Published by the MIT News Office at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Mass.
Published by the MIT News Office at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, Cambridge, Mass.
The decade is ending and so, too, is the Gray administration nearing its
close.
Depending on mindset, the 1980s at MIT might be called the Decade of
Women, in recognition of the increasing influence of women on the campus
in all realms.
Or perhaps the Decade of the Life Sciences, epitomized by burgeoning
research in the Department of Biology, the opening of the Whitehead
Institute for Biomedical Research and the establishment of the new
Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences.
Or perhaps the Decade of Space, for the new theories of cosmology that
blossomed and the sharper focus on virtually the entire solar system
wrought in part by investigators in many MIT laboratories.
Or perhaps the Decade of Personal Computing, during which desktop
computers became an omnipresent feature of campus life.
Or the Decade of the Undergraduate, in which a series of reforms were
initiated in the Institute's undergraduate education program.
Or even the Decade of the Arts, as a tribute to the cultural activities
that took their place alongside technology and science in the life of
the university.
But whatever the emphasis, the 1980s were first and foremost the Gray
Decade, the 10 years of the presidency of Paul E. Gray, who is leaving
office to become chairman of the Corporation.
This article relates some of the highlights of the past 10 years. It
isn't meant to be all-inclusive, and perhaps individuals at MIT will
have special recollections that aren't included here.
THE NUMBERS
MIT is a place that likes to measure things by the numbers, but a
decade's events don't readily lend themselves to quantitative analysis.
Nevertheless, some numerical comparisons can be made between September
1980 when Dr. Gray was inaugurated, and today. Without attempting to
interpret them or gauge their significance, here are some "then and now"
figures:
* The operating budget in fiscal year 1980 was $418 million; for fiscal
1990 it topped $1 billion ($1.07 billion) for the first time.
* MIT's endowment on June 30, 1980, was approximately $421.25 million;
the most recent figure available, for June 30, 1989, was approximately
$1.4 billion.
* Gifts to MIT totalled $33.8 million in fiscal year 1980; they exceeded
$100 million ($103.2 million) for the first time in fiscal year 1990.
* Tuition 10 years ago was $5,300; it is $15,600 this year.
* Average financial aid for a needy undergraduate student in 1979-80,
with total school costs (tuition, room and board) of $7,985, was $5,428;
this past year, with school costs of $19,335, it was $14,500 and will be
about $15,700 in the current year. The amount of unrestricted funds MIT
allocated to undergraduate financial aid went from $637,000 to
$9,553,000 in the ten-year period and will exceed $11 million this year.
* Total campus research volume for fiscal 1980 was $163,121,000; for
fiscal 1990 it was $310,660,000. .
There are, of course, other specific checkpoints, and some will be
included elsewhere in this article.
Perhaps the most telling, in terms of the changing nature of the
undergraduate population, has been the breakthrough in attracting larger
numbers of women to the university.
In 1980, women made up just 19.5 percent of freshmen, but a milestone
year was 1984, when the incoming class included more than 300 women for
the first time. The actual number was 309, among 1,069 freshman, or
nearly 29 percent of the class. But improvement was still to come, and
by 1986 women made up 38 percent of the freshman class. That proved to
be a peak for the decade, but incoming classes now regularly include at
least one-third women; this year the figure was 33 percent, with women
making up 34 percent of all undergraduates.
The record for underrepresented minorities (African Americans, Hispanics
and Native Americans) during the decade also showed some progress as the
result of intensive recruiting efforts. The number went from 10.9
percent of the freshman class in 1980 (116 out of 1,060) to 16 percent
this past school year (168 out of 1,047). The percentage of all
undergraduates went from 8 percent in 1980 (364 out of 4,517) to 14.4
percent this year (619 out of 4,307).
The university did not make the progress it had hoped for in attracting
women and underrepresented minorities to the faculty. At a faculty
meeting in September, 1987, President Gray himself said that the record
was "not satisfactory." He noted that there were 21 underrepresented
minorities, including 19 African Americans, in 1980, and by March, 1987,
this figure had shrunk to 17 underrepresented minorities, including 14
African Americans. Last year, in a faculty of 969, there were 26
underrepresented minorities (2.6 percent), including 12 African
Americans (1.2 percent).
The situation for women faculty, he said, was more heartening, but again
not satisfactory. The number of women faculty had increased from 16 in
1970 to 71 in 1980 to 87 in the spring of 1987, he reported. Last year,
women faculty numbered 96, or about 10 percent of the total.
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY IN THE EIGHTIES
Numbers certainly do not tell the whole story of the Gray Decade.
