Interim Report on Committee to Review Faculty Newsletter Policies and Procedures

October 17, 2024
Susan Silbey (Committee Chair)
Amy Brand (Director and Publisher, MIT Press)
Nazli Choucri (FNL Editorial Board member)
Roger Levy (Faculty Chair-elect)
Nasser Rabbat (FNL Editorial Board member)

1. Committee Charge

At the May 15, 2024 faculty meeting, a motion passed to stand up an ad hoc committee to review and revise the policies and procedures of the FNL and clarify its relation to the Faculty as a whole.  The membership of the committee was appointed by the Faculty Chair, with representation from the Editorial Board of the FNL. In addition, the committee was asked to report at the 2024 October meeting, with recommendations voted as a resolution by the Faculty.

The committee membership was finalized in August. The committee has been meeting regularly since the semester began, reviewing prior reports and archival materials, and meeting with current and former members of the FNL editorial board and Managing Editor individually, and in small groups.

This report reviews the work thus far with plans for further inquiry and recommendations, which we hope to deliver in the spring 2025.

2. Committee Meetings and Documents Reviewed

The committee has thus far met with Managing Editor David Lewis twice, and once each with the following current or past members of the FNL Editorial Board: Yoel Fink, Sally Haslanger, Jean Jackson, Anthony Patera, Robert Redwine, Warren Seering, George Verghese, Jonathan King. We have invitations outstanding and will continue to meet with whomever agrees to speak with us.

We have reviewed the following documents: Report of the Ad Hoc Committee on the Faculty Newsletter (May 20, 2002); Faculty Newsletters Policies and Procedures (April 19. 2007; Spring 2024);  “A Brief History of the Origins of the Faculty Newsletter as it Marks its 35th Anniversary” by John A. Belcher and Jonathan King, FNL, SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2023 VOL. XXXVI NO. 1; results of annual faculty service with list of faculty checking preference to serve on the FNL Editorial Board (2008-2024); plus documents from archives 1989-2002 reviewed by Ad Hoc Committee in 2002.

3. FNL Policies and Procedures

In its published policies and procedures, revised 2024 (https://fnl.mit.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/FNL-PP-4.30.24.pdf), the MIT Faculty Newsletter (FNL) describes itself as a medium for communication among MIT faculty, and as a forum for the diversity of faculty views and voices within MIT as well as in the broader academic world. The FNL publishes articles, letters, poems, editorials and data it considers of interest to the faculty, welcoming contributions from all members of the faculty and emeritus faculty.  Contributions represent the views of the author, and not those of the FNL editorial board. Only the Editorials “reflect the view of an Editorial Sub-Committee… [or] the Board.” (The Chair of the Board constitutes an Editorial Subcommittee for each issue, in consultation with the Board.)

The Editorial Board is composed of at least 9, but not more than 12, members of the faculty, serving for staggered three-year terms, with 1/3 of the members elected each year. Prior to 2024, policies stipulated a board of 12 to 15 members. Board members may be re-elected; faculty emeritus shall be eligible to serve; and seven members shall constitute a quorum for Editorial Board meetings, which shall take place not less than four times per year, fall, winter, and spring; prior to 2024, policies stipulated three times per year.

The Nominations Committee will present not fewer than four nor more than eight candidates to the faculty-at-large. Nominees shall have the opportunity of circulating a short statement of their qualifications and/or views. The nominees corresponding to the number of open seats and receiving the most votes will be elected for three-year terms.  Candidates for election to the board shall give evidence to the Nominations Committee of the FNL of commitment to the integrity and independence of the faculty, and to the role of the FNL as an important voice of the faculty.

Prior to current policy changes (2024), the Nominations Committee consisted of four members of the Editorial Board, serving staggered two-year appointments, with two members selected each year. Currently, the policies state that “The Board at its first winter meeting shall elect from among its members a Nominations Committee consisting of at least three members, including a designated Nominations Chair, to serve two-year terms.” We will learn more about these changes and consider whether additional clarification may be helpful.  The Nominations Committee will recruit and evaluate candidates for the editorial board, “taking into account the need for representation from different Schools and sectors of the Institute, from different ranks, male and female faculty, and underrepresented groups or faculty constituencies.”

The Editorial Board shall elect a Chair, Vice-Chair and a Secretary at its spring meeting for two-year terms. The Chair will be responsible for ensuring circulation of an agenda for Board meetings. The Vice-Chair will stand in for the Chair when needed.  The Secretary will be responsible for communicating minutes and financial reports when appropriate.  Among candidates nominated, the nominee receiving a majority of ballots shall be elected. In the case of more than two nominees, and no majority, the nominee receiving the fewest votes will be eliminated, and further ballot taken, until one individual has received a majority of the ballots cast. The Secretary shall be responsible for counting of ballots. Between Board meetings the Chair, Secretary, and Chair of the current Editorial Sub-Committee will constitute an Executive Committee to deal with matters arising, with serious issues communicated electronically to the Editorial Board for rapid comment.

