sugges-tion, fundamentally defying MITCET’soriginal charge to the group:

A revolutionary notion ofOpenCourseware@MIT could radicallyalter the entire lifelong learning and dis-tance learning field and MIT’s role in it andshould be seriously considered.3

Guiding Principles and InstitutionalLeadershipThe committee agreed on a principle thatbecame a cornerstone of OCW: all mate-rials offered should be cleared of copy-right so that users can freely use them tolearn and to teach. When Harvard Lawprofessor Larry Lessig and his colleagueslaunched Creative Commons in 2001 tofurnish licenses for appropriate use ofcopyrighted material free of charge, MITOCW adopted this mechanism for virtu-ally all its materials. Abelson, who waspart of the group that launched CreativeCommons, worked between the twonascent initiatives to arrange the licenseadoption. OCW became the first institu-tional project to use Creative Commons

licenses. Conversely, several OCWrequirements helped shape the terms ofthe newly minted Creative Commonslicenses. The principle of faculty governancewas central to the planning phase ofOCW. Chancellor Larry Bacow told theOCW planning group that MIT could notannounce the initiative without extensivediscussion within the community. Thegroup met with 33 departments andmajor administrative units. Althoughmost voiced support, some raised con-cerns, such as the risk that OCW coulddevalue MIT’s reputation by putting uplow-quality material (Abelson, 2008). Theculmination of these discussions was apresentation at the February 2001 facultymeeting, at the end of which PresidentVest spoke with conviction about OCW.The record of the faculty meeting statesthat, noting the trend toward commercial-ism in higher education,

MIT could be a disruptive force by demon-strating the importance of giving informa-tion away. Vest noted that in the 1960s and’70s MIT had a big impact on education,not only from textbooks that were publishedby the faculty but also from the course notes,problem sets, and other materials our grad-uates took to other institutions where theyused them in their teaching. OCW, hestated, gives us another chance to make suchan impact.4

Thus, while faculty governance was atthe heart of decision-making that movedthe initiative forward, academic leader-ship played an equally important role, andMIT was blessed with strong and open-minded leaders. The role of President Vestwas obviously critical. Others who playeda key role in guiding OCW went on toleadership positions at major universities.Provost Brown, who shepherded the dis-cussion from the outset, became presidentof Boston University in 2005. Rafael Reif,who took over as provost after Brown andcontinued to nurture OCW, became the

17th president of MIT in 2012. ChancellorBacow, who called for the extensive dis-cussions to get as many on board as possi-ble, became president of Tufts Universityin 2001 and of Harvard in 2018.

Off and Running: Funding, StaffingFundingGiving away the course material for freedoes not mean that there is no cost to setit up and operate. Fortunately, Vest’s over-ture to William Bowen, president of theMellon Foundation, was met with enthu-siasm. Bowen in turn contacted PaulBrest, president of the HewlettFoundation, and the two foundationsagreed to fund OCW. Ira Fuchs, theMellon Foundation program officer forthe grant, said that the foundation “reallybought into the ambitious and uniquenature” of OCW (Walsh, 2011, p. 62).Without this generous funding, OCWwould not have seen the light of day.

Staffing and ImplementationOnce the grant proposal to Mellon andHewlett (co-authored by Brown, Abelson,and Faculty Chair Steve Lerman) wasapproved and an initial $11.5 millionawarded, Anne Margulies, former CIO ofHarvard, was hired in May 2002 as OCWexecutive director. Her first task was tocreate a 50-course pilot by September ofthat year (Walsh, 2011). She recalls, “Alleyes were on us. There were lots of skep-tics, but the overwhelming majority wereexcited.”5 Margulies participated in the2002 UNESCO Forum on the Impact ofOpen Courseware for Higher Educationin Developing Countries, held in Paris.Many university presidents and rectorsfrom developing countries were in atten-dance, and their message was “Thank you,MIT.” In addition to creating a 50-coursepilot in her first four months, Margulieshad to complete posting 500 courses byOctober of 2003. This deadline, imposedby the funders, had to be met before deliv-ery of the balance of funding. To the credit

3 Lifelong Learning Study, Summer 2000.Report to the MIT Academic Council Deans’Committee, October 17, 2000 (unpublished).

4 MIT Record of the Faculty Meeting ofFebruary 21, 2001. Online athttps://web.mit.edu/dept/libdata/libdepts/d/archives/facmin/010221/010221.html.

