http://mitworld.mit.edu/ MIT World media in category 'MIT'. en-us Tue, 24 Nov 2009 20:28:52 GMT Mon, 17 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0400 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/699 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/699 The field of systems engineering has only recently emerged, and as this symposium demonstrates, defies precise definition. But MIT has taken this evolving area to heart, nurturing a new division and encouraging a raft of ventures that in their execution, may help shape the field for the next century.

An MIT freshman in 1900 had some very specific requirements to fulfill for graduation, and to prepare for a responsible role in society, says Subra Suresh. Courses included mechanical drawing, military science and rhetoric. These choices became richer over time, with the addition of hundreds of engineering faculty, dealing increasingly with the sciences. Suresh traces how over many decades an engineering concentration on metallurgy shifted from studying mining (iron), to aviation (aluminum), plastics, electronic materials and then biological materials. But at each step, he notes, MIT “always lagged behind about 10 years” in what it taught students.”

The Engineering Systems Division (ESD) is an attempt to “train people the right way.” The curriculum brings the basic rules of nature into engineering practice, and applies discoveries to products and processes that impact people. Students must take into account the “long term societal impact.” ESD is needed to link complex issues along technological and social dimensions. The modern engineer must create new ideas and technologies, and reinvent tools and technologies from earlier times -- as Suresh puts it, “Fix problems associated with the greatest achievements of the 20th century.”

Yossi Sheffi fine tunes the picture, enumerating the key domains under the ESD umbrella, as well as the approaches faculty have adopted, in research, teaching and real-world projects. The primary distinction between other engineers and ESD engineers, Sheffi notes, is that “we try to look at the big picture.” So ESD focuses on critical infrastructure (water, transportation), such extended enterprise as supply chain management and global factories; energy sustainability and health care delivery. To get a handle on such unwieldy subjects, professors examine the human-technological interface, and delve into uncertainty, dynamics, design and implementation, networks and flows, and policy and standards.

MIT’s “engineers without labs” are seeking to “develop insights, principles and tools across all systems,” forging partnerships in industry, around the world. ESD students and faculty must get out in the field, says Sheffi, not just to fulfill course requirements but in order to tackle significant global problems, and to find solutions that are sustainable in terms of social equity, economic development and environmental impact. ESD values and accepts “intellectual risk,” meaning issues that may appear unquantifiable or vague, even without solution, and understands that problem solving means respecting and bringing together all disciplines, including the social sciences and management. ]]> Tue, 28 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0400 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/693 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/693 In trying financial times, Susan Hockfield remains optimistic and committed to pursuing MIT’s massive, multi-year initiatives in energy and life sciences. She prefaces her “whirlwind” tour of MIT for an alumni audience by referencing the campus-wide relief at the change in presidential administrations, which promises to make science and engineering more central, and to make “MIT values more mainstream.” If it indeed becomes “cool to be smart,” Hockfield believes MIT can count on taking a prominent national role in research, policy and education.

One key area in which MIT hopes to make a major contribution is sustainable energy. The MIT Energy Initiative, two years old, brings together faculty and students across all disciplines to develop a portfolio of new technologies (although the focus seems increasingly to fall on solar). Campus interest is so intense that the Institute has committed to a minor in energy, and it’s seeking five new professorships in the area. The other major enterprise involves fusing biological sciences with engineering, especially in the study of cancer. At the new Koch Institute, cancer biologists and engineers have already made “fundamental discoveries underlying new targeted cancer drugs,” and they are hard at work decoding the disease, and devising new methods for diagnosis and treatment.

Hockfield also candidly describes the impact of the economic downturn on the Institute, acknowledging that “most revenue streams have been compromised,” except for research. With the endowment down by 20-25%, departments across the board are making significant but strategic cuts for the next two to three years. MIT will not compromise on providing financial aid to needy students, a cost that understandably has risen in the past year, nor on hiring faculty. Hockfield hopes that private philanthropy will help MIT “preserve core strengths and values.” At the end of the recession, she says, “We want to come out with a leaner, stronger Institute.”

Fellow neuroscientist Rebecca Saxe outlines her research investigating the neural basis for a Theory of Mind -- how the human mind seems geared to “glean what others are thinking and feeling.” From her work with children and adults, Saxe has determined that there’s a very specific region of the brain -- the right temporal-parietal junction -- dedicated to thinking about how others think. This area lights up in the fMRI scanner when people read stories involving another person’s beliefs and moral judgments, but not when they digest other kinds of written material. The RTPJ develops this special function slowly (young children don’t have it), and Saxe has discovered that she can interfere with this region’s activities, altering her subjects’ sense of what constitutes morally permissible behavior. She’s exploring whether these distinct neural networks develop differently in children with autism, with the hope of finding therapies that might someday help treat the disorder. ]]> Mon, 13 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0400 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/688 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/688 At the end of the three-day Media in Transition conference, panelists swap impressions and reactions, offering some notional themes for future symposia.