For example, surveys taken during the decade showed that MIT maintained
its position of leadership in science and engineering, both in regard to
teaching and research. All the specific accomplishments in these fields
are too numerous to list, but Eugene F. Mallove, the News Office's
science writer, recalls some of the highlights in the 1980s:
MIT literally went into space as researchers trained at the Institute
took to orbit aboard the new US fleet of space shuttles, which began
their flights in 1981. Dr. Byron Lichtenberg of the Department of
Aeronautics and Astronautics flew aboard the first shuttle-launched
Spacelab mission in 1983, accomplishing pioneering research in space
physiology. A former MIT Professor, Dr. William Lenoir '61, went into
space in 1982.
Astronaut Dr. Ronald McNair '76 was killed in the space shuttle
Challenger accident on January 28, 1986, following his successful flight
in 1984. Dr. Franklin Chang-Diaz '77, affiliated with the MIT Plasma
Fusion Center, made two flights aboard space shuttles in 1986 and 1989.
Terry J. Hart '69 flew in 1984. Space veteran Captain Rick Hauck '66
flew in 1983 and 1984, and in 1989 commanded the first shuttle mission
after the Challenger accident.
Professor Eugene E. Covert of the Department of Aeronautics and
Astronautics served on the team of presidentially appointed
investigators of the Challenger accident that helped get the shuttles
flying once again.
MIT space plasma science instruments aboard Voyager's 1 and 2, having
done their duty in flights by Jupiter in the late 1970s, continued
measuring the interplanetary medium and made observations near the giant
outer planets Saturn (1980), Uranus (1986), and Neptune (1989). The two
Voyagers are now outward bound for the stars, carrying with them the
furthest ranging pieces of MIT equipment. They will be last heard from
in the 2020s, but they will cruise interstellar space forever.
The decade in space began with MIT Center for Space Research
investigators completing the analysis of radar data from the 1978
Pioneer-Venus mission, through which the topography of that cloud-
shrouded planet was revealed. The decade ended with the May 1989 launch
of the radar-mapping Magellan spacecraft that arrived at Venus in
August. In a planned year-long mission, it will make even higher
resolution and more comprehensive maps of that world. MIT researchers
led by Professor Gordon H. Pettengill were in large measure responsible
for the design and integration of the superb radar technology used on
these missions.
Knowledge of the microcosm got a boost when the Large Electron Positron
Collider (LEP) began operating in 1989 at CERN. MIT Professor and Nobel
laureate Samuel C.C. Ting leads an international team of physicists and
engineers that has constructed at LEP a huge detector system, known as
L3, that is now probing the fundamental constituents of matter in search
of an entity, the Higgs boson, that is thought to give all elementary
particles their distinctive masses.
In the 1980s, the evolution of the larger universe became ever more tied
to the workings of the subatomic realm. Physicists at MIT and around the
world built on the pioneering inflationary theory of Professor Alan
Guth, the physical model that may explain the origin of all matter and
energy--how the Big Bang got started. Physicists at MIT tinkered with
supercomputer simulations of the evolving cosmos, and speculated on
theories of supersymmetry, superstring particles, and vast "defects" in
space-time called cosmic strings.
MIT radioastronomers Professors Bernard Burke and Jacqueline Hewitt made
scientific headlines with their discovery of the effects of an unusual
gravitational lens in space, a curious structure called an "Einstein
Ring." Observing the planet Pluto occult a star in 1988, Professor James
Elliot and his colleagues determined that the planet really does have an
atmosphere.
Through the 1980s, after the energy crises of the 1970s, there was great
activity in many MIT laboratories concerning new kinds of energy
technology--from new processes that use fossil fuels more efficiently and
cleanly to ones that dispense with them altogether, such as a new
generation of safer nuclear reactors.
Research forged ahead at the MIT Plasma Fusion Center (PFC), as new
generations of Alcator tokamak experimental fusion devices established
new milestones in fusion power development.
When a flurry of international activity was triggered by two "cold
fusion" announcements from Utah, MIT researchers were in the forefront
of investigating the possible new phenomenon. A team at the PFC
ascertained that few if any neutrons were coming out of "cold fusion"
cells. Peter Hagelstein '76, noted laser researcher at the Research
Laboratory of Electronics, conceived a theory of "coherent fusion" that
postulated new kinds of nuclear reactions that might be occurring.