5 Interview with Margulies on March 7,2016.

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of Margulies and her team, which at thepeak numbered 50 full-time employeesand outside consultants (Walsh, 2011),the deadline was met and Hewlett andMellon awarded the remaining $16million, which made it possible to com-plete the OCW posting of 1,800 coursesby 2007.6

Margulies left in 2007 to become assis-tant secretary for information technologyand CIO for the Commonwealth ofMassachusetts; since 2010 she has beenvice president and University CIO atHarvard. Cecilia d’Oliveira, who had beenthe director of technology for OCW, tookover, overseeing continued growth withnew programs like OCW Scholar coursesand OCW Educator. After her retirementin 2018, Curt Newton, a long-timemember of the OCW team, wasappointed as director.

Impacts at MITOCW has significant and beneficialimpacts on campus at MIT. Students useOCW resources such as problem sets andexams for study and practice. Freshmenreport that they checked out the school bylooking at OCW before deciding to apply.Because faculty have easy access to thecourse material that their students use inother courses, OCW serves as a broadcommunication channel among faculty.And alumni access OCW materials topursue lifelong learning. MIT has also benefited from the atten-tion it has received. A large number ofmedia outlets from around the world havefeatured OCW. For example, Wired(Diamond, 2003) reported that, beforeOCW,

no institution of higher learning had everproposed anything as revolutionary, or asdaunting . . . . MIT earned the distinction asthe only university forward-thinkingenough to open-source itself.

Global ImpactsFor users in developing regions of theworld such as sub-Saharan Africa whereInternet access is cost-prohibitive, unreli-able, or nonexistent, OCW helps to bridgethe “digital divide” through its mirror siteprogram on external drives, and there aremore than 430 of these sites. Through the regular OCW site,YouTube, and these mirror sites, over 200million people have accessed the contentmore than 500 million times. Many (50percent) are students at other institutions,both college and pre-college, and othersare “self-learners” looking to enrich theirprofessional and personal lives (45percent). As an example of self-learners,Jean-Ronel Noel and Alex Georges fromHaiti wanted to develop solar panels fortheir country but needed guidance inelectrical engineering. They found itthrough OCW. Noel told the OCW staff,

I was able to use OCW to learn the princi-ples of integrated circuits. It was muchbetter than any other information I foundon the Internet.

Their company, Enersa, has madesolar-powered LED lighting available inalmost 60 Haitian towns and remote vil-lages (d’Oliveira et al., 2010). While teachers currently account forfive percent of those who access OCW,their use has a multiplier effect when usedwith their students. Educators havedescribed a variety of ways in which theyincorporate OCW material into theirclasses. For example, Triatno YudoHarjoko, head of the ArchitectureDepartment at the University ofIndonesia, said that to redesign the cur-riculum he and his colleagues turned toMIT OCW as an immense comparativedatabase (d’Oliveira et al., 2010):

We try to understand how the courses areformulated and what the expected out-comes are. This gives us an important per-spective on the learning process.

Concluding RemarksOCW was transformed from an informed

leap of faith to a functional enterprise thatserves learners all over the world andreturns benefits to MIT. It is a “bold cre-ation” (Bowen, foreword to Walsh, 2011)that changed the equation for e-learningfrom the obsession with commercialismof the dot-com era to a demonstration ofthe enormous value in freely sharingknowledge produced by an academicinstitution. The one million people whoaccess OCW every month illustrate thedemand for high-quality teaching materi-als among students, self-learners, andeducators. As we live through the pan-demic, resources such as OCW havebecome even more valuable, leading to a60 percent increase in website visits fromall over the world during the peak quaran-tine period of April-May 2020. OCW moves into its next 20 years with

a renewed commitment to share the MITcurriculum with vibrancy and currency asit evolves, highlighting materials on bigthemes like the future of computing, sus-tainability, and social justice. A new plat-form currently in development will bettersupport learners on mobile devices andthose with sporadic Internet access, sub-stantially enhance the search tools mil-lions of learners use to find learningopportunities, and foster greater adoptionand adaptation of OCW materials by edu-cators in their teaching. And, OCW looksforward to prioritizing collaborationswith others in the broad OER ecosystem(that OCW itself played a role in seeding)to build greater educational equity,through adapting and customizingcontent to meet the needs of specificlearning communities. In all these waysand more, MIT is building upon OCW’s20-year foundation of unlocking access toknowledge.

AcknowledgmentWe are grateful to Curt Newton, KrishnaRajagopal, and Sanjay Sarma for valuablecomments. Portions of this text were orig-inally published in an article by ShigeruMiyagawa in The Bridge 46(3):5-11. ©National Academy of Engineering.6 This was the original target, and was

celebrated at the time(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbQ-FeoEvTI).