Mary Bryson frames her comments as “a mash-up aggregation.” The conference’s “massive disagreements and sometimes awkward silences and gaps” were beneficial, “as we make our way in the present imperfect of media studies.” For Bryson, a key question arose: “What time is it here?” The past, present and future are now intertwined in media studies, and often in “incommensurable tension.” The next conference might wish to “mobilize and re-territorialize” itself across borders, making itself available in multiple host locations.

The traditional discourse around libraries and archives no longer serves us well, observes librarian Marlene Manoff, who calls for a “new terminology to describe or think about collections of digital objects, especially when they involve new services and functionalities.” She was “happy to hear a universal acknowledgment of the volatility and mutability of the digital record,” yet finds herself “still at a loss when it comes to questions about what should or should not be saved.” Colleagues in the profession have been “discussing the social and political implications of selection decisions for a long time,” and today, with so many people creating and collecting digital objects and files,” she perceives “a much broader conversation,” although there is yet “no cultural consensus” about these issues.

John Durham Peters offers three observations: He first addresses the difficulty of organizing knowledge in a field as diverse as media studies (or for that matter, in other modern scholarship). Peters likens media studies to “a 17th-century cabinet of curiosities.” He also gives “two cheers for breakdown,” for the ways that archives fail to conserve “all kinds of stuff.” He asks if we would regard Sappho as such a good poet “if we possessed all 12 of the books.” He’s not trying “to praise barbarians who want to burn libraries,” but to point out that “what counts as historical record is exceedingly malleable.” His last comment involves the “interesting reversibility” of transmission and storage. To “transcend time, we must use up space, just as to transcend space, we must use up time.”

Thomas Pettitt admits to an identity crisis of sorts -- that “those of us who do literature but who have lost faith in literature as a rounded concept are not quite certain what it is that we do.” Possibly as a result of the welcoming nature of the conference, he wonders if “over time, literature studies people will find our true identity within media studies.” Literature is a form of culture production whose scholars focus on aesthetics, particularly those in a verbal form. The conference was absorbed with questions of quantity (“megas and teras”), but asks Pettitt, “Have we neglected (aesthetic) quality as a factor?” And finally, he found confirmation in the notion that “advances in media technology are taking us back to conditions as they were before some of the mechanical inventions.” Is this “business of the future looking rather like the past?” ]]> Tue, 09 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0400 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/677 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/677 In their symposium introduction, Susan Hockfield and Mriganka Sur place MIT at the forefront of a revolution in neuroscience. Hockfield, a neuroscientist by training, recaps the evolution of the discipline at MIT, from its 1964 start in the Department of Psychology to the more recent establishment of the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences. These changes mirror the transformation of a field in which, says Hockfield, “at first you could do little more than make qualitative observations about behavior and only speculate about causes, to one that can examine brain function at the level of molecules and cell circuits; that can conduct quantitative experiments with genetically targeted model systems and can directly observe the living human brain in action.”

We are now poised “for the first time in human history to deliver scientifically designed, rational therapies for some crippling disorders of the brain.” Hockfield credits MIT’s progress to “meta-experiments,” specifically collaborations among scientists and engineers, and the generosity of patrons.

Mriganka Sur and his colleagues believe “the vast majority of brain disorders have their roots in brain wiring gone awry,” so a solution to such disorders lies in understanding the wiring, and its associated functions. MIT gets at these questions from many angles of research, including the genetic underpinnings of brain development, the architecture of synaptic pathways and networks, and the brain’s response to environmental stimuli. MIT addresses research problems through a “unique interdisciplinary effort” comprising molecular biology, neuron and cognitive science, and computation. What’s more, researchers have united behind a singular mission -- a “wish to make a difference in the world” -- which involves a specific focus on addressing such brain disorders and diseases as dyslexia, Alzheimer’s, schizophrenia, and autism. “There is not one other entity like this anywhere else,” says Sur, who believes MIT’s potential for future impact is “virtually limitless.” ]]> Tue, 17 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0400 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/653 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/653 There are times when it’s necessary to judge a book by its cover, or a single page, because that’s all that remains. Michael Scott Cuthbert and Nancy Schrock reveal some treasures from MIT’s early music collection which, while often incomplete or damaged, sing volumes about their origins and use.

Cuthbert demonstrates that when it comes to medieval and renaissance music manuscripts, there’s really no substitute for the real thing. His discussion concerns several recent additions to MIT’s Lewis Music Library. Online perusal alone cannot reveal which of his manuscripts was designed to be read by a large group of singers in a cathedral, and which served as a valued part of a priest’s collection for personal study. Holding the two artifacts up, Cuthbert makes it clear: He first displays a giant, two-sided leaf, and then an aged volume containing the much smaller page.

