The elections are over. The voters — the faculty — have spoken.

We begin with gratitude. Eleven colleagues stepped forward as candidates in this election, placing their names before the faculty at a moment that demanded judgment, patience, and readiness to serve. To stand for election to the Faculty Newsletter editorial board today is to affirm, in action, the importance of an independent faculty voice. We thank every candidate for that affirmation.

These elections should have been held in May 2025, with a slate that had already been announced. Their postponement by the (then) Provost’s Office introduced uncertainty at a time when institutional confidence was already strained. That the elections were ultimately reinstated owes much to negotiations led by our co-chairs, Professors Sally Haslanger and Ceasar McDowell, and to careful work and thoughtful guidance by the Transition Committee formed in the wake of the Silbey Report. The committee – comprising Professors Thomas Kochan, Krishna Rajagopal, and Donca Steriade – helped restore the conditions under which a legitimate and orderly election could take place, and reaffirmed that governance of the Faculty Newsletter rests with the faculty, and only with the faculty.

For the five elected candidates, the results may bring satisfaction at being chosen to serve in this role, perhaps mixed with a sober awareness of the work that lies ahead. Whether elected or not, each candidate has shown a readiness to act as a guardian of the Faculty Newsletter. Guardianship concerns protection: vigilance for editorial independence, adherence to rigorous standards, and a refusal to allow the forum for faculty debate to be narrowed or silenced.

That guardianship rests on a deeper stewardship. Stewardship concerns purpose. It is grounded in a simple principle: all 1,450 faculty voices count equally – professors of every rank, professors of the practice, professors post-tenure, and emeritae and emeriti. This equality is not a courtesy extended at convenience; it is the condition of genuine faculty governance. The Institute’s strength lies in the breadth of its intellectual community and in the friction, candor, and creativity that diversity of experience and perspective produces. This diversity is foundational to MIT’s character and to its resilience, even against considerable odds.

We owe special gratitude to the outgoing FNL co-chairs, Professors Sally Haslanger and Ceasar McDowell. Through months of scrutiny and uncertainty they led with steadiness and resolve born of long commitment to the Faculty Newsletter, guiding it through a difficult chapter, and preserving its defining impulse: to be an independent voice of the faculty. Their principled service exemplified both guardianship and stewardship. Elections close one chapter. In due course the newly elected editorial board will be seated. It will inherit a tradition of more than three decades: a responsibility to preserve the Newsletter’s independence and credibility. Institutions endure when their members accept the obligation to protect open discourse and to sustain the conditions under which such discourse can flourish. Guardianship and stewardship together sustain the Faculty Newsletter as an independent forum for the entire faculty.

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