Early developments
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1861 in response to the increasing demand of Industries in the United States, MIT adopted a European university model and stressed laboratory instruction in applied science and engineering.MIT was informally called "Boston Tech"
Despite chronic financial problems, the institute saw growth in the last two decades of the 19th century under President Francis Amasa Walker The current 168-acre campus opened in 1916 and extends over 1.6 km along the northern bank of the Charles River. Programs in electrical, chemical, marine, and sanitary engineering were introduced new buildings were built, and the size of the student body increased to more than one thousand. MIT, with five schools and one college which contain a total of 32 departments, is often cited as among the world's top universities. The Institute is traditionally known for its research and education in the sciences and engineering, and more recently in biology, economics, linguistics, and management.
As of 2015, 85 Nobel laureates recipients, 52 National Medal of Science recipients, 65 Marshall Scholars recipients, 45 Rhodes Scholars recipients, 38 MacArthur Fellows recipients, 34 astronauts, 19 Turing award recipients, and 6 Fields Medalists have been affiliated with MIT. The school has a strong entrepreneurial environment, and the aggregated revenues of companies founded by MIT alumni would rank as the eleventh-largest economy in the world.
There would be at least six attempts to absorb MIT into Harvard. In its cramped Back Bay location,
MIT could not afford to expand its overcrowded facilities, driving a desperate search for a new campus and funding. In 1916, the MIT administration and the MIT charter crossed the Charles River on the ceremonial barge Bucentaur built for the occasion,[37][38] to signify MIT's move to a spacious new campus largely consisting of filled land on a mile-long tract along the Cambridge side of the Charles River. Eventually the MIT Corporation approved a formal agreement to merge with Harvard, over the vehement objections of MIT faculty, students, and alumni.However, a 1917 decision by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court effectively put an end to the merger scheme.
Curricular reforms
In the 1930s, President Mr.Karl Taylor and Vice-President Mr.Vannevar Bush emphasized the importance of pure sciences like physics and chemistry and reduced the vocational practice required in shops and drafting studios. The Compton reforms "renewed confidence in the ability of the Institute to develop leadership in science as well as in engineering. MIT catered more to middle-class families,and depended more on tution than other grans for its funding. The school was elected to the Association of American Universities in 1934.
Still, as late as 1949, the Lewis Committee lamented in its report on the state of education at MIT that "the Institute is widely conceived as basically a vocational school", a "partly unjustified" perception the committee sought to change. The report comprehensively reviewed the undergraduate curriculum, recommended offering a broader education, and warned against letting engineering and government-sponsored research detract from the sciences and humanities
Defense research
MIT's involvement in military R&D surged during World War II In 1941, Mr Bush was appointed head of the federal office of scientific research and development and directed funding to only a select group of universities, including MIT. Engineers and scientists from across the country gathered at MIT's Laboratory, established in 1940 to assist the British military in developing microwave radar. The work done there significantly affected both the war and subsequent research in the area Other
defence projects included gyroscope based control system. The development of a digital computer for flight simulations and high speed and high altitude photography.By the end of the war, MIT became the nation's largest wartime R&D contractor.
Housing
Undergraduates are guaranteed four-year housing in one of MIT's 12 dormitories for under graduate. Those living on campus can receive support and mentoring from live-in graduate student tutors, resident advisors, and faculty housemasters. Because housing assignments are made based on the preferences of the students themselves, diverse social atmospheres can be sustained in different living groups; for example, according to the Yale Daily News staff's The Insider's Guide to the Colleges, 2010, "The split between East Campus and West Campus is a significant characteristic of MIT. East Campus has gained a reputation as a thriving counterculture."]MIT also has 5 dormitories for single graduate students and 2 apartment buildings on campus for married student families. MIT has an active Greek and co-operative housing system, including thirty-six fraternities sororities, and independent living groups (FSILGs). As of 2015, 98% of all undergraduates lived in MIT-affiliated housing; 54% of the men participated in fraternities and 20% of the women were involved in sororities. Most FSILGs are located across the river in back bay near where MIT was founded, and there is also a cluster of fraternities on MIT's West Campus that face the Charles River Basin.