To examine these specimens, says Shrock, she must use special tools of the trade: a fiber optic light sheet for studying paper; microscopes, digital cameras. In examining and preserving music manuscripts and other rare MIT books, Schrock needs to know the process by which the object came into being. She shows the large leaf from the choir book: it’s parchment, made from the lined skins of young animals, with the hair scraped off, shaved and rubbed with pumice to achieve a smooth surface perfect for text and binding. Schrock shows a 15th century book of hours, an illuminated manuscript that was rebound by a collector in the 18th century. While she admires the redo (red morocco tooled in gold), the object “no longer reflects the way this manuscript was originally made, and we’ve lost knowledge about it.” Flaws are more informative than beauty.

Says Cuthbert, “For many of us, modern musicology is less about spending time in dusty archives and more about recreating what we see in CSI.” New technology may hold the key to answering longstanding mysteries, such as the abrupt abandonment or evolution of certain kinds of religious music. Some manuscripts may hide their beginnings, or travel widely: “Maybe the choir book left the cathedral in a sack in the middle of the night,” he says. With computer software, researchers can now compare music manuscripts that originated in widely separated regions of the world. New machines can peer into manuscripts where the music has been scraped off to make room for other information (such as land ownership records, or an illustrated bestiary), to see what originally existed; and advances in digital imaging can discern the flow of notes on a page where they had once been obliterated or obscured. DNA tracing, he hopes, will ultimately permit musicologists to determine the provenance of animals used in parchment down to the cathedral green where they grazed. ]]> Sat, 28 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0500 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/648 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/648 Two students deliver heartfelt appeals for courage and integrity at the annual Martin Luther King Day breakfast.

In the 1940s, Matt Gethers recounts, his grandfather was forced to flee South Carolina after defending his brother against white racists in a store. Gethers wonders if he’d have put his life on the line in the same way. He acknowledges the “bittersweet reality” that he won’t likely be facing the trials of his ancestors, while also wishing to “share in the work and sacrifice that secured my inalienable rights as a citizen of this country and the world.”

While U.S. institutions seem to reflect “what we know to be right with respect to race, gender and disability,” Gethers notes that there’s a more corrosive racism eating away at “hearts and minds.” The absence of diversity in leadership throughout U.S. society encourages stereotyping. In his work in the Cambridge Public Schools, Gethers meets students who believe they couldn’t possibly grow up to be “an astronaut, physicist, mathematician or president.” Why? “Because little black girls don’t grow up to become CEOs.” Gethers concludes that only when these students see themselves “in people who are breaking the mold …will we restore their sacred right to dream.”

Joy Johnson was almost cheated of a college scholarship by a high school counselor who “forgot” to send her transcript in. Entrenched racism has helped create the “impostor syndrome,” says Johnson, whose “sufferers can’t internalize their own accomplishments and thus feel they don’t deserve them.” She wonders how many fellow MIT students are asking themselves, “Do we even belong here, and what do we need to do to become as smart as the others?” But “many times the impostor is not us at all,” says Johnson. She sees a long, sorry tale of the usurpation of black achievements, inventions and discoveries: “Impostors have been doing it so long, they’ve perfected the very art of fraud.”

But what must be done to ensure that the contributions of black people are recognized? Johnson nods toward MIT’s mission -- inclusive of all students -- of advancing knowledge to serve the nation and world. True innovation and intellectual advancement, she says, require respectful interactions not just in labs and classrooms, but in everyday life. “This must begin with acknowledgments, speaking to … janitors and lab techs and bus drivers as eagerly as we speak to professors.” Johnson ultimately hopes to “show the world that at this institution, decisions are made on merit, not on nepotism, cronyism or racism.” ]]> Sat, 28 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0500 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/649 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/649 Two “sisters” -- both university chiefs -- celebrate the victory of the first African-American U.S. President, but remind listeners that American institutions have not yet achieved the full measure of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s dream.

MIT, which prides itself on inventing the future, says Susan Hockfield, must stop looking backwards and “make diversity and inclusion a daily reality.” To fulfill these goals, says Hockfield, MIT is pursuing policy and practical change in such areas as retention, recruitment, climate, communication and accountability. For instance, candidate searches must move beyond sorting through known options, Hockfield states. She also notes that the steps required “in a very long journey” to build a culture of inclusion will not be threatened by budget pressures. Many actions cost nothing at all, she says: pairing up a new hire with a long-term employee “as a welcoming guide,” and reaching out to student cultural and affinity groups, for instance. Department heads can check in with women and professors of color for the “cost of no more than an occasional cup of coffee.” Concludes Hockfield, “Distributed leadership is the only path to success in building a culture of inclusion, because real progress in mentoring, reaching out, locating new talent, must happen step by step, unit by unit, in labs, offices and residence halls across all MIT.”

“We are still such a mighty, might long way from being able to declare victory over bigotry and discrimination,” says Johnetta B. Cole. Behind these twin evils stand people with power and privilege. Quoting Frederick Douglass, Cole cautions that such people ‘concede nothing without a struggle.’ So those in power must perceive a rewarding alternative: “We need to imagine and work toward making a world where difference doesn’t make any more difference.”

