The last Institute faculty meeting included some lively discussion of two very big topics: learning and process goals for the undergraduate academic program that might be used to guide a redesign for future graduates, and implications of the current political landscape for MIT and other research universities. Both of these will no doubt concern us for months and years to come. This column focuses on two more immediate topics, which nonetheless are important enough to merit some attention.

At a faculty meeting earlier this fall, a group of colleagues requested that the faculty officers form a committee to review questions relating to the student disciplinary process at MIT, reporting out in late winter; you’ll see the related motion on the agenda for December, which we expect will also include a briefing on MIT’s research costs. When we learned of the request, I had in fact already charged a committee that has now been working for several weeks. In this column, I wanted to make available some context on this topic (updated from an enclosure circulated with the call to the November meeting); add some ideas about the use of parliamentary process in general that build on the historical cases described in my September column; and connect both of these topics with a bigger picture.

Here are some actions now in progress. In October, I charged a Student Discipline Working Group (SDWG) to review the process as it is overseen by faculty governance, and to engage with the chair, members and staff of Committee on Discipline (COD) as well as other institutional stakeholders so as to understand pressures and frictions on the process and make responsive recommendations to the chair of the faculty.[1] After the October meeting, the Working Group agreed that the questions proposed by colleagues in the October motion are a reasonable addition to its work, and they have been added to its charge.[2] Another important input for the SDWG will be recommendations from a review of the student disciplinary process conducted at the request of President Kornbluth and Chair Mark Gorenberg by the Corporation Risk and Audit Committee (RAC). The report completed by RAC is the subject of active conversation between members of that committee and the Working Group, in order to understand the challenges and opportunities it identifies; nonetheless, given faculty interest in the text of the report, we will aim to provide an annotated version in early January, with indications of work that has already been done, is in progress, or may take a different form.

COD and its supporting staff in OSCCS work within a larger constellation of offices, and thus the Working Group will necessarily engage to some extent with the Division of Student Life (DSL), the Office of the General Counsel (OGC), and the Institute Discrimination & Harassment Response Office (IDHR) as part of its task.[3] A number of faculty have indicated an interest in the whole system of complaint-handling, triage, fact-finding and other process that precedes the arrival of cases at COD. This year, the Faculty Policy Committee (FPC) has already been engaged with key student-facing staff, from Campus Police through the Office of Religious, Spiritual and Ethical Life, including staff and senior leaders who have important responsibilities in handling complaints from and about students. Responding to faculty interest, we have reached an understanding that FPC will work with those engaged in these earlier stages of student conduct processes, and with others who have relevant knowledge, to gain insight and provide input and support to the process as needed. We have already begun these conversations, and will develop a work-plan that can be further described at the December meeting; work will continue over December and January, when the committee does not meet, through the efforts of a dedicated FPC sub-committee.[4]

Faculty have requested a forum for mid-stream discussion of these two reviews by the SDWG and the FPC, as well as an opportunity for the question and answer session with the chair of COD that was curtailed by parliamentary process at the October meeting. We will try to schedule such a forum in late January or early February. In other words, we will be hard at work over the next few months – during a time I hope at least some of you will be thinking about white papers with proposals on the undergraduate curriculum. (As we heard at the November meeting, the Task Force on the Undergraduate Academic Program will issue revised goals and an RFP in early December.)

In another life from this one at MIT, one of my teachers was famous for reminding students, “keep your eyes on the distant mountains.” There is a high-level (or deep-level) connection between these topics. The Task Force has identified as one of its learning goals that our students acquire “strategies for . . . finding . . . belonging.” We want our students to feel enough sense of belonging to this community that they can thrive as students; and right now, I hear that sense of belonging has been challenged for enough of them that we should be concerned. How can they manage these challenges, and avoid adding to the challenges for others? How can we offer support, and model ways of navigating differences with humility, respect, and self-respect? These are questions that can’t be outsourced to the most thoughtfully created of committees or processes, and they are ones we should all take a part in resolving.

In September, I tried to derive some lessons about the optimal use of faculty meetings from the archives, and these relate in turn to basic principles underlying the rules of process that we use.[5] The majority of the motions that come before the faculty result from consultation, information-gathering, and discussion by committees. The result typically lacks drama, because this prior effort tends to produce carefully-drafted proposals that have anticipated, if not done away with contentious issues. History indicates that motions coming directly to the meeting without prior process can vary widely in the amount of time they require for debate, amendment and voting, as well as in the degree of approval they can command. In the past, some motions have occasioned a great deal of process only to result in a narrow majority voted at a sparsely attended meeting. At the other end of the spectrum, some motions have gained increasing amounts of support through redrafting and consultation, occasioning rich discussion and almost unanimous approval from large numbers of faculty, resulting in well-designed actions that unfolded over years to come. And there are many variations between these poles.