Organization and administration
MIT is chartered as a non-profit organization and is owned and governed by a privately appointed trustee’s board known as the MIT Corporation. The current board consists of 43 members elected to five-year terms, 25 life members who vote until their 75th birthday, 3 elected officers (President, Treasurer, and Secretary), and 4 ex office members (the president of the alumni association, the Governor of Massachusetts, the Massachusetts Secretary of Education, and the Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Judicial court. The board is chaired by Mr Robert, a co-founder of Communication Holding. The Corporation approves the budget, new programs, degrees and faculty appointments, and elects the President to serve as the chief executive officer of the university and preside over the Institute's faculty. MIT's assets and endowments are managed through a subsidiary called MIT Investment Management Company Valued at $9.7 billion in 2011, MIT's endowment is the sixth-largest among American colleges and universities assert substantial control over many areas of MIT's curriculum, research, student life, and administrative affairs, the chair of each of MIT's 32 academic departments reports to the dean of that department's school, who in turn reports to the Provost under the President.
Academics
MIT is a large, highly residential, research university with a majority of enrolments in graduate and professional programs. The university has been accredited by the NEASC since 1929. MIT operates on a 4–1–4 academic calendar with the fall semester beginning after Labour Day and ending in mid-December, a 4-week "Independent Activities Period" in the month of January, and the spring semester beginning in early February and ending in late May.MIT students refer to both their majors and classes using numbers or acronyms alone. Departments and their corresponding majors are numbered in the approximate order of their foundation; for example, Civil and Environmental Engineering is Course 1, while Linguistics and Philosophy is Course 24. Students majoring in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS), the most popular department, collectively identify themselves as "Course 6". MIT students use a combination of the department's course number and the number assigned to the class to identify their subjects
Undergraduate program
All undergraduates are required to complete a core curriculum called the General Institute Requirements. The Science Requirement, generally completed during freshman year as prerequisites for classes in science and engineering majors, comprises two semesters of physics, two semesters of calculus, one semester of chemistry, and one semester of biology. There is a Laboratory Requirement, usually satisfied by an appropriate class in a course major. The Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences Requirement consists of eight semesters of classes in the humanities, arts, and social sciences, including at least one semester from each division as well as the courses required for a designated concentration in a HASS division. Under the Communication Requirement, two of the HASS classes, plus two of the classes taken in the designated major must be "communication-intensive", including "substantial instruction and practice in oral presentation". Finally, all students are required to complete a swim test non-varsity athletes must also take four quarters of physical education classes. Most classes rely on a combination of lectures, recitations led by associate professors or graduate students, weekly problem sets ("p-sets"), and periodic quizzes or tests. While the pace and difficulty of MIT coursework has been compared to "drinking from a fire hose", the freshmen retention rate at MIT is similar other research universities. The "pass/no-record" grading system relieves some pressure for first-year undergraduates. For each class taken in the fall term, freshmen transcripts will either report only that the class was passed, or otherwise not have any record of it. In the spring term, passing grades (A, B, C) appear on the transcript while non-passing grades are again not recorded.
Graduate program
MIT's graduate program has high coexistence with the undergraduate program, and many courses are taken by qualified students at both levels. MIT offers a comprehensive doctoral program with degrees in the humanities, social sciences, and STEM Field as well as professional degrees. The Institute offers graduate programs leading to academic degrees such as the Master of Science (MS),
various Engineer's Degrees, Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), and Doctor of Science (ScD) and interdisciplinary graduate programs such as the MD-Phd. Admission to graduate programs is decentralized; applicants apply directly to the department or degree program. More than 90% of doctoral students are supported by fellowships, research assistantships (RAs), or teaching assistantships. MIT awarded 1,547 master's degrees and 609 doctoral degrees in the academic year 2010–11. In the 2011 fall term, the School of Engineering was the most popular academic division, enrolling 45.0% of graduate students, followed by the Sloan School of Management (19%), School of Science (16.9%), School of Architecture and Planning (9.2%), Whitaker College of Health Sciences (5.1%), and School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences (4.7%). The largest graduate degree programs were the Sloan Master Business Administration, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and Mechanical Engineering.