Even the most marginalized of us, says Cole, must locate in ourselves the power and privilege we do, have, and expunge the temptation to victimize others. “Some white women who have been the victims of sexism can systematically practice racism,” Cole points out, and “some black folk who have known the bitter sting of racism can be intensely homophobic…” She asks her audience to “learn how you learned your prejudices and interrogate yourself around your particular journey around questions of diversity and inclusion.” Own all parts of your identity, and “never again let anyone interact with you on the basis of one alone.”

While she acknowledges MIT’s work toward diversity, Cole says “that is not enough,” and that each person must take personal responsibility “for helping to change this mighty institution.” Her advice: make sure the curriculum moves away from “WWW:” western, white and womanless. No faculty or staff searches should move forward without a diverse pool of candidates. Real inclusion means not just recruiting a diverse class of students each and every year, but “creating an inclusive culture so students of color, or the LGBT community, students who are differently abled -- all the underrepresented groups -- can say this is my university.” ]]> Mon, 01 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0500 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/617 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/617 There’s “just exactly enough time, with no time to lose” to address the massive challenge of climate change and renewable energy, says moderator John Sterman. With this sense of urgency, MIT faculty, administration and students have taken to heart the mission of rendering their campus and the larger world more sustainable.

Sterman describes a triumph of green construction rising on campus, Building E62, the product of a decade of design and negotiation, which many hope will set the standard for future MIT development. The building features lighting that will use half as much power as existing campus buildings, and heating and cooling that will reduce energy use by one-third. But this is a success story with lessons: green construction requires higher up front costs, and MIT executives were not immediately sold on the benefits of lower operating costs.

Theresa Stone lays out the fundamentals of MIT’s environmental stewardship: be comprehensive and involve the entire community; consider behavioral as well as engineered solutions; and think about return on investment. These principles have guided a thorough ongoing review of energy use, leading to improving radiators in half the Institute’s academic buildings; and getting researchers to close the sash on the 1000 chemical fume hoods on campus, which Stone characterizes as a major MIT “energy hog.” In some cases, MIT examined whether its safety standards were excessive, and consuming excessive energy.

The Sloan School’s Jason Jay outlines the complex network of MIT student-based sustainability initiatives, some of which have coalesced under the rubric MIT Generator. As an analyst of organizational change, Jay noted that in MIT’s unique culture, petitions and rallies were less likely to galvanize people than collaboration across disciplines, and the “engineering-hacking aesthetic of hands-on projects.” There are dozens of unique projects underway after just two years, including an experiment in using waste heat from MIT’s cogeneration facility for electric power.

One student club, Sustainability@MIT, has built a membership of 780, and hosts conferences, high profile speakers, and symposia. Representative Adam Siegel sees his group working with community organizations, and revving up voter interest in clean energy during political campaigns. His group recruits faculty mentors, and solicits corporate support to bring practitioners on campus, and to discuss jobs in sustainability. One sign of this movement’s success: There’s a wait list for Sloan’s Sustainability Lab.

Since her return from the World Solar Challenge, Anna Jaffe has been very busy creating the Vehicle Design Summit Project, an attempt to produce a car that’s 20 times more sustainable in its life cycle than the Prius. She’s developed an international consortium of students, worked with master auto makers in Turin, Italy, and has finished prototyping the first car. Beyond this vision lies a grander goal: acting as a catalyst for others with big ideas, and serving as a flashpoint for fellow MIT students. “We’re surrounded by so much genius, so we sometimes look to peers for answers,” she says. ]]> Tue, 04 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0500 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/613 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/613 MIT produces students who are “deep, entrepreneurial, passionate, diverse and active,” says Phillip Clay, the kind of talented individuals who should play major parts on the world stage. MIT has begun a drive to ensure that its students fulfill their promise. Central to this mission, Richard Samuels says, is the kind of education that steeps students in the realities of globalization. In a world that’s not so much flat as converging and increasingly complex and diverse, students must “step boldly and intelligently into the global market of ideas and commerce,” says Samuels, lest they “become cogs in a global machine.” MIT hopes “to create the people who design and operate those machines.”

This means making international studies a core part of the MIT experience, and establishing MIT in an international context. At a time when MIT faces increased global competition, Subra Suresh worries that flat and reduced federal research funding will cut into MIT’s research preeminence. So the School of Engineering is seeking out partnerships around the world for faculty, and looking to provide its undergraduates with exchange and practicum opportunities abroad.

All over the world, “countries want to reproduce MIT,” says Marc Kastner. But MIT’s unique culture is difficult to replicate: the Institute pours resources into the youngest students and faculty; promotes an egalitarian atmosphere; draws instructors from an international talent pool; and is “great in everything” -- science, engineering, liberal arts and business. As MIT seeks out international alliances, “We must think about how to communicate to our partners what’s important about our culture,” he says.

The “crown jewel” of MIT’s international programs is the MIT International Science and Technology Initiative (MISTI), says Deborah Fitzgerald. More than 300 MIT students each year get to spend time working in a company in another country, at no expense to them. A program that often requires two years of language, history and culture study, MISTI boosts confidence, says Fitzgerald, allowing students to see themselves “as people who can solve any kind of problem, anywhere, in a foreign language” -- a “great vindication of all they’ve worked so hard for.” Fitzgerald’s wish is to make MISTI possible for every student.