In a remarkably successful project that called on the talents of
faculty, alumni and students, Daedalus made its spectacular historic
72.5-mile human-powered flight over the Aegean Sea in 1988, realizing
through engineering genius the vision of an ancient myth. Earlier MIT's
Monarch had won the $30,000 Kremer prize for the fastest human-powered
flight in 1984, averaging 21.5 miles per hour.
In 1986 and 1987, the startling new phenomenon of high-temperature
("high-Tc") superconductivity burst onto the world scene. MIT
physicists, chemists and materials scientists and engineers were soon to
be involved in a massive effort to understand the puzzling new
phenonemon that allowed superconductivity to occur at economical liquid
nitrogen temperatures and above, rather than at the much lower
temperatures that were possible earlier.
There was both promise and disappointment, as technologists struggled to
find ways to apply high-Tc superconductivity to practical devices.
Toward that end, MIT joined with other major research institutions and
formed a Consortium for Superconducting Electronics.
The world of biology blossomed in so many directions that it was
difficult to keep pace with the quickening pace of unraveling the
deepest mysteries of life. These discoveries were boosted in no small
way with the opening of the MIT-affiliated Whitehead Institute for
Biomedical Research.
There were major advances at MIT in fundamental molecular biology: new
discoveries about cancer through the finding of oncogenes; major work in
virology; pioneering findings in immunology (Professor Susumu Tonegawa
won the 1987 Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine for his fundamental
contributions); the discovery by Professor Paul Schimmel and Dr. Ya Ming
Hou of something very intriguing about transfer-RNA, a finding that was
hailed by a Nobel laureate outside MIT as a "second genetic code."
MIT biologists made new advances in understanding embryological
development. The brain itself came under intense scrutiny with new
theories of cognition as well as interest in the concept of neural
networks. The founding of the Department of Brain and Cognitive Science
embodied this new biological focus.
MITÕs federally-sponsored Lincoln Laboratory, always in the forefront in
pursuing and evaluating technology for national defense, continued in
that role as a center for research and development in advanced
electronics. The laboratory, for example, supported studies related to
the controversial Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). Lincoln also did
pioneering work in a number of areas with important civilian
applications. These advances included a new generation of weather radar
systems for the detection of ÒmicroburstÓ meteorological phenomena, to
improve airport safety, and an air-collision avoidance system called
TCAS.
Concern about the global environment emerged with new findingsÑboth
positive and negativeÑabout the threat of global warming due to
greenhouse gases. The "ozone hole" over Antarctica was discovered in the
1980s and was tied to human production of the chlorofluorocarbon
chemical. At the end of the decade, MIT began a new interdisciplinary
initiative in research and education, the Center for Global Change
Science, which linked programs in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric,
and Planetary Sciences with those in Civil Engineering and Chemistry. In
March of 1990, the MIT Energy Laboratory sponsored a conference on
ÒEnergy and the Environment in the 21st Century,Ó which drew 500
registrants and hundreds of others.
ARTS IN THE EIGHTIES
A major story at MIT during the decade was the emergence of the arts as
a dominant force on a campus resolved to fully integrate humanistic
concerns in the education of its undergraduates, not only through course
offerings but also by making MIT an environment rich in artistic
offerings.
China Altman, director of communication for the Office of the Arts,
describes the progress made in the latter regard:
In September, 1989, Professor Ellen T. Harris arrived to take up the
newly created position of Associate Provost for the Arts, the crowning
development for a decade when arts activities flourished to such an
extent that MIT began a re-assessment of the role of the arts in an MIT
education. Harris is a professor of music, a distinguished scholar, an
arts administrator, and a soprano soloist. As defined in November, 1987,
by the Joskow Arts Review Committee, appointed in 1986 to survey MIT
arts, the new associate provost's mission is to "take broad
responsibility as an advocate, leader and coordinator of creative arts
at MIT."
Professor Harris immediately established a Creative Arts Council,
modeled on the Academic Council, and an Office of the Arts. The latter
is being organized in its 1989-90 start-up year as a headquarters for
arts coordination and public relations as well as liaison with the
Council for the Arts and management of its programs.
As one measure of MIT arts evolution in the 1980s, an informal tally
showed 160 on-campus arts events for the 1981-82 academic year while a
1988-89 count numbered 251.
In addition to those mentioned above here are some other noteworthy
highlights:
1984: The MIT Museum was accredited as a museum; the Wiesner Student Art
Gallery opened in the Stratton Center. 1985: The Wiesner Building, named
in honor of Jerome B.Wiesner and Laya W. Wiesner, opened as a center of
arts and media technology; the List Visual Arts Center was established
in the Wiesner Building to relocate and expand the Hayden Gallery,
adding two new galleries; the Media Lab began its operations in the same
building. 1986: Todd Siler became the first visual artist awarded an MIT
PhD. 1987: Music and Theater Arts were formally linked; the Elizabeth
Parks Killian Hall, a small concert space, opened in the Hayden Memorial
Library Building; Professor of Music John Harbison awarded Pulitizer
Prize; The Arts Page began in Tech Talk.
