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Vol. XXXVII No. 4March/April 2025
The Red Lines We Will Not Cross . . . Will We?
We understand attacks on any university to be an attack on our values. The university is an ideal, and we will defend it everywhere. We will not compromise on the...
Vol. XXXVIII No. 1September/October 2025
The Silbey Report: Independence, Transparency, and a Path Forward for the Faculty Newsletter (FNL)
At the May 2024 Institute Faculty Meeting, a motion was passed to convene an ad hoc committee charged with reviewing and revising the policies and procedures of the MIT Faculty...
Vol. XXXVIII No. 1September/October 2025
MIT Runs on Engineers (and Worry)
A late-summer dispatch from a campus where even the downhill picks up speed It’s mid-August at MIT, and nothing is flat — not the skyline, not the sidewalks, not even...
Vol. XXXVII No. 4March/April 2025
Really?
The last issue of the FNL includes an unsigned FNL Editorial article responding to my November/December article about the Pulse and the FNL. This (unsigned) article titled “Setting the Record...
Vol. XXXVIII No. 2October 2025
Thoughts About the Compact
Dear Colleagues, I would like to share some thoughts about the compact proposed by the federal government to MIT and certain other universities although I am on sabbatical and don’t...
Vol. XXXVIII No. 2October 2025
Reconstruction, Reclamation, and the New Compromise
After the Civil War, the United States entered a brief but transformative era known as Reconstruction, an ambitious national experiment in democracy and racial inclusion. For the first time in...
Vol. XXXVIII No. 2October 2025
The Endless Frontier 2
The “compact” MIT was invited to sign, along with eight other universities, is flawed, to put it mildly. Setting aside the issue of conditioning “priority for grants” on compliance with...
Vol. XXXVIII No. 2October 2025
Academic Freedom in a Deliberative Democracy
Why is the Trump administration, and the broader anti-intellectual movement that supports him, taking aim at universities? Why are we being asked to sign the “Compact for Academic Excellence in...
Vol. XXXVIII No. 2October 2025
A Call for Solidarity: Queer Lives at MIT
Recently, my synagogue organized a gathering to support parents of LGBTQ+ kids. The youngest mom there described how her nonbinary tween had been viciously bullied at school, while the most...
Vol. XXXVIII No. 2October 2025
The Compact and the Future of MIT
The Faculty Newsletter exists to give MIT faculty a space for reflection and debate. All voices count – especially when the issue at hand touches the foundations of our scholarship...