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ReferencesAbelson H. 2008. “The creation ofOpenCourseWare at MIT.” Journal ofScience Education and Technology17(2):164–174.

Abelson H., Miyagawa S., Yue D. 2012.“MIT’s ongoing commitment toOpenCourseWare.” MIT FacultyNewsletter, Vol. XXIV No. 4, March/April.Available at http://web.mit.edu/fnl/volume/244/fnl244.pdf.

Diamond D. 2003. “MIT everywhere.”Wired, September 1. Online atwww.wired.com/2003/09/mit-2/.

d’Oliveira C., Carson S., James K., Lazarus J.2010. “MIT OpenCourseWare: Unlockingknowledge, empowering minds.” Science329 (5991):525–526. Available athttp://science.sciencemag.org/content/329/5991/525.full.

Goldberg C. 2001. “Auditing classes atMIT, on the web and free.” New YorkTimes, April 4.

Klopfer E., Miller H., Willcox K. 2014.“OCW educator: Sharing the how as wellas the what of MIT education.” MITFaculty Newsletter, Vol. XXVI No. 5,May/June. Available at http://web.mit.edu/fnl/volume/265/fnl265.pdf.

Lerman S. 2004. “OpenCourseWareupdate: Beyond the anecdotes.” MITFaculty Newsletter, Vol. XVI No. 5,April/May. Available at http://web.mit.edu/fnl/vol/165/lerman.htm.

Lerman S., Miyagawa S. 2002. “Opencourse ware: A case study in institutionaldecision making.” Academe Online88(5),Sept.-Oct.

MIT News Office, “Provost announcesformation of council on educational tech-nology.” September 29, 1999.

MIT Task Force on Student Life andLearning. 1998. http://web.mit.edu/com-mittees/sll/

Vest C. M. 2004. “Why MIT decided togive away all its course materials via theInternet.” Chronicle of Higher Education,online edition, January 30. Available athttp://web.mit.edu/ocwcom/MITOCW/Media/Chronicle_013004_MITOCW.pdf.

Walsh T. 2011. Unlocking the Gates: Howand Why Leading Universities Are OpeningUp Access to Their Courses (see chapter“Free and Comprehensive: MITOpenCourseWare”). Princeton UniversityPress. Available at www.sr.ithaka.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/UNLOCK-ING_the_GATES_text-only.pdf.

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Hal Abelson is Professor of ComputerScience and Engineering (hal@mit.edu);Shigeru Miyagawa is Senior Associate Deanfor Open Learning and Professor of Linguistics(miyagawa@mit.edu);Dick K. P. Yue is Philip J. Solondz Professor ofEngineering and Professor of Mechanical andOcean Engineering (yue@mit.edu).

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Luis Perez-BrevaEducation for Non-Robots

I JOKI NG LY CALL WHAT YOU S E E inthe photo the “derobotizer” setup (moreon that below). I made it for my wife afterthe pandemic forced her to shift toworking mostly online via Zoom – like allof us educators. She happens to be abiotech executive. This setup is about as portable as itgets. I hooked it up in minutes using off-the-shelf parts on top of a tray serving asthe base. It’s easy to use, makes you looklike a real person on any video-conferenceapp, and allows you to perform seriousremote-world magic. Anyone can set itup. I think every committed educator needssomething like this. Below, I offer someno-frills instructions for creating yourown professional remote derobotizersetup – or you can go even further withthe derobotizer I made for myself. But firstallow me to explain why and how I got tothe point of derobotizing in the first placeand why I think educators will need tomaster this new medium in the “newnormal” that follows the vaccine rollout. It begins with the meaning of technol-ogy. This has nothing to do with pretend-playing with a product, or enslaving usersfor advertising dollars. I set out to solve aproblem, and technology was a tool tobegin to solve that problem in the veryway MIT founder William Barton Rogersintended – to extend our power overnature. In this instance, it was to extendour (humans’) power over nature justenough to overcome pandemic fatigue,and perhaps help students find solace intheir education. You don’t need to settle for the robotic,pixelated version of yourself the pan-

demic has cornered you into becoming.You do not need thousands of dollars, spe-cialized knowledge, minimum-viablestartup-oil, or some youth potion. Indeed,you can get started right away. I worked my way to a home videosetup that allows me not only to showslides but hold them in my hands andpoint at them with my fingers while mystudents – in real time – see slides mag-ically change and experience the sameawe Harry Potter did the first time amoving picture winked at him. I learnednew tricks as I strived to adapt myteaching, management, and presenta-tion routines – as evidenced by the“magical slide” employing a trick that I

used in the classroom and in confer-ences such as my keynote presentationat the 2021 KEEN National EngineeringUnleashed conference.

