When we function effectively as individuals at MIT, we learn. When we function effectively together as a community, we improve MIT. Many efforts at improvement are underway, including the work of the Task Force on the Undergraduate Academic Program (discussed in my last column and elsewhere in this issue) and also new degree program proposals and ad hoc committees that I describe in the first part of this column. For these efforts to succeed, our system of shared governance requires strong mutual understanding and coordination among the faculty, the administration, and the Corporation. In the second part of this column, I review some of the key regular mechanisms for communication between the faculty and both the administration and the Corporation.
Before this spring, nearly three years had passed since a new degree program proposal came before the faculty (in May 2023, when proposals for new MASc and SM Degrees in Music Technology and Computation and a new PhD Program within the Center for Computational Science and Engineering were passed). This spring, two new degree program proposals have come before the faculty. Professors Michel Goemans and Philippe Rigollet moved to establish a new SM in the Mathematics of Data in March, and the motion passed in April. This one-year program will serve a small cohort of MIT mathematics undergraduates, combining advanced, theory-driven coursework with a substantial thesis requirement to provide intensive training in mathematical foundations for data science and artificial intelligence. In April, Professors Antoinette Schoar and Rodrigo Verdi moved to establish a new Evening MBA program, which would create a pathway to a Sloan MBA for local professionals who would not leave their current job or relocate for a traditional residential MBA program. This motion will be voted on in May. I thank the leaders of these proposals for developing them, shepherding them through faculty governance review – including presentations and discussions at meetings of the Committee on Graduate Programs and the Faculty Policy Committee – and finally bringing them to the Institute Faculty Meeting.
The Institute Faculty Meeting has also featured presentations and Q&A by two of the new committees I described in my last column: the Committee on Accelerating Translation and Entrepreneurship (at the March meeting) and the Committee on AI Use in Teaching, Learning, and Research Training (at the April meeting). These committees were charged with producing recommendations on a tight timeline. In addition to appearing at these Institute Faculty Meetings, they continue to actively solicit input from the MIT community. I thank their co-chairs, Professors Jeffrey Grossman and Antoinette Schoar, and Professors Eric Klopfer and Sam Madden, respectively, and encourage you to reach out to them with questions or feedback.
The March meeting also included presentations from Provost Anantha Chandrakasan, Chancellor Melissa Nobles, and Executive Vice President & Treasurer (EVPT) Glen Shor, on academics, student life, and MIT’s financial landscape. These presentations highlighted MIT’s merit-based admissions, the strength of our financial aid, and the remarkable achievements of so many MIT students. We were also updated on the impacts of the endowment tax and reduced federal funding, and on the Institute’s response to date and strategy for the future. Presentations like these exemplify what the late Patrick Winston argued in these pages a decade ago is a key virtue of our faculty governance model: regular direct contact between the faculty and the administration at the monthly Institute Faculty Meeting.
Regular direct contact with the senior administration and with the Corporation does not scale easily to MIT’s nearly 1,100 faculty, of course. In my first column as Chair of the Faculty, I reviewed some of the mechanisms for communication among the faculty that promote understanding and effective decision making within faculty governance, in particular on the part of the faculty officers. For communication between the faculty and both the administration and the Corporation, our shared governance model relies heavily on the elected faculty officers, especially the chair of the faculty. However, there are also mechanisms for direct contact with other faculty members that are important to understand. In the remainder of this column I review some of these mechanisms to make them more visible to all faculty.
The agenda-setting meeting for the Institute Faculty Meeting. Several weeks before each Institute Faculty Meeting, the Faculty Officers Group (consisting of the three elected faculty officers plus the Faculty Governance Administrator) meets with the President, the Provost, the Chancellor, and the President’s Chief of Staff to draft the meeting’s agenda. We discuss potential agenda items, decide which to include, and set their order. We also discuss expected topics for meetings further in the future. In this process we discuss faculty views and concerns on agenda items, needs for coordination across offices and committees, and frequently identify new topics that require further attention.