1988: Advanced Music Performance program began to provide scholarship
study with professional musicians for the highest ranking music
students; Music & Cognition Group established in Media Lab. 1989: The
Visual Arts Program was established to renew commitment to instruction
in the visual arts in the School of Architecture; faculty and classes
increased in theater arts making it possible to obtain an undergraduate
minor in that subject; six dancers from the professional dance company
of MIT Dance Workshop director Beth Soll were named artists-in-
residence; construction began on a 17,500-square-foot addition to the
Rotch Architecture Library (which is dedicated to architecture, art, and
planning) to allow for new acquisitions, to expand the library's
abilities to display its resources, and to alleviate overcrowding.
PUBLIC POLICY
President Gray himself made news during the decade by taking positions
on a number of public policy issues. Most notably, he decried scientific
illiteracy and called for more effective teaching of science and
mathematics in public schools; he promoted ties between universities and
industry; he proposed ways for American industry to become more
productive and thus more competitive; and he championed nuclear power as
an energy source through reliance on a new generation of fail-safe power
plants.
And, with an eye on the next decade and even the next century, he
launched MIT's "Campaign for the future," so successfully that the five-
year campaign's $550 million goal was raised to $700 million. He also
instituted the first comprehensive review of the MIT undergraduate
program in 25 years, and he spoke out as a strong advocate of diversity
and pluralism in the MIT community--in race and sex, in social
backgrounds, and in intellectual commitments.
In a summary of the Gray presidential years in MIT Spectrum, John I.
Mattill, editor emeritus of Technology Review, said everyone seemed to
agree that three "powerfully developed attributes" were most
representative of the qualities and skills Dr. Gray brought to MIT's
"oval office"--his manifest integrity, his deep knowledge of MIT and his
administrative and budgetary skills.
And what did all this produce?
"Though there have been the inevitable inclement moments," Mr. Mattill
wrote, "the sun has shone on MIT and its president during the 1980s."
The New England Association of Schools & Colleges, which in April, 1990,
renewed MITs accreditation following its comprehensive decennial
evaluation, agreed. In its letter to President Gray, the association
wrote: "Finally, we wish in particular to commend the extraordinary
leadership you have provided the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The sensitivity, energy, and competence with which you have directed the
institution's affairs, and your commitment to confront boldly and at
times courageously the many difficult challenges facing the institution
during your tenure have resulted in an indelibly and profoundly stronger
MIT."
UNDERGRADUATE EDUCATION
A major theme of the Gray years was undergraduate education or, more
specifically, undergraduate renewal.
Midway through his presidency, Dr. Gray initiated the first
comprehensive review of undergraduate education at MIT in 25 years. As
part of the process, the provost, Professor John M. Deutch, reorganized
his office to include an associate provost for educational policy and
programs (Professor Samuel Jay Keyser) and a dean for undergraduate
education (Professor Margaret L.A. MacVicar).
The process of reformulating the undergraduate program--in both its
curricular and co-curricular dimensions--was expected to take at least 10
years. And by the time Dr. Gray was preparing to leave office, progress
had been made in several areas, particularly in strengthening the
humanities, arts and social science core requirements.
The process of examining the undergraduate educational experience was
seen as a vehicle for renewing and refining an overall sense of
institutional mission, in order to serve the needs of graduates who will
spend almost all of their adult lives in the 21st century. It is also a
vehicle, Dr. Gray said, for recognizing and abetting a shift of MIT's
cultural center, which traditionally has been virtually coincident with
engineering, to one that more fully takes into account the social,
economic and political contexts in which technology is developed and
deployed.
"Many of us believe," Dr. Gray wrote in The Chronicle of Higher
Education, "that a richer educational environment will be required for
the undergraduates who will come into their prime early in the new
millennium. The growing impact of science and technology on public
affairs and human well-being will require that the people who shape or
influence these fields appreciate the diversity and complexity of
societies and human values and have the ability to understand and
respect the economic, political, social and environmental issues
associated with technological developments and applications of science."
THE YEARS IN REVIEW
Finally, any summing up of the decade requires a look at some of the
major developments and events that shaped the 1980s at MIT, some of them
important enough to have made news off the campus and others primarily
of importance to the 18,000-member MIT community (students, faculty and
staff).