Technology in Service, not Hindrance,of Humans Lecture 1, I pulled up my slides, turnedmy head, and discovered the classroom –and all my students – had disappeared.About 40 humans had just dropped frommy sight and all I saw was Catalina Island.I knew I had to keep my cool. In 2020, all the tools, labs, experiences,and whatnot we educators have honed toshape minds stopped working. Overnight,

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The No-Frills Derobotizer

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the need for Zoom created all manner ofcognitive traps, including my students’disappearing act. Many of us transformedinto robotic-sounding, pixelated versionsof our former selves (hence my use of“derobotizer”). It’s as if we woke up onemorning to Plank’s constant suddenlybecoming 1 (ask a physicist friend aboutthat). If your experience was anything likemine, the sum total of the advice you gotabout making this profound shift was toavoid putting yourself in front of awindow, lest your students take you forthe silhouette of some confidentialinformant in a made-for-TV crime docu-mentary – in other words, nothing toprepare you for the new reality-shatteringnormal of things. Truly educating someone takes morepreparation than most of us admit to our-selves. Preparing and delivering an engag-ing, rigorous educational experiencerequires enormous brainpower to gaugethe audience in real time, keep its atten-tion, and be ready to react to wherever theconversation may take you while stillhitting all the main points. You have to beprepared to handle whatever might unfoldin the multiverse. No two cohorts are thesame, and any two editions only resembleone another. Whether you call it educa-tion, mastery experience, or flipped class-room, it takes a fully engaged humanbrain, not a parrot. That’s why merely sur-viving Zoom is no replacement for educa-tion. The fact that so many think it mightbe reveals that we may have begun to gofull-on robotic well before bats brewedCovid-19. We’ve been getting a sneak peek intothe despair, boredom, confusion; atro-phied critical thinking, addiction to good-sounding recipes, and general loss ofnuance that begets a world in which edu-cation is flat, abstract, pixelated, andcursed to a daily face-off with otherscreens – a world devoid of actual educa-tion, and where instead it feels as if every-thing’s become marketing or branding.

Sadly, the pandemic has also made iteasy to imagine learning minus theteacher and the action – perhaps with arecording, some app, this or that mas-querading as “AI,” and peer-grading.Education administrators have turned toanything labeled “Ed Tech” to appeasetheir boards. We risk losing the meaningof education to the same breed of oppor-tunists turned startup-oil salesman thatwould advocate the kind of minimumviable “tech for education” that will “help”education just the way “social” mediamade us more “social.” I know my students appreciated thecommitment to education more than theywould have accepted the justifiableexcuses had I made them. The lesson: thisis no time to take education for granted. Itis the time to double down on everyreason we still call it educating (not justcertifying).

Pretending Reality Hadn’t BeenDistorted Is Futile, So Distort YourOwn RealityBack to Lecture 1. I’m still watchingCatalina Island. The next few secondswould be crucial. The classroom didn’t

really disappear; rather, because I sharedmy slides, the Zoom window with stu-dents had hidden itself somewhere. To mydumbfounded brain, though, busy chore-ographing my teaching act, the entireepisode felt pretty much as if an actualphysical classroom had disappeared. I should mention that my class is par-ticularly unsuited for this remote world –or so I thought. It is deeply experiential,based on research, open ended, and com-bines teamwork and lectures. I designedand run it as a mastery experience, with aflipped classroom pedagogy. It is also atruly cross-discipline, cross-School elec-tive (my students come from all over MITand Harvard). We take technologyadvances and papers and ask ourselves thetough questions: Now that we know thatis possible, what problem can we solvethat we couldn’t before? What will it taketo assemble and fashion the technologiesand organization to do it sustainably? Youcan learn all about it here. Students who take my class sometimescome to dread that I refuse to give them arecipe. Those that persevere end upthanking me for liberating them from the

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Some Starting Principles

I wanted a teach-from-home studio without going overboard and spending a fortune – likethis University of Tennessee professor did. I wanted to start with whatever I already had,make the most of it, and figure out what else I might need as I went along. Several princi-ples guided me.

