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Vol. XXXVIII No. 3November/December 2025
Reflections on the Alhambra
Some years ago, I spent part of my sabbatical in Granada. I resided in the Carmen de la Victoria, the residence for visiting professors at the University of Granada. The...
Vol. XXXVIII No. 3November/December 2025
A Primer on Decarbonizing MIT’s Campus: What Every MIT Faculty Member Should Know
When we talk about the MIT campus, we’re not only describing a collection of buildings along the Charles River. We’re describing a living laboratory – nearly 200 buildings that power,...
Vol. XXXVIII No. 3November/December 2025
Finance, Freedom, and the Faculty Post-Compact: The Case for Independence and Inclusion
MIT has adapted its resource model whenever the world shifted around it. Post-Compact, we might do so again – exploring paced expansion over austerity to secure academic freedom, widen access,...
Vol. XXXVIII No. 3November/December 2025
Faculty Governance: From Recognition to Representation
I begin this first column as Chair of the Faculty with a brief update on the work of faculty governance during the academic year’s first three months. We have, by...
Vol. XXXVIII No. 3November/December 2025
Lecturing in China
In the fall of 1987, released from teaching by a Guggenheim Fellowship and invited to China to lecture as an American feminist intellectual, I visited there for two months, lecturing...
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
Reflections on an Encounter Outside Wichita, Kansas
Around twenty years ago my wife and I took our children to visit her brother and his family in Wichita, Kansas. We were living in Medford at the time, near...
Vol. XXXVII No. 2November/December 2024
Work for This Fall and Winter
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...
Vol. XXXVII No. 3January/February 2025
Where do we go from here?
Last month, I gave the keynote address at a local high school for their annual Martin Luther King, Jr. assembly. In preparation, I was inspired to read and title my...
Vol. XXXVII No. 4March/April 2025
Havana, Cuba
As an historian of Latin America, my work long focused on Mexico, the country of my birth and the place where I spent my childhood. After completing my second monograph...