Here then, at the risk of leaving out certain highlights, is an academic
year-by-year recapitulation of life at MIT in the Gray Decade.
1980-81
Paul Gray became the Institute's 14th president in an inaugural ceremony
in Killian Court. . . A formal statement of MIT policy barring
harassment was adopted by the Academic Council. . . The Sloan School of
Management and the School of Engineering inaugurated the nation's first
advanced program focusing on the management of technology. . . An
affirmative action plan was inaugurated for employment of the
handicapped. . . MIT undertook for the Department of Energy a major
study of the policy issues involved in the energy situationÑdescribed as
"the single most important economic and security challenge facing the
world and nation today.". . . The MIT Press bookstore opened. . . Vice
President Walter F. Mondale, in a speech at MIT, pledged his
administration's support for the nation's research universities and
their efforts to help modernize declining American industries. . .
1981-82
Agreement was reached to establish the Whitehead Institute for
Biomedical Research as an organization affiliated with MIT, with Dr.
David Baltimore as its director. . . A new dormitory was opened at 500
Memorial Drive. . . Vice President George Bush, in a speech to MIT's
Sustaining Fellows that triggered a demonstration, defended nuclear
modernization of NATO forces and said the real threat of nuclear war was
posed by the Soviet Union, not the United States. . . MIT opened its new
Athletics Center. . . Faculty and staff moved into the new Whitaker
College of Health Sciences, Technology, and Management. . . The faculty
adopted a Writing Requirement for undergraduates beginning with the
class entering in 1983. . . Chairman and former president Howard W.
Johnson announced he would retire at the end of the 1982-83 academic
year. . . Katharine Graham, chairman and chief executive officer of The
Washington Post Company, was the first outside commencement speaker
since 1963.
1982-83
Faced with several years of deficits, the Institute announced plans to
reduce operating expenses by $11 million over the next three years. . .
In his annual report, President Gray said the nation's industrial
strength and military security would be weakened if America's research
universities were forced to withdraw from areas of basic science because
of federal insistence on secrecy. . . In what some called the greatest
college prank of all time, MIT fraternity members planted a remote-
controlled device in Harvard Stadium that deployed and inflated a
weather balloon with MIT markings during the Harvard-Yale football game.
. . Dr. David S. Saxon, noted physicist and educator and an MIT alumnus,
was elected to become Corporation chairman. . . President Gray told the
faculty the major issues facing the Institute were the mission and
character of undergraduate education, the ultimate size and scale of
MIT's operations, the scope and range of its intellectual enterprise and
the cost of doing research. . . MIT announced a major educational
experiment linking computers to teaching, called Project Athena, to be
funded by MIT, the Digital Equipment Corporation and the IBM
Corporation. . . Eight writers and broadcasters were selected for the
first Vannevar Bush Fellowships in technology and science journalism
(now known as the Knight Science Journalism Fellowships). . . MIT
dedicated its first residence for women graduate students--the former
infirmary building--in the name of Ida Flansburgh Green. . . Former West
German chancellor Helmut Schmidt told graduates the western allies must
develop "a common grand strategy" for dealing with the Soviet Union that
does not over-emphasize military deterrence and defense.
1983-84
MIT dedicated the five-story EG&G Education Center. . . The Media
Laboratory--emphasizing the invention and creative use of new media in
the fields of education, entertainment, communications, design and the
arts--was established. . . For the first time in its long association
with the space program, MIT had a man in orbit aboard Spacelab 1 as a
"payload specialist," Dr. Byron K. Lichtenberg of the Center for Space
Research. . . This time it was Caltech pranksters, as the Rose Bowl
scoreboard was sabotaged with a microprocessor to read Caltech 38, MIT
9. . . The second space shuttle flight in a row carried an MIT alumnus
aloft, Dr. Ronald E. McNair. . . Five MIT faculty members were among 200
engineers and scientists to receive the nation's first President Young
Investigator Awards. . . President Gray urged Congress to distinguish
between basic research and industrial products in applying controls on
exports. . . In another matter, he joined with the presidents of five
other universities urging Konstantin Chernenko, the Soviet leader, to
allow Andrei Sakharov to leave Russia. . . Shirley Chisholm, a former
Congresswomen and the first African-American woman ever elected to
Congress, was the commencement speaker. . . Another woman of note, Mary
Frances Wagley of Baltimore, a 1947 graduate of MIT and the first woman
to serve as a member of the Corporation, became the first woman
president of the MIT Alumni Association. . .
