Many people talk about Community at
MIT, but too often in a vaguely handwaving way, asserting its crucial role
along with Research and Education, but usually at such an abstract level that
it’s difficult to connect the overarching vision with tangible actions (see for
example “The Task Force on Student Life and Learning” http://web.mit.edu/committees/sll/tf4.html).
The bottom line is that far too many
students end up graduating from MIT having met only a small fraction of their
peers. Compounding the problem, social
and communication skills are still largely ignored in the MIT curriculum. And yet we know from personal experience and
substantial anecdotal evidence how often people end up forming professional
relationships with those they have worked with and trust – i.e. very often
people they meet at school. These folks
are potential colleagues, collaborators on projects, and co-founders of
companies, indeed, they are among the most highly selected and interesting
people on earth. And yet the pressures
and culture of the Institute can discourage all but minimal interaction with
only a few fellow students.
There is thus a huge social
opportunity cost to not meeting and interacting effectively with more peers
while at MIT. Since time and attention
are the scarce resource, we need better means to connect folks in a useful and
self-perpetuating way.
Perhaps it’s best to survey the
evidence that this is indeed a real problem.
Too often we hear “Harvard connects people better” or “the West Coast
schmoozes more.” While anecdotal, these
are indicators of a culture-gap. But is
it important? One indicator: The “MIT: Impact of Innovation” study
published by BankBoston, http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/founders
documents several examples of MIT-related companies whose founders met while at
MIT: Analog Devices, DEC, Teradyne,
Bose, and more recently, Firefly, net.Genesis, WebLine, Akamai, to name a few. How many more companies could have been founded had the right people met one another while
at MIT? How about hard data? The MIT Planning Office, http://web.mit.edu/planning/ captures
alumni satisfaction ratings which statistically and anecdotally show MIT alums
think the Institute most neglected the social, communication, and connection
side of their student development. This
alum opinion rings true to us current students; we see at least these problems:
(1)
Institute-Wide – Students from different Schools,
e.g. Science and Engineering, don’t interact much, especially on the grad
level, unless drawn together by the accident of campus housing (i.e. a
scandalously small fraction of grad students).
(2)
School-Level – Contrary to recruitment brochure
propaganda, MIT Sloan MBA students remain largely disconnected from the
activities and events of the rest of MIT graduate students, with the notable
exception of participants in the campus-wide, student-run MIT $50K
Entrepreneurship Competition, http://50k.mit.edu,
as illustrated by alum company Akamai, http://www.akamai.com,
the joint initiative of MBA student Seelig, CS PhD student Lewin, and Prof
Leighton.
(3)
Department and Lab Level – Even students within departments
and lab groups all too often fail to interact in any substantive way
(substantive = reasonably in-depth exchange of research agendas or key
social/professional interests).
What then are some tangible ways in
which we can build Community at MIT?
Most discussion centers around social gatherings, improved physical
environment, such as housing and activity space, and the social lubricant of
drink and dining. These make sense, and
various Institute offices (e.g. the Campus Activities Complex), including
students from the MIT GSC http://gsc.mit.edu/
and the MIT Sloan Senate http://web.mit.edu/sloansenate/,
and many others, are taking initiative, concentrating on activities using
existing physical plant, e.g.:
(1)
All-School Graduate Orientation – Keynote speech by Professor Amar
Bose and lunch in Kresge attended by over 800 new grad students in September
1999, including half the MIT Sloan MBAs.
We will boost this in September 2000.
(2)
Millennium Ball – A wildly successful first-ever
January 2000 black tie affair drawing some 2,000 undergrad and grad students,
faculty, and staff; see the pictures in Tech Talk, http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/tt/2000/feb02/ball.html
(3)
GSC Museum Social – A record 300 students at the MIT
Museum February 2000 Friday eve Jazz & Drinks social.
(4)
Regular Gatherings at the MIT Muddy
Charles Pub – A
graduate student pub in Walker Memorial serves as a wonderful gathering place
for department and lab socials, doctoral completion parties, and even
gatherings of student entrepreneurs, as documented in the Wall Street Journal, http://50k.mit.edu/press/1999/19990816_wsj.html
Furthermore, there are several
initiatives in planning stages or emerging, including:
(1)
All-MIT Graduate Student Wine &
Cheese Social – An
elegant but informal Walker Memorial affair in March 2000 for 400 grad students
from all around the Institute, including MIT Sloan. We hope this event will kick-off a more substantial series of
cross-School gatherings.
(2)
Connecting Student Leaders – We hope the informal CJAC dinner
with students will prototype what may become a gathering of MIT’s student
leadership, namely, those undergrad and grad students leading substantive,
professionally oriented clubs and activities ranging from honor societies to
special interest groups. The Alumni
Association knows how often student leaders end up as Institute alum
leadership. Let’s reinforce this
tendency.
(3)
Better Cross-Connectivity Between
Faculty –
Engineering Dean Magnanti is drawing together faculty from different
departments who share similar research themes.
In the past, departmental boundaries too often dissuaded regular
gatherings between the very people who most ought to cooperate for grants,
infrastructure, and recruiting.
(4)
Professional Student Connections
Across Lab and Department Boundaries – Several students and alums are proposing more informal
professional collaboration across Institute boundaries, for example, building
communities of technical and business interest in the domains of MEMS,
bioinformatics, neurotechnology, nanotechnology, wearable computers, and quantum
computing, among others. Each of these
research themes is pursued in some 3 to 10 different departments, and yet the
students scarcely know one another.
Much more can and must be done. Let’s have some creative brainstorming about
where the real leverage is in improving Community at MIT. Is it improved Physical Plant, e.g. a
roofdeck pub on the new Porter Building?
Or Faculty attitude, e.g. encouraging cross-lab socials? Or organizational infrastructure? One possibility: Let’s have one or a few full-time, reasonably well-paid MIT
Innovation Fellows, recent alums who care enough to spend a year at MIT in a
post-graduation role organizing or catalyzing professionally relevant
gatherings of students, faculty, staff, and select alums, and generally acting
in an Institute-wide manner to build Community in a targeted way. This kind of high-quality connection-making
pays off: it can lead to immediate
benefits for the individuals involved and to longer-term gains for MIT as the
fruits of such connections feed back to the Institute, both intangibly as
reputation, and financially as philanthropic investment.