MIT Sloan is committed to developing principled and innovative leaders who can improve the world, says Dave Schmittlein. The school has developed a Center for Leadership that emphasizes “values, transparency, consistency in decision making,” and provides its budding leaders with international experience through a global entrepreneurship lab that operates in 17 different countries.

Adele Naudé Santos declares herself “passionately opposed to outposts” in foreign lands, because it would be impossible to clone MIT’s collaborative, multidisciplinary, nonhierarchical ethos. Instead, “we partner,” she says. Students and faculty work and study with colleagues abroad in projects like the Urbanization Laboratory, which develops sustainable designs for new cities in such nations as India, China and Japan. Graduates in architecture and planning migrate to all corners of the globe, carrying their unique experience and MIT’s culture with them. ]]> Mon, 07 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0400 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/573 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/573 Who better than Gary Hack to recount the colorful 75-year tale of the Department of Urban Studies and Planning? Associated with the department for more than half its life, and saturated with its lore, Hack reaches backward to describe the story’s “five acts,” and then forward to imagine the department’s future.

The department emerged in the midst of the Depression, with faculty engaged primarily in city planning. Graduates “went out with the equipment to plan the massive growth in this country that occurred after World War II,” says Hack, with the know-how for laying out roads and neighborhoods. Act 2, “the urban studies years,” came after the war, with the department swelling to accommodate returning GIs, and a growing interest in studying “the implications … of renewal and slum clearance.” The last half of the ‘50s proved fertile, with the launch of Harvard and MIT’s Joint Center for Urban Studies. Then came the 60s, and “forces at work that tore the department apart.”

The Vietnam War, city riots, and questions about the direction of urban growth, “raised enormous doubts about … what planning was up to.” MIT faculty and students became advocates for neighborhood groups. In Act 3, “the urban action era,” a new department head added such fields as criminal justice and environmental planning, and committed to diversity of both faculty and students.

By 1980, academic life had evolved into an “era of parallel solitudes,” clusters of people intensely involved with each other “with a minimum amount of glue.” This Act 4 saw the start of an international planning focus, as well as a turn toward giving students the skills to be directly involved in building and real estate.

The most recent period, Act 5, has witnessed DUSP leaders working “hard to lift out of the rich bouillabaisse constructed over all those years some themes with crosscutting energy, things that could bring people together,” such as projects in New Orleans.

Hack imagines that MIT’s DUSP, along with other U.S. planning departments, will need to function in an increasingly global and interconnected world. Confronted by climate change, and massive growth of cities, planners will need to transcend their traditional ways of thinking and working. Hack concludes with a thought experiment: If we built high-speed rail in the Northeast corridor, cutting travel time from Boston to New York to one hour, what kind of development should occur, and what are the likely impacts? “We’re ill equipped even to answer these questions, and we need to do better,” Hack says. ]]> Mon, 06 Aug 2007 00:00:00 -0400 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/470 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/470 After viewing William Mitchell’s presentation, viewers may wish to apply to MIT, or at the very least, take a campus tour, to experience up close the architecture he describes. Mitchell’s talk -- drawn from his recent book, Imagining MIT-- first skims the history of MIT’s classical, industry-minded buildings, then focuses on a recent billion-dollar construction boom that has resulted in pathbreaking examples of urban design for academic purposes.

Mitchell provides five case studies, replete with slides, of architectural design and development. It is “an architecture story we don’t often read in newspapers or in glossy books—the inside story about how large and complex buildings get put together.” When this process takes place within the context of big money, and many competing organizational, physical and political needs, “dialog, interaction and intense argument” result.

As MIT’s architectural advisor, Mitchell had to address the pragmatic requirements of laboratory research, and office, dormitory and social spaces, as well as try to encourage bold, adventurous and playful design. The Ray and Maria Stata Center, by Frank Gehry, for example, began as sketches, with “roots in abstract expressionist painting.” Mitchell describes a struggle to keep the freshness of these early sketches while developing the structure. “A building can easily go dead and boring while going through the process,” he says. Modeling the Center consisted of crumpling up pieces of paper and dropping them onto rough outlines of buildings. 3D computer modeling was used to execute the tricky design, and this helped liberate the building from the traditional repeated grids and modules. The digital model also provided precise coordinates for the building’s construction. Traditional methods of architectural layout, “with tape measures and plum bobs, were not going to work with a building like this,” says Mitchell. Ultimately, “it became a landscape of highly varied spaces that …enabled construction at a reasonable price of forms of great complexity.”

In final form, the Stata Center illustrates a principle close to Mitchell’s heart, that of nonassigned space. In traditional lab buildings, corridors and other ‘nonproductive’ spaces are reduced as much as possible. But in the Stata Center, and other works Mitchell showcases, circulation space plays multiple and important functions: “serendipitous meetings happen,” and the unassigned nooks and crannies become places for unexpected conversations, quiet reflection or even the convergences of disciplines. Also, the unorthodox design “cut canyons through buildings,” so even people housed deep in the heart of the structure connected to the exterior, with light, air and a view.