1984-85
MIT placed controversial restraints on the showing of sexually explicit
or pornographic films on campus. . . Provost Francis E. Low announced he
would leave the post at the end of the academic year. . . Professor
Emeritus Claude E. Shannon won a Kyoto Prize for his pioneering work in
information theory. . . The Whitehead Institute was dedicated in a week
of ceremonies. . . The MIT Museum received official accreditation from
the American Association of Museums. . . Michael C. Behnke was appointed
director of admissions. . . Professor John M. Deutch was named as the
next provost. . . The Albert and Vera List Visual Arts Center was
dedicated. . . MIT and Harvard signed an agreement to extend and expand
the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture with an additional grant
of $9 million over 10 years. . . The Provost-designate announced plans
to reorganize the office in order to implement a major new initiative
for the improvement of undergraduate education at the Institute. . . The
National Science Foundation said it would give MIT up to $20 million
over five years for the establishment of a center focusing on
biotechnology process engineering. . . MIT faculty members joined in the
national debate over the Strategic Defense Initiative. . . The faculty
chairman, Arthur C. Smith, responding to concerns expressed by faculty
and students, appointed a committee to study military influences on MIT
education. . . MIT announced that the new Arts and Media Technology
Building would be named for former President Jerome B. Wiesner and his
wife, Laya. . . Chrysler Chairman Lee A. Iacocca, the commencement
speaker, told graduates to "get mad" about America's national debt and
trade deficit.
1985-86
MIT celebrated the dedication of the Wiesner Building. . . The
Smithsonian Institution and MIT announced a study into the feasibility
of flying a human-powered aircraft from Crete to the Greek mainland. . .
The Sloan School embarked on a "Management in the 1990s" program to
examine the impact of information technology on organizations and
management practice. . . Constantine B. Simonides was elected secretary
and ex officio member of the MIT Corporation in addition to his
responsibilities as vice president. . . Professor Franco Modigliani won
the Nobel Prize in Economics. . . Dr. Eric S. Chivian, an MIT staff
psychiatrist, was invited to the presentation of the Nobel Peace Prize
to the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, of
which he was a founder. . . Building 39, renovated to become a major
focus of MIT's microsystems program, was named for Gordon Stanley Brown,
former head of the Department of Electrical Engineering and former dean
of the School of Engineering. . . Professor Sheila E. Widnall was chosen
to become president of the American Association for the Advancement of
Science. . . Still another alumnus, Dr. Franklin R. Chang-Diaz (PhD
'77), went into space aboard the shuttle Columbia. . . Less than a month
later, Ronald McNair (PhD '76) was one of seven killed when the Space
Shuttle Challenger exploded. . . MIT began celebrating its
quasquicentennial, or 125th anniversary. . . The MIT administration
removed a shanty town put up two weeks earlier on Kresge Plaza by
members of the MIT Coalition Against Apartheid. . . President Gray
announced at commencement that the building housing the MIT Center for
Space Research would be named for the late astronaut, Ronald McNair. . .
William R. Hewlett, vice chairman of the board of Hewlett-Packard Co.,
was the commencement speaker.
1986-87
A groundbreaking marked the beginning of Phase I of University Park on
Massachusetts Avenue, on land leased from MIT by a private developer,
Forest City Development. . . President Gray explained the trusteesÕ
position against the divestiture of Institute funds in companies that do
business in South Africa. . . The Minority Student Issues Group
presented its report on "The Racial Climate on the MIT Campus" following
a two-year study. . . MIT began a unique effort to explore how
universities can help overcome the nation's declining productivity of
industry through a newly appointed Commission on Industrial Productivity
made up of 15 leading faculty members. . . President Gray was one of 24
leaders of US business, labor and academia named to a national Council
on Competitiveness. . . Former President Jerome B. Wiesner returned from
the Soviet Union saying he was convinced of Mikhail Gorbachev's
sincerity in espousing a more open and democratic society. . . MIT
announced that smoking would be prohibited in all academic and service
buildings in the Institute. . . The Knight Foundation of Akron, Ohio,
committed $3 million for long-term continuance of MIT's mid-career
fellowships for technology and science journalists. . . As part of the
first intensive review of the undergraduate program in 25 years, the
faculty gave its approval to curriculum changes that strengthened the
humanities, arts and social science core requirement for graduation and
established a minor in those areas. . . Kenneth H. Olsen, an MIT
graduate who founded Digital Equipment Corporation, talked of the need
for integrity, responsibility and honesty in professional endeavors in
his commencement address. . .
