Letters
The Real Price of Pre-Emptive Budget Cuts
To the FNL Editorial Board:
The reckless actions of a malign US government are causing irreversible damage – in this country and abroad – to so much that is “great” about America, including to its world-leading universities. One aspect of this damage is what MIT President Emeritus Reif warns of this month in his Foreign Affairs article titled “America’s Coming Brain Drain.”
The MIT administration, like those at essentially all peer US universities, has initiated pre-emptive budget cuts across the board in anticipation of major changes to long-established funding models. Thank you for clearly articulating – in your cautionary ‘Eyes on the Price’ editorial in the most recent (March/April 2025) issue of the Faculty Newsletter – the very real dangers of making these cuts here without broad consideration for preserving MIT values.
Cuts to an MIT program can have consequences well beyond the bottom line of whatever unit at MIT administers the program. Consider the recently announced closure of the MIT Spouses and Partners Connect (MS&PC) program and the related Language Conversation Exchange, giving two weeks’ notice to the two staff members who have devoted so much of their MIT careers (in one case 28 years) to developing and nurturing this program. MS&PC has its roots in the “MIT Wives’ Group” formed in MIT Medical in 1972, and adopted its current name in 2000, then in 2005 joined the array of Community Wellness programs administered by MIT Health.
It takes the support of a “village” for an individual at MIT – whether student, postdoc, faculty or staff member – to be successful and contribute their best. The key member of the village for many individuals is the spouse or partner, who in turn needs support and community to thrive, and indeed often just to cope. This is especially the case for those coming from abroad to an unfamiliar country and culture, and for those with young children – and this is all the more true in the current climate for international students, scholars and faculty in the US.
MS&PC (and its predecessor MIT Wives’ Group) has been a lifeline for so many people over its 53-year history. I first became aware of the program through the wife of my first PhD student. They had three children by the time he graduated in 1981 and the family returned to Spain, but she has stayed in touch with the program, and participated in activities on subsequent sabbaticals her husband has spent at MIT. Her involvement is far from unique. As word of the program’s closure has spread rapidly around the globe among alumni of the program, testimonials from individuals have poured in (over 145 in just a couple of days) attesting to the vital role the program and its administrators played in seeing them through their MIT years – and lamenting the program’s termination.
I hope the MIT administration will keep its eyes on what’s precious and special to MIT and reflects the best of its values – and find a way to keep MS&PC and its staff here for us, even if under a different organizational structure.
George Verghese
Henry Ellis Warren (1894) Professor of Electrical
and Biomedical Engineering (post-tenure) & MacVicar Fellow
Affirmative Action Revisited
To The Faculty Newsletter:
The country has turned against DEI. A recent article by Ian Hutchinson in the Newsletter echoes this development. The Supreme Court has outlawed this form of affirmative action as it was practiced by universities and colleges in their admission procedures.
The purpose of my note is to speak to how affirmative action might be properly designed to avoid reverse discrimination. The emphasis needs to be on what I would call active recruitment. Hiring standards must be maintained and the most qualified hired. At the same time efforts are made to increase the flow of minorities and women in the applicant pool. In some cases, this may require training programs since it may be necessary to help targeted groups improve their qualifications. At the same time, the hiring decision must go to the most qualified. If this is not done, then those who are selected will not be regarded highly and there may be feelings of imposter syndrome on the part of those selected.
Goals and timetables are very appropriate for gauging progress in achieving an employment profile that represents the overall population.
Affirmative action as a concept has been with us since President Kennedy issued an executive order. Decades of experimentation with the objective of increasing participation of underrepresented minorities and women have given us the guidelines for utilizing the talents of underrepresented groups and avoiding reverse discrimination.
Bob McKersie
Professor Emeritus
Sloan School