4. Observations and preliminary recommendations.

a. The FNL operates more informally than the published policies and procedures summarized above might suggest.  This is true for the content of the FNL and for its governance procedures. From our conversations thus far, it appears that the informality of governance and irregularity of FNL production is primarily a consequence of the unpredictable flow of material for publication, and the absence of organizational management per se to oversee scheduling, on-boarding, preparation of minutes, and solicitation of content. The current personnel are devoted entirely to newsletter production.  This is a sharp contrast to the standard practice of standing MIT committees amply supported by excellent, efficient, and experienced staff.

b. With respect to governance, the FNL Editorial Board does not seem to work with fixed calendars of meeting times, nor orientation on-boarding of new members to acquaint them with processes and work expectations, nor with respect to nominating persons for election.

With respect to filling positions on the Editorial Board, we learned last spring that faculty preferences to serve have been submitted annually to the FNL but misunderstood in the communication. Between 2008 and 2024, 204 members of the faculty indicated interest in serving on the editorial board, with the average per year increasing steadily from a half dozen volunteers between 2008-2016 to more than a dozen and, in some years, over 20 to 33 volunteering in 2019 and 2020. The FNL Nominations Committee mis-interpreted the preferences, considering for possible nomination only those saying FNL was their first choice of service. As a consequence, few faculty were considered for nomination and a sense of exclusion may have been, perhaps inadvertently, created. Following discussion at the Faculty Meeting, in May 2024, the FNL announced that it would accept self-nominations. The election was supervised by Institutional Research with XX new members and YY continuing members now serving.

Notably, the Editorial Board has often contained less than the minimal 12 members that were required by its Policies and Procedures prior to the April 2024 revisions.   We will inquire about the consequences of the 2024 open solicitation of nominations of self-nominations, full consideration of the annual survey of service preferences and the election implementation by Institutional Research.

c. The FNL does not publish fixed deadlines for submissions and publication. The publication schedule depends entirely on the rate and volume of unsolicited submissions from faculty. Although the Faculty Chair, and some committee chairs are asked to submit articles describing their work, and similar issues of interest to the faculty, and sometimes do contribute text, most of the published material is the consequence of voluntary submissions by members of the faculty with very little material secured through solicitation. Thus, the major challenge to producing the FNL is finding authors, and securing completion within constraints of actually producing the newsletter within the mechanical /material publication constraints, e.g. filling space in 4 page increments.

Almost all the labor of managing and producing the FNL is devoted to corralling authors to collect sufficient material to fill an issue. The inability to predict timing and quantity of submission is a common problem for any kind of publication, the appropriate response to which is to create a large enough pipeline, with overflow, to prevent a short fall in any one issue. We cannot overemphasize the labor involved in securing content for the newsletter on a regular basis.

Importantly, although there is considerable work, performed by the Managing Editor and sub-contracted professionals, overseeing the proof reading and formatting, the board claims that submissions are almost never rejected, nor substantively edited other than for minor issues of style, which would be consistent with the articulated mission of the FNL.  “What is published in the newsletter is essentially what the authors submit.”. As one of our interviewees described the process, “If anything is submitted that’s not libelous, you know, it will be published.” This is a subject of continuing inquiry.

d. Production and Management.

The policies and procedures do not cover the actual production of the newsletter, but primarily the governance expectations.  A single Managing Editor is responsible for both content and production.  Although anxious to contribute, Board members are given minimal introduction to the work and procedures. Opaque processes produce inconsistent participation in terms of content or oversight.  Simply, there is insufficient labor to manage a participatory organization with transparent, regularized processes.

In our continuing inquiries, we will examine the budget and current endowment for the FNL, as well as options for management support.

e. Committee Plans.

We plan to continue speaking with current and former Editorial Board members, solicit suggestions and feedback from the faculty at large through a dedicated survey, interviews, and perhaps some open meetings. At present, we are focusing on recommendations with respect to (i) more regular and systematic solicitation, collection, and production of substantive content; (ii) transparent and consistent processes for both election to the Editorial Board, and routine organizational management of the Editorial Board’s work as well as the newsletter production; (iii) resources for adequately staffed management and production.

The committee is committed to securing for MIT a faculty newsletter that remains vibrant, open, and independent of both Faculty Governance and the Institute Administration. This autonomous publication is, to our knowledge, unique in American universities. We recognize the structural tension of a committee that seeks autonomy and yet accountability to the faculty. We think this is a productive tension and, toward supporting that mission, hope to receive the widest possible input for a set of recommendations for consideration at a meeting in the spring 2025.

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