1987-88
MIT's Charles S. Draper, pioneer in inertial guidance and founder of the
laboratory carrying his name, died at 85. . . MIT removed people from a
"tent city" for the homeless set up several weeks earlier on its
property near Central Square on the former Simplex company site. . .
Institute Professor Emeritus Morris Cohen won a Kyoto Prize for
contributions to the understanding of the structure of matter. . . The
Federal Aviation Administration presented special awards to Lincoln
Laboratory and several of its engineers for their contributions to the
development of an aircraft collision avoidance system. . . In a decade
of generous alumni giving, MIT received one of its most unusual
bequests--a delayed $10,418,467 gift from the estate of an alumnus who
had died 70 years earlier, William Hadwen Ames. . . James R. Killian,
Jr., former MIT president, first science advisor at the White House and
a key figure in developing American educational and scientific policy
during the mid-20th century, died at 83. . . Capt. Anne P. Glavin was
named chief of the MIT Campus Police, succeeding James Olivieri, who
retired after 30 years at MIT. . . Two more MIT professors--Robert M.
Solow and Susumu Tonegawa--won Nobel Prizes, Dr. Solow in economics and
Dr. Tonegawa, a molecular biologist, in physiology or medicine. . . The
Institute launched a five-year, $550 million "Campaign for the future.".
. . MIT named the Athletics Center for former MIT president and chairman
Howard W. Johnson in dedication ceremonies that included a day-long
program of games for the MIT community. . . In an event watched by the
world, MIT's ultra-lightweight human-powered aircraft, Daedalus 88,
established world distance and endurance records in a 72.5-mile flight
over the Aegean Sea from Crete to the island of Santorini. . . A.
Bartlett Giamatti, president of baseball's National League and former
president of Yale University, told MIT graduates at commencement that
"the open life of the mind in the service of a more just society" should
be their guiding principle (Mr. Giamatti died the next year after he had
become commissioner of baseball.). . .
1988-89
Professor Noam A. Chomsky won a Kyoto Prize for his theories on the
nature of language. . . MIT solar-powered cars gained widespread
attention by competing in national and international races. . . MIT
reentered the ranks of varsity college football after a lapse of 87
years. . . The first issue of The MIT Faculty Newsletter appeared. . .
In a move that generated controversy, Dean Gene M. Brown of the School
of Science announced that the Department of Applied Biological Sciences
would be phased out. . . Dean Gerald L. Wilson of the School of
Engineering called for abandonment of "the delusion" that four years of
undergraduate education can prepare a student for a professional
engineering career. . . A computer virus infected thousands of computers
in the nation's major universities and research laboratories, including
some at MIT. . . Professor Phillip A. Sharp, director of the Center for
Cancer Research, was named to share the 1988 Albert Lasker Basic Medical
Research Award, two weeks after he received the prestigious Horwitz
Prize with Professor Thomas Cech. . . Tue Nguyen, a 26-year-old
Vietnamese-born student who came to the US nine years earlier met the
requirements for his seventh degree from MIT, the most ever granted to
an individual. . . Jonathan Schlefer became editor of Technology Review,
succeeding John I. Mattill, the editor-in-chief since 1966, who retired.
. . Gov. John H. Sununu of New Hampshire, holder of three MIT degrees,
was named chief of staff to newly elected President Bush. . . A
ceremonial ground breaking heralded a new 190-bed graduate student
dormitory at 143 Albany Street in a renovated industrial building. . .
Professors Samuel C.C. Ting of the Department of Physics and Edward N.
