Search results for
Search
Please note, search results include issues May/June 2020 and later.
Search prior issues
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...
Vol. XXXVIII No. 2October 2025
President Sally Kornbluth’s Response to the “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education”
Dear members of the MIT community, The U.S. Department of Education recently sent MIT and eight other institutions a proposed “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education,” along with a...
Vol. XXXVIII No. 2October 2025
An Impossible Choice: How Trump’s “Compact” Threatens Our Universities*
As a former university president — of MIT — I have been thinking about how I would act if I’d been on the receiving end of the Trump administration’s proposed...
Vol. XXXVIII No. 4January/February 2026
The Freedom of the University: A History in Eleven Quotations
“There is no drama like the drama of history,” wrote the great Trinidadian historian C.L.R. James in The Black Jacobins (1938). During the last few years, we have lived a...
Vol. XXXVIII No. 4January/February 2026
FNL Editorial Board Election Outcome
This special election was held to fill five open seats on the Faculty Newsletter editorial board after the originally scheduled May 2025 election was postponed. Eleven candidates stood for election,...
Vol. XXXVIII No. 2October 2025
The University Compact – My Take
When I first read The University Compact, I did not see a threat – I saw a mirror. A mirror held up to American higher education in general and MIT...
Vol. XXXVIII No. 5March/April 2026
Gutenberg, or How the Curriculum Broke (and Reassembled Itself)
What follows is a historical inquiry, offered in the spirit of our current discussions, into how curricula reorganize themselves when the conditions of knowledge shift. The question is how institutions...
Vol. XXXVIII No. 5March/April 2026
MIT Faculty and Lecturers 1981-2026
Source: Office of the Provost/Institutional Research...