Mitchell conveys how MIT’s latest architecture has fundamentally shifted to accommodate the fluidity of intellectual life there. “The most important resource at MIT is people, and they thrive if they have a vibrant social environment…where they can bump into each other in ways that lead to productive intellectual exchange.” Great universities “should aim high,” say Mitchell, and while “architecture is intensely practical, at the same time it should always be an affair of the imagination and spirit.”

]]> Fri, 19 May 2006 00:00:00 -0400 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/356 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/356 With a mix of bitterness and hope, these two young men address the legacy of Martin Luther King. David Lowry, a Lumbee Indian, grew up in southeastern North Carolina where the great majority of the Lumbee people reside. He speaks compellingly of his Lumbee Indian ancestry, and his need to be recognized at MIT and beyond as part of a group that goes unrecognized by the government and even by other Native Americans as an authentic and distinct people. “The spirit of segregation is alive and well today,” he says. While political correctness encourages students of color not to feel obligated to reveal their ethnicity, Lowry embraces his own defiantly. How else to challenge a dominant society that not only manipulates people of color in the media, but neglects them in national disasters, and sends them in disproportionate numbers to war.

For the middle and upper classes, says John Pope, the poor are pretty much invisible—decades after Dr. King began his War on Poverty. As a nation, we experienced a moment of illumination when Hurricane Katrina struck, and revealed the brutal inequities between the well-to-do and the poor. Half a year later, says Pope, the “poor are fading back out of sight.” One out of eight Americans lives below the poverty line. He exhorts his fellow students and colleagues “to offer something to those less fortunate,” whether resources or time. Stop and reach into your pockets and give to charities, he says, or write to a Congressman about keeping the nation’s poor in mind when drafting legislation. Whether at an urban school, soup kitchen or shelter, he pleads, “Get off campus and give something of yourself.”
]]> Sun, 11 Dec 2005 00:00:00 -0500 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/309 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/309 Even if the typical MIT hacker doesn’t qualify as a secret agent, he or she is to be admired for pulling off the collegiate world’s most surreptitious, elegant pranks, believes Jay Keyser. While Harvard students get a chuckle out of “putting panties over statues,” MIT students have placed a telephone booth and a police cruiser on top of the massive MIT dome, and landed and then safely exploded a weather balloon on the field of a Harvard-Yale game. Keyser is a fan of these generally anonymous and extremely clever technical pranks. And he’s burrowed into the psychology behind them. The students “are thumbing their nose at the Institute. ‘You want us to be engineers. You’re so damn hard on us. We’ll show you what we think of you.’ So they take us down a peg or two.” In fact, “hack culture is an important component of the mental health of the MIT student body,” Keyser claims. The difference between MIT and every other university, he says, is that MIT students “have bought into the value system of the university.” They’re under the constant burden of judgment and struggle every day with the knowledge that they’re among the best and the brightest. So hacks are “a coping mechanism, a way of putting on sunglasses on a very bright summer day.”]]> Sat, 19 Nov 2005 00:00:00 -0500 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/305 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/305
If Woodie Flowers gets his way, students with the vision and initiative to change the world will be commonplace at MIT – rather than the extraordinary exemplars who speak on his panel: Elizabeth Basha, who’s developing an early storm warning system for rural villages in a Honduras river basin prone to flooding; Timothy Heidel, who’s documenting and field testing technological solutions for schools and healthcare centers in Ghanaian villages;
Anat Binar, who brings together young Israeli and Palestinian students for a combined computer science and business program, to promote a common language and joint goals; and Harel Williams who broadcasts news of events to computer screens around the MIT campus.