Lorenz of the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences
were elected as foreign members of the USSR Academy of Sciences, a rare
honor. . . Glenn P. Strehle, vice president and treasurer, announced
that the "Campaign for the future" exceeded $355 million as of January
31, 1989, $75 million ahead of target. . . A "major transition in the
leadership of MIT" was announced, with Chairman David S. Saxon to retire
in July, 1990, and President Gray to be nominated to succeed him. A
committee was formed to search for a new president. . . MIT and Cray
Research, Inc. announced a five-year joint effort in supercomputer
research that will include the installation of a Cray supercomputer at
MIT. . . A special committee studying minority student concerns at MIT
called for a long-range plan that would address "the lack of engagement
in these issues by the faculty". . . The faculty voted to retain the
freshman pass/no record grading system adopted in 1972, but to make "C"
the passing grade rather than "D". . . At a New York City news
conference that precipitated a flood of attention worldwide, the MIT
Commission on Industrial Productivity--appointed by President Gray and
chaired by Professor Michael L. Dertouzos--issued a report describing
ways to revitalize American industry. The product of a two-year study by
16 MIT faculty members of eight major industries on three continents,
the work was published by the MIT Press as a book titled Made in
America:Regaining the Productive Edge. . . In an appearance before a
Congressional committee, MIT officials defended Dr. David Baltimore's
handling of an allegation of academic misconduct relating to research
results published in the journal Cell. . . Construction began on an
addition to the Rotch Library of Architecture, Planning and Art. . . A
faculty committee issued a report recommending greater faculty
involvement in the admissions process and calling for more offers of
admission to applicants with the "very highest" test scores and high-
school grades. . . MIT, AT&T and IBM formed a research consortium to
explore high-temperature superconductivity. . . After meeting with
minority students, Dean for Student Affairs Shirley M. McBay and faculty
members agreed to initiate Project XL (pronounced as in excel), a fall-
term voluntary program to help first-year students achieve academic
excellence at MIT. It will supplement Project Interphase. . . The
commencement ceremony, at which former US Senator Paul Tsongas was the
speaker, was marked by expressions of dismay over the killing of student
protesters in China. . . MIT experienced its first budget deficit in six
years in Fiscal 1989 and set "stringent" budget-control targets to
return the Institute to a balanced position. . . The state made the
"smoot" measurement marksÑnamed for MIT alumnus Oliver R. Smoot, Jr.Ña
permanent feature of the reconstructed Massachusetts Avenue Bridge. . .
President Gray told a Congressional committee that MIT policies on
technology transferÊ"strike an appropriate balance" between fostering
practical applications of new technologies and the need to avoid
conflicts of interest. . . Entrepreneurial MIT alumni have created more
than 600 companies in Massachusetts, according to a Bank of Boston
study.
1989-90
MIT joined the new NCAA Div. III Eastern Collegiate Football Conference.
. . Ellen T. Harris, distinguished music scholar and soprano soloist,
became MIT's first Associate Provost for the Arts. . . MIT's Haystack
Observatory in Tyngsboro marked its 25th year. . . The National
Aeronautics and Space Administration designated MIT as a Space Grant
institution. . . The Freshman Housing Committee recommended that all MIT
students be housed in dormitories in their freshman year and that the
fraternity rush be moved to the spring term. . . A new policy on
pornography, allowing pornographic films to be shown only in the privacy
of a student's room, was proposed. . . An interim report was issued by
an ad hoc Committee on Family and Work, which surveyed Òthe policies and
procedures that influence the conflict between family and workÓ. . . A
faculty committee that studied Lincoln Laboratory recommended that MIT
continue to operate the federally funded research and development
center, terming the arrangement "highly advantageous to the nation". . .
Two other study committees were continuing their work, one dealing with
the issue of sexual harassment and the other reviewing MITÕs
international relationships. . . David Baltimore was named to become
president of Rockefeller University. . . Professor Marvin L. Minsky won
the prestigious 1990 Japan Prize, worth $350,000, for his pioneering
work in artificial intelligence. . . Professor Phillip A. Sharp, noted
biologist and director of MIT's Center for Cancer Research, was
nominated to be the Institute's 15th president, to succeed Dr. Gray, but
subsequently declined the nomination. . . One of MIT's greats, Professor
Harold E. (Doc) Edgerton, died at 86. . . In a renewal of the divestment
issue, a number of students were arrested during demonstrations by the
Coalition Against Apartheid calling for MIT divestment in companies with
ties to South Africa. . . After an MIT senior was dismissed from the
Naval ROTC unit because he acknowledged he was gay, the MIT faculty
voted to support a resolution opposing the Department of Defense policy
that bars homosexuals from military service, including participation in
ROTC programs. . . Virgilio Barco, president of Colombia and an MIT
alumnus, was the commencement speaker. . . President Gray, in his last
charge to graduates, urged them to accept the challenges of rapid
changes in social, political and economic realms throughout the world. .
. Charles M. Vest, provost of the University of Michigan, is selected by
the MIT Corporation as the next president of MIT. . . A new campaign
goal of $700 million is announced. . . Dean Ann F. Friedlaender of the
School of Humanities and Social Science stepped down to return to
teaching and research in the Department of Economics, and Associate Dean
Philip S. Khoury was named acting dean. . . Dean of Student Affairs
Shirley McBay resigned to become president of the national Quality
Education for Minorities Network, and Professor Arthur C. Smith was
named to a one-year term as acting dean. . . Dean Gerald L. Wilson
announced his intention to resign the post.