A Letter from the President

The Institute puts great emphasis on identifying the best young teacher-scholars we can find when filling junior faculty openings.

That practice means those selected can feel an enormous sense of pride, but it also leaves no doubt about a reality they all face: very high expectations for both their teaching and their research.

That reality can place tremendous pressure on young faculty, many of them not only launching careers but also taking on new responsibilities in their home lives. Fortunately, the professional rewards available to these faculty members are also great.

The quality of the MIT students means that from day one, our younger faculty teach bright, engaged people who are fiercely committed to learning. Indeed, MIT offers a bonus on this front that no other university can fully match: the chance for young professors to enlist enthusiastic undergraduates as members of their research teams through the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program.

Also of great value to our roughly 250 untenured professors are the excellence, and of course, the generosity of their more senior colleagues. One of MIT’s great strengths, in fact, is the special chemistry between senior and junior faculty.

It is easy to find examples of experienced MIT faculty who have gone far out of their way to guide and support their junior counterparts. One of the most inspiring examples in recent MIT history was the decision by physicist David Pritchard to turn over an important part of his lab’s work to a junior colleague of unusual promise. Within a few years of this remarkable gesture that young professor, Wolfgang Ketterle, won the Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on the behavior of matter at temperatures bordering absolute zero.

The Pritchard-Ketterle episode conveys the essence of MIT’s wonderfully productive, energetic, and collaborative senior faculty, and it also captures the vital mutual trust and respect that mark the relationships between junior and senior faculty.

Thanks in part to the quality of the MIT environment for learning and discovery, our junior faculty have made, and continue to make, path-breaking contributions. Examples over the last three decades include:

• identification of a human version of the cancer-linked genes known as oncogenes and first in the world to do so;
• invention of an implantable chip that can release drugs into a patient’s system over periods measured in months; and
• development of a rigorous methodology for identifying the best approaches to alleviate poverty and improve access to education in developing countries.

In the classroom, our junior faculty bring the same passion and skill to their teaching as they do to their research.

What does MIT owe its junior faculty in return for their superb contributions and hard work? Appropriate recognition rises nearly to the top of the list. Also critical is the freedom to pursue exciting and even risky new directions, whether in teaching or research.

Named career development professorships help us meet both obligations. They are the highest honor we can bestow on an assistant or associate professor. They also come with a scholarly allowance that, while fairly modest in the context of today’s research and teaching costs, is valuable out of proportion to its dollar amount because a recipient can spend it on any pressing need.

Currently we have roughly 100 of these chairs. Some of the endowments supporting these chairs have been contributed by foundations, others by corporations, and a few by MIT class gifts. The majority, of course, reflect the philanthropic commitment of private individuals.

I salute all of these generous contributors. Yet as someone who is routinely exposed to the marvelous work of today’s younger faculty, I also feel bound to say that MIT needs many more such endowments. The ranks of our junior faculty are filled with individuals who are literally changing the world. We must honor them for what they have already accomplished and keep them on course for still more powerful achievements in the future.

On Topic: faculty