So what does it take to bring a motion to a successful conclusion? Only motions to change the Rules and Regulations of the Faculty are required to be held over to a second meeting for voting, but principle and precedent recommend making faculty aware of substantive business in advance, so that all concerned can inform themselves and make plans to attend the meeting where business will be done.

There should be no surprises. Faculty have frequently voted to postpone debate on a motion until a second meeting in order to ensure that all are properly informed, and these delays provide an opportunity for consultation and consensus-building. To get the ball rolling, the intent to prepare a motion might be shared in new business for consideration at a subsequent meeting, with follow-up to shape a concrete plan.

One consideration for shaping potential motions is their intended aim. If the aim is to convey a unified sentiment on the part of the faculty, consider whether unanimity is likely (sometimes it is), but also what the prospects are if the faculty are actually going to be of different minds about a statement or recommended action. If the end goal is to discover faculty views, that can take considerable process beyond the monthly meeting, extending potentially to specially appointed committees, town halls, surveys, and so on. Debating the final text of the faculty statement on free expression occupied multiple specially scheduled meetings, after preliminary forums had been held; the faculty officers also devoted significant time to thinking about process considerations. That process showed that when multiple groups were at work on alternate versions of motions or amendments, coordination outside the meeting helped smooth process in the meeting. Amendments were put in final form in time to be circulated to faculty before the meeting, another practice that helped the rest of us to understand the choices being offered.

Generally, faculty meeting agendas begin to be set by the faculty officers and the senior administration four weeks in advance, to allow for scheduling speakers and preparing presentations. With consultation two to three weeks in advance of the meeting, we can try to adjust the timing of other items on the agenda; one week’s notice allows materials to go out with the call to the meeting, though it may be harder to allocate time. On any topic that calls for rapid action, we advise reaching out directly to the person or group who would be responsible for the action, before or even instead of using parliamentary process.

As the last comment suggests, motions are not always necessary as a way to make things happen; though they can draw focus to a topic and (ideally) register and record a consensus on sentiment or action. Some objectives may not need or benefit from the process of seeking a vote from the faculty at large. Others call for a depth of information and deliberation that makes them more suited to one of the standing committees or one appointed for the purpose. All motions that generate debate have effects on the group that considers them; if the group is really divided on a topic, voting something into action by a narrow majority will have costs that should be factored into whatever subsequent actions are undertaken. Whatever the content or the outcome of a motion, careful attention to process and consultation before, during, and after our meetings respects the use of the faculty’s time, and will help those in the minority feel the outcome was fairly arrived at even if it was not their most preferred choice.

These are the faculty’s meetings; when a motion is on the floor for debate, all of us have not only a vote and a voice, but a variety of tools we can use to affect the pace and sequence of discussion, when discussion will conclude, or whether we have the discussion in a meeting at all.[6] Meetings are for learning, persuading, and enacting – when we can reach agreement, and maybe this is a moment when we are rediscovering what is required to get there. In Areopagitica (1644), his treatise on liberty of printing, the poet John Milton wrote: “Where there is much desire to learn, there of necessity will be much arguing, much writing, many opinions; for opinion in good men (sic) is but knowledge in the making.” As we engage in that making, let’s seek to join our efforts, with Milton’s recommendation of “a little generous prudence, a little forbearance of one another, and some grain of charity” as we do so. And if new proposals on the undergraduate program emerge from the Task Force, we will be glad to have recent practice in the arts of debate and consensus-seeking as we consider them.

[1] COD is supported by staff in the Office of Student Conduct and Community Standards (OSCCS). Members of the SDWG include Andrew Whittle, CEE, Chair (former chair, COD); Krishna Rajagopal, Physics (former chair of the faculty; former chair, CAP); Martha Gray, EECS (former secretary of the faculty; former member, COD); Craig Wilder, History (former chair, CUAFA; member, FPC); Raúl Radovitzky, Aero/Astro (head of house; chair, CSL; former chair, CUAFA).

[2] Questions include “how triage is conducted, best practices to avoid racial/ethnic bias, and consistency of procedures and sanctions with the educational mission of the disciplinary process at MIT”; FPC will probably address the first question, as described below.

[3] For information on case triage, see “Reviewing Reports” at http://idhr.mit.edu/policies-procedures/process-incidents-Israel-Hamas-War.

[4] Including Elly Nedivi (BCS, associate chair of the faculty), Tavneet Suri (Sloan), Amy Glasmeier (DUSP), and myself.

[5] See “Governance and How to Use It: Some MIT Case Studies,” FNL XXXVI (1), Sept./Oct. 2024.

[6] MIT Libraries now offers online access to Robert’s New Rules of Order; for quicker reference, please see the two explainers on parliamentary process posted on the faculty governance website.

Back to top