People
Students
MIT enrolled 4,384 undergraduates and 6,510 graduate students in 2011–2012. Women constituted 45 percent of undergraduate students. Undergraduate and graduate students were drawn from all 50 states as well as 115 foreign countries. MIT received 17,909 applications for admission to the undergraduate Class of 2015; 1,742 were admitted (9.7 percent) and 1128 enrolled (64.8 percent).19,446 applications were received for graduate and advanced degree program across all departments; 2,991 were admitted (15.4 percent) and 1,880 enrolled (62.8 percent).The interquartile range on the SAT was 2090–2340 and 97 percent of students ranked in the top tenth of their high school graduating class. 97 percent of the Class of 2012 returned as sophomores;82 percent of the Class of 2007 graduated within 4 years, and 93 percent (91 percent of the men and 95 percent of the women) graduated within 6 years Undergraduate tuition and fees total $40,732 and annual expenses are estimated at $52,507 as of 2012. 62 percent of students received need-based financial aid in the form of scholarships and grants from federal, state, institutional, and external sources averaging $38,964 per student. Students were awarded a total of $102 million in scholarships and grants, primarily from institutional support $84 million. The annual increase in expenses has led to a student tradition (dating back to the 1960s) of tongue-in-cheek "tuition riots".MIT has been nominally co-educational since admitting Ms.Ellen Swallow Richards in 1870. Richards also became the first female member of MIT's faculty, specializing in sanitary chemistry. Female students remained a minority prior to the completion of the first wing of a women's dormitory, Women currently outnumber men in Biology, Brain & Cognitive Sciences, Architecture, Urban Planning,
and Biological Engineering.
Faculty and staff
As of 2013, MIT had 1,030 faculty members, of whom 225 were women Faculty are responsible for lecturing classes, advising both graduate and undergraduate students, and sitting on academic committees, as well as conducting original research.Between 1964 and 2009, a total of seventeen faculty and staff members affiliated with MIT were awarded Nobel Prizes (thirteen in the last 25 years). MIT Faculty members past or present have won a total of twenty-seven Nobel Prizes, the majority in Economics or Physics. As of October 2013, among current faculty and teaching staff there are 67 Guggenheim Fellows, 6 Fulbright Scholars, and 22 Mac Artur Fellows. Faculty members who have made extraordinary contributions to their research field as well as the MIT community are granted appointments as Institute Professors for the remainder of their tenures.A 1998 MIT study concluded that a systemic bias against female faculty existed in its School of Science, although the study's methods were controversial.Since the study, though, women have headed departments within the Schools of Science and of Engineering, and MIT has appointed several female vice presidents, although allegations of sexism continue to be made. Susan HockField, was MIT's president from 2004 to 2012 and was the first woman to hold the post.Tenure outcomes have vaulted MIT into the national spotlight on several occasions. The 1984 dismissal of Mr. David F Noble, a historian of technology, became a cause celebre about the extent to which academics are granted freedom of speech after he published several books and papers critical of MIT's and other research universities' reliance upon financial support from corporations and the military.Former materials science
professor Gretchen Kalonji sued MIT in 1994 alleging that she was denied tenure because of sexual discrimination. Several years later, the lawsuit was settled with undisclosed payments, and establishment of a project to encourage women and minorities to seek faculty positions. In 1997, the Massachusetts Commission against discrimination issued a probable cause finding supporting UMass Boston Professor James Jennings' allegations of racial discrimination after a senior faculty search committee in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning did not offer him reciprocal tenure. In 2006–2007, MIT's denial of tenure to African-American stem cell scientist professor Mr. James Sherley reignited accusations of racism in the tenure process, eventually leading to a protracted public dispute with the administration, a brief hunger strike, and the resignation of Professor Mr.Frank L. Douglas in protest. After Sherley was initially denied tenure, his case was examined three times before the university established that neither racial discrimination nor conflict of interest affected the decision. Twenty-one of Sherley's colleagues issued a statement yesterday saying that the professor was treated fairly in tenure review." MIT faculty members have often been recruited to lead other colleges and universities. Founding faculty member Mr. Charles W Eliot was recruited in 1869 to become president of Harvard University, a post he would hold for 40 years, during which he wielded considerable influence on both American higher education and secondary education.