• Your laptop or phone is like a one-person band: impressive, but no match for anactual band. So, invest in separate hardware. • My students and I can only share the same reality if we see the same thing. Whenteaching remotely, you also supply the “real world” (classroom, breakout rooms, and allthat students perceive about the class). Sacrifice quality and you degrade reality for every-one. • Computers are dumb. Tell it you have a green screen. and it will replace anythinggreen with your choice of background. Use this to create magic. • The bigger the screen, the less you need to think outside the proverbial box. • It’s easier to lead when you are standing up.

These principles were enough for me to think through the entire setup I built for myselfover the fall semester, and eventually led to the specifications for the “derobotizer.”

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childish recipes and slogans that populatethe conflation of entrepreneurship andinnovation that has taken over academia. Icannot afford a bad performance early on,though; my class is an elective – the onlyway to stay truly multidisciplinary in ourmodern educational system. If, based onthat first encounter, students dropped theelective, I’d forfeit months of workmaking the class known to students acrossMIT, which is how I materialize my multi-disciplinary mission. Imagine, then, myanxiety over the disappearing classroom. We were set to work in teams on proj-ects ranging from, among others,quantum computing and obfuscation tobiotechnology manufacturing, artificialintelligence, new drug delivery systems,and new battery technologies. I could notimagine leading teams of daring studentsfor an entire semester while in fear ofsharing slides. Nor could I imagine sur-rendering to becoming a voice-over to myslides. After all, education isn’t aboutaccompanying my slides or a textbook ora recipe with voice, but about freeing stu-dents from the tyranny of recipes andgifting them with increased skills to usetheir own critical thinking. Right? I managed that first day, and becamebetter quickly (see some technical guidingprinciples in the box, opposite). Along theway, I learned to present in a wall, stand-ing up, walking around my slides, andknocking at them to prove my points weresolid; present while holding slides in myhands that moved like the paintings inHarry Potter; present while seeming todoodle in mid-air; use my iPad as thewhiteboard while still showing mycamera’s image; and countless othertricks, all done from home with a setuplike the one in the photo. That setup (see instructions in the box,opposite) allows you to go back and forthfrom slide to image with the press of abutton. With picture-in-picture (anotherbutton), you can display both yourcamera image and iPad. A tablet pen letsyou doodle on your slides.

Sure, you can do all that on Zoom, too.It’s also true that with enough patience, youmay be able to cut a small tree by chewingat it, although I don’t recommend that.Technology isn’t only about doing newthings; it’s also about making complicatedstuff easier to handle, which this setupaccomplishes, so you can focus on teachingand learning – the important stuff.

Pushing the Limits of the New Realityfor the Sake of Teaching and LearningWith the newfound confidence thatcomes from knowing the classroomwasn’t going to disappear again, came anopportunity to learn how to educateonline.

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The No-Frills Instructions for Your Own $1200 (or Less) Derobotizer

You can create your own professional remote derobotizer setup like the one I made for mywife. Here’s the equipment to get you going with high-quality video, presentations you caneasily control, and a few tricks.

• Sony Alpha 6000 (~$600) • A live HDMI Switch like the ATEM Mini (~$300) • Lumacube Broadcast lighting kit ($100) • USB-C 8-in-1 hub (~$40) • Apple Ipad AV adapter ($50) • Micro HDMI Cable ($9) • Power strip with USB charger ($17) • Hotshoe to 1/4’’ converter ($7) • Neewer DC Coupler replacement for NP-FW50 (~$30) • A tablet and a computer (we used a Macbook and iPad we already owned)

Set the camera to movie mode. Plug it into a USB outlet (with the DC power); thenconnect it to the HDMI switch (with the HDMI cable) and connect the switch to the com-puter. Your computer will treat any signal it receives from the switch as if it were comingfrom a webcam. Connect a tablet to the HDMI switch and you’ll soon be able to combinethe images from your high-quality autofocus camera and your tablet to achieve myriadeffects. Indeed, you can show any app from your tablet in your video calls: whiteboarding,sharing websites, PowerPoint, doodling – no need for additional software licenses.Farewell “share screen” button! Your HDMI live switch can also “project” content from your tablet onto a green screenor even just a green cloth. You can also just hold up green card stock and your audiencewill see you pointing at your slides. That’s what I was doing when someone referencedthe paintings in Harry Potter. You can do all this just fine with the no-frills derobotizer. Add bookshelf speakers(~$105) and a high-quality microphone (~$150) to improve your and their audio experience. If you strive for interactivity, you can greatly simplify your teaching workflow with addi-tional screen real estate. I found myself expanding beyond two screens (laptop and iPad)with displays already lying around. I dedicate one to my audience and one to the chat andparticipants windows. I use my laptop’s screen for notes I might need to consult whilepresenting, and I present content from my iPad. This helps me focus on teaching. After Iask a question, I quickly glance at the participants’ window screen and see whetheranyone raised a hand or wrote in the chat. And no humans ever disappear! I procured most of the materials for my wife’s setup from B&H Photo, Hunt’s Video,Amazon, and Keh Camera. Maybe you already own a mirrorless camera or other equip-ment you can use.