Woodie Flowers believes MIT must be in the business of producing students with far-reaching goals and the skills to attain them: The 21st century demands the “technologically literate and philosophically grounded,” he says. Engineering students who typically ask, “Why don’t you just give us something to analyze?” should instead demand, “Show us someone who needs help.” Though Flowers boasts of having “nerd pride,” he believes MIT must help students acquire the means to solve problems in the real world. But can MIT accomplish this major “cultural shift”? We’re not here “to celebrate the MIT Center for Avoiding Change,” he says. The very successful FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) competitions provide a great model, according to Flowers, of engaging young minds in teamwork and “gracious professionalism,” offering “high tech stretch goals” and “the hardest fun you’ve ever had.” And FIRST alumni are more likely to get involved in public service while at college, says Flowers. Ultimately, he says, “Leadership can be in the water at MIT, but it has to start early and work all the way through.” ]]> Sun, 05 Jun 2005 00:00:00 -0400 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/267 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/267 James Champy finds much to admire at MIT. But as a seasoned insider, and as a successful entrepreneur, business writer and consultant, he thinks the Institute could use some serious shaking up. As rationale for an MIT redesign, Champy points to increased competition from other universities, here and abroad; new fields opening up in science; the need to accomplish more and innovate with fewer resources; and the pressures of globalization. To maintain its strength, says Champy, MIT must pursue a number of “principles.” In terms of education, he suggests MIT balance teaching the practical with the unusual; regularly rethink course content with an eye to evolving science and technology; and most dramatically, consider creation of an undergraduate core engineering program, one that is five years or longer, “to produce engineers who can be fundamentally different in some way.” He envisions that MIT’s will become “the standard for the profession.” Research should “identify problems that are big and important,” which move ideas and people across schools, enabling collaboration. Says Champy, “MIT must always remain a meritocracy,” in order to promote substantive change. He also wants MIT to aim students at key decision-making jobs, teach them how to analyze flaws in smart organizations, and to give entrepreneurial students “a sense of higher purpose,” like modern-day Andrew Carnegies. ]]> Wed, 29 Dec 2004 00:00:00 -0500 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/245 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/245 At the conclusion of 14 years at the helm of the Institute, Chuck Vest discusses the challenges and opportunities involved in guiding a major research university through tumultuous times. Vest’s new book, outlined in his remarks, provides a detailed and intimate view of his MIT “adventure.” Some key chapters: At the start of his tenure, he confronted a fundamental shift in the relationship between MIT and the federal government, driven by suspicion and hostility toward scientific research. He recognized the explosive growth and signal importance of such fields as molecular biology, neuroscience, and information technologies, and sought to deepen MIT’s investment in them. Vest worked to reflect in MIT’s programs, and in its relations with industry, increasing globalization and rapid technological innovation. He describes how he engaged in a conversation with the MIT community about “curiosity and big questions;” advocated in the halls of government for “doing large, bold, adventurous things” in science; and worked to diversify MIT’s faculty. Following the attacks of September 11th, Vest made a public stand against “overreaction,” and advocated continued openness in international scholarship and communication, lest we “inadvertently weaken science and …our ability to create a better world.” The “presidency is not a job, but a life,” concludes Vest, one in which he holds true to “MIT values I learned to love.”

RESOURCES:
Charles Vest on National Public Radio's "On Point" January 6, 2005
More on the Vest Years]]> Wed, 17 Nov 2004 00:00:00 -0500 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/238 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/238 Who could have guessed that a Florentine omelet played a role in the origins of the OpenCourseWare initiative? A breakfast meeting in a New York “greasy spoon” was one of the seminal moments shaping OCW, according to William G. Bowen, who dined with Charles Vest and discussed Mellon Foundation support for the initiative. Bowen praises Vest and others for their passion and determination to bring MIT’s knowledge to the world --for free. Bowen cites data showing that while MIT might benefit from Mellon funding, “the greatest benefits are received by those with the least resources”—individuals and institutions around the world who take advantage of MIT’s web course publications. He also lauds Vest for pursuing issues of equity in higher education. “Higher education isn’t about exploiting a monopoly position to maximize profits. It’s about husbanding scarce resources to serve societal goals in the most effective way possible.”