Department Heads Meetings and School/College Councils. The faculty officers attend all Department Heads Meetings (typically once a month), which are chaired by the President. These meetings generally involve structured presentations and discussion of one or more topics of Institute-wide concern. We also visit each School/College Council once per semester, where we generally open the floor for lightly structured listening.
Regular one-on-one meetings with the Chair of the Faculty. The Chair of the Faculty regularly meets one-on-one every two weeks with the President and with the Vice Provost for Faculty, monthly with the Provost and with the Chancellor, and multiple times per semester with the Chair of the Corporation. Because so many curricular and educational issues are currently under discussion, Vice Chancellor for Graduate and Undergraduate Education David Darmofal and I have also met one-on-one every two weeks this year.
Participation in Corporation meetings. The Chair of the Faculty attends all Corporation meetings as a guest and may request time on the agenda for brief remarks and discussion. I have done this for every quarterly Corporation meeting this year and plan to continue to do so throughout my tenure as Chair. The Chair of the Faculty does not regularly attend meetings of the Executive Committee of the Corporation, but can request an agenda slot at their meetings to speak about matters of significance to the faculty. These points of contact stem from recommendations made by an ad hoc committee of Faculty and Corporation members originally charged in March 2021, as previously described in these pages by former Chairs of the Faculty Lily Tsai, Rick Danheiser, Robert Jaffe, and Thomas Kochan.
Interactions at Faculty Policy Committee meetings. The Faculty Policy Committee (FPC) includes three ex officio nonvoting members: two designated by the Provost, and one designated by the President. Now as in recent years, the Chancellor has been the President’s designee, providing a direct faculty–administration point of contact at every FPC meeting. The President and Provost each visits with FPC once a month, and the Chair of the Corporation visits once a semester.
Other Faculty and Institute Committees. The 11 Standing Committees of the Faculty are the core of MIT’s system of faculty governance. Each committee includes six to seven elected faculty members, one of who chairs the committee. Senior administrators or their designees sit on 10 of the 11. The eleventh committee, the Committee on Nominations (CoN), is an exception: its role is exclusively to nominate members to and fill vacancies for the other 10 Standing Committees and for the Faculty Officers. (Nominations for CoN are made by the faculty officers, not by CoN itself.) This structure supports faculty–administration communication and coordination across the full range of faculty governance while maintaining independent self-governance of the faculty. MIT’s shared governance is further supported by numerous Special Committees of the Faculty and Standing Institute Committees. You can indicate interest in serving on these committees by responding to the annual Faculty Committee Preferences Survey, circulated in late September.
The Corporation Joint Advisory Committee on Institute-Wide Affairs (CJAC). CJAC is the only MIT Corporation committee that includes current faculty and students. Six members of the faculty serve on CJAC: the Chair of the Faculty (ex officio) and five others. This year, CJAC has met about once a month as a full committee, with project-based subcommittees meeting more frequently.
Discussions between randomly selected faculty and Corporation members. Another recommendation of the Faculty and Corporation member committee charged in March 2021 that has become standard practice is random Corporation–faculty member discussions. Around each quarterly Corporation meeting, randomly selected faculty members and Corporation members (typically 3–5 each) meet for lightly structured small-group discussions. These meetings promote mutual understanding and build relationships; if you are invited, I warmly encourage you to attend. In a similar spirit, CJAC has been piloting small-group discussions this year between students and Corporation members.
A closing word. On March 24, I attended a convening of faculty governance leaders from around the country hosted by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. At the event, American Academy President Laurie Patton (also former President of Middlebury College) offered a succinct characterization of shared governance that stuck in my mind: “regular and meaningful occasions for consequential input.” In this column, I have outlined key regular occasions for input between faculty and both the administration and the Corporation. Our work to make these occasions as meaningful and consequential as possible is continual. As always, I welcome your feedback.