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I discovered that structuring mycontent by weeks rather than modules orindividual lectures helped studentsmeasure progress and overcome moreeasily the disorienting nature of living inconfinement. This required I rewrite mysyllabus but also helped me prepare toreact to where students are in their learn-ing and coping – we all get hopelessly lostonline, so reminding students every otherweek where we were in the class helped. One full hour online carries only about20-30 minutes of the equivalent in-personcontent. You need new strategies toconvey content. I broke lecture contentinto 20-minutes-or-less chunks, changingthe activity from segment to segment. Icreated plenty of new breakout roomactivities designed so the content wouldemerge through discussion when wereconvened. Students crave interaction, soI used breakout rooms with tacticalassignments that helped students sharetheir progress, and meet one another. I ended up finding a lot of good usesfor the Canvas software, particularly theease with which it creates websites tooffload content I might have delivered inperson in the past (and thus create moretime for interactivity) and, unexpectedly,as a live conference organization/manage-ment system. The home front matters too! I dreadthe notion that my family could betogether at home isolated from oneanother by a forced addiction to Zoom. Ifound ways to help my kids help me. Ienlisted the invaluable help of my 11-year-old daughter and eight-year-old son,

who became my honorary teaching assis-tants. That, incidentally, was the smartestdecision of all. It helped us all fight isola-tion and insularization together. I learned also a few things not to do.The immediacy of online polling resultscan easily kill the conversation. Whenneeded, I poll the old-fashioned messyway. I do not to record live sessions forstudents; I’m not a parrot, and for meeducation isn’t about giving slides a voice-over but about the interaction – I have awhole different workflow to create record-ings. In non-pandemic times, I love whenstudents feel they can drop by with ques-tions at any time (I learned from PatrickWinston). In pandemic times, that meantgoing beyond Slack and giving my cell-phone number to students. Formal peer-to-peer assessments did not work for me,but giving students a guided opportunityto comment on each other’s work workedwonders – provided I did not make it anassignment but an activity.

Learning New WaysMost often, reality matter-of-factly provesour theories wrong. Sometimes, it shredsa confirmatory data point. I think of whatI teach as the practice of how to solveproblems that matter starting with whatyou have, and with technology (new orold) as a malleable tool; that is also thesubtext of my book Innovating (MITPress, 2017). I wrote Innovating to sharehow to do just that after decades explor-ing, testing, refining, teaching, and adapt-ing the subject matter to academia andindustry worldwide. That practice helpedme and my students in this pandemic. The student teams worked smoothly,better than in many other semesters –

even though the members had never metin person – and so much so that we daredtry new things. At the end, they presented advancedtechnologies to a middle school Zoommeeting packed with 300 students andfaculty in what was a profoundly inspiringevent. They glimpsed into a future: colo-nizing Mars with batteries and bio-manu-facturing; quantum computing in space; agame to repurpose technologies andinnovate while playing. Without the pres-sure to pretend-play that everything is a“startup pitch,” student teams foundgenuine ways to explain a future that tech-nology can help build. I now want to endmy class like that every year. Two days later, I closed the first everhomemade remote edition of iTeams –that’s the name of the course – by enteringa forest that had “magically” grown in autility closet in my office (you can see avideo of it here). I learned, too, especially about technol-ogy simply serving the objective of edu-cating – and that it is urgent we sharemore broadly our gift for fashioning tech-nology into tools to come to grips withproblems that matter.

AcknowledgementI’d like to acknowledge Scott Cooper,Marta Ortega-Valle, Owen Breva, andErin Breva for their help reviewing thismanuscript.

Education for Non-RobotsPerez-Breva, from preceding page

Luis Perez-Breva, PhD iis the author ofInnovating, lecturer, and faculty director of theMIT Innovation Teams Enterprise (10.807 /15.371 / 2.907) https://iteams.mit.edu which hehas lead since 2008 (lpbreva@mit.edu).