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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
Join, or Die
Image by Benjamin Nathans In this brilliant adaptation of a 1754 political cartoon and woodcut by Ben Franklin, the University of Pennsylvania historian Benjamin Nathans reimagines the problem of collective...
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...
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. 2October 2025
Democratic Campus Expression Has Been Key to US Science and Technology Leadership
Faculty and students on US college and university campuses were key to the emergence of US leadership in science and technology in the period after WWII. This includes the revolutions...