Vest says OCW “in this age of cynicism has shown the power of a really wonderful idea,” one that is just now coming to fruition. Provost Robert Brown describes “the heady days of ’98 when universities were running around with business models in their heads of all the money to be made in the internet on content and education.” MIT formed a faculty committee to study the matter, stalling just long enough to see the bubble pop—and then came up with its mission-based, not-for-profit initiative. Brown says OCW has become a unique “snapshot… of the integration of education and research on this campus…a profound educational tool in the history of university education.”]]> Tue, 07 Sep 2004 00:00:00 -0400 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video http://mitworld.mit.edu/video ]]> Wed, 07 Jul 2004 00:00:00 -0400 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/208 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/208 Since making its “proof of concept” debut in the Fall of 2003, MIT’s OpenCourseWare (OCW) Initiative has racked up some impressive numbers. This project makes course materials used in MIT undergraduate and graduate subjects available on the Web, free of charge, to any user anywhere in the world. So far, OCW has translated for the web 700 of MIT’s 2000 courses, spanning MIT’s five schools and all 33 of its academic disciplines, and received “traffic from every country on the planet,” says Anne Margulies. More than 12,000 unique users visit OCW each day, and in a popup survey, 92% of these users pronounced themselves highly satisfied with the site. More than half of these visitors are self-learners, who just want to explore new subjects or stay current on a particular subject. Margulies notes that educators, her primary target group, are enthralled with OCW. They use it to prepare courses or learn new teaching methods. This fits perfectly with MIT’s goal -- the open dissemination of knowledge so that, as Margulies says, “the vision will become a movement” in colleges and universities around the world. ]]> Mon, 15 Mar 2004 00:00:00 -0500 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/184 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/184 Nicholas Pearce is a proud advocate of programs that help young people from urban areas transition into higher education. He has not only benefited from such programs, but has given back through his participation as a volunteer, mentor, and speaker. As a high schooljunior, he attended MIT's six-week summer program, Minority Introduction to Engineering, Entrepreneurship and Science (MITE2S). "It gave me a quick snapshot of the dreams I could pursue," said Pearce. It was a life-changing experience for him -- one that he wishes were available to many more students. As an MIT undergraduate, he served as an instructor and mentor to more than 100 Boston-area public high school students in MIT's Saturday Engineering Enrichment & Discovery Academy (SEED). Programs such as these "decidedly shatter the underachieving stereotype," said Pearce. Unfortunately, enrichment opportunities like these are under fire around the country by "enemies of socioeconomic civil rights." He urged other universities to follow MIT's example, and not back down to pressure, lest the "civil rights advances of the last 50 years dissipate to nothing." ]]> Mon, 15 Mar 2004 00:00:00 -0500 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/185 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/185 In Bruce Webster’s measured appraisal, there can be no level playing field for minorities in a country where “wealth was acquired on the backs of slaves, acquired on deceitful deals made with people that did not understand,…on subsidies provided by the poor.” He scoffs at current attacks on affirmative action in higher education that claim unfair bias on the basis of race. How can marginalized students make it into college when SAT, GRE and LSAT scores can be bought, in the form of expensive test-preparation courses? As a descendant of the Navajo Nation, Webster sees his people the victims of a holocaust: “Nazi Germany had Hitler; the U.S. government had Kit Carson, the U.S. cavalry and the Bureau of Indian Affairs.” Webster dares other students to challenge the “dominant society,” as he himself has, and “get close enough to touch the enemy.” ]]> Mon, 01 Mar 2004 00:00:00 -0500 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/181 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/181 MIT President Charles Vest provides a critical perspective on the unsteady progress of racial diversity at the university. “As the summit of the mountain we’re climbing has begun to come into distant view, the slope gets steeper and others are strewing rocks in our path,” says Vest. The raw statistics since his arrival in 1990 are reason for some encouragement, with steadily improving enrollment of women undergraduates and graduate students. Yet while underrepresented minorities add up to 20% of all undergraduates, they number just 4.5% of graduate students and 4% of the faculty. Vest points to “a mean-spiritedness abroad in the land, given voice and power by people who don’t agree with the goal (of diversity) let alone how to reach it.” Vest worries about new legal challenges to programs that draw minorities to careers in science and engineering, and about national security policies that discourage foreign scholars from applying to MIT. “The modest gains made in the last decade are fragile,” he warns, and “we must work together to open opportunities and careers in science and engineering to anybody who has a desire to pursue the path.” ]]> Sat, 15 Nov 2003 00:00:00 -0500 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/160 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/160 In this personal and reflective event, Pinker looks back at twenty plus years at MIT and shares his deep appreciation for the place where "ideas and content always come first."

Recalling his earliest work at the MIT Center for Cognitive Science, he describes the maddening problem of how children learn to use verbs correctly. You can splash the wall with paint and can splash paint on the wall; you can spill water on the floor but you can’t spill the floor with water. Pinker theorized that children unconsciously divide the world of actions into categories like geometry and force, and that humans have evolved a grammar based on this intuitive physics. Pinker discusses Noam Chomsky’s “enormous” impact on him, as well as his profound differences with Chomsky concerning the evolution of humans’ innate ability to acquire language. In spite of jibes from outsiders (often journalists), Pinker says he reveled in teaching MIT’s introductory psychology course. Finally, he describes many sleepless nights while pondering the “most agonizing choice of my career”—his decision to leave MIT for Harvard.

ABOUT THE MODERATOR:
This discussion is moderated by Professor Samuel Jay Keyser--Peter de Florez Emeritus Professor at MIT and an emeritus member of the Linguistics and Philosophy faculty. He is currently special assistant to the Chancellor at MIT.

Keyser's most recent book is The Pond God published by Front Street Books.]]> Thu, 06 Mar 2003 00:00:00 -0500 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/81 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/81 On February 18, 2003, MIT filed a brief with the US Supreme Court to support the University of Michigan's case defending its current admissions policies. MIT President Charles Vest outlined MIT's position on the case, that is threatening to take away the option to consider race as "one of many factors" in the college admission process. Joining MIT in this friend of the court brief are Stanford University, DuPont, IBM, the National Academy of Engineering, the National Academy of Science, and the National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering. In this impassioned speech, Vest states, "we must preserve the legal right and moral authority to consider race as one of many factors in college and university admissions, and in other programs and dimensions of our life and learning." "Two great universities, the largest national consortium for advancing engineering careers for minorities, two of the largest and best known technology-based companies in the world, and the two most prestigious academies in science and engineering will be standing together in a highly public manner. When the question is asked, 'Where were you?, ' MIT's answer will be clear."]]> Thu, 19 Sep 2002 00:00:00 -0400 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/93 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/93 ]]> Sat, 20 Apr 2002 00:00:00 -0400 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/35 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/35 Thoughts on the Evolution of Chemical Engineering: One MIT Perspective]]>