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C/82-6 INTERNATIONAL ASPECTS OF MIT Compiled by the Center for International Studies Center for International Studies Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139 October 1982 a October 1982 INTERNATIONAL ASPECTS OF MIT Compiled by the Center for International Studies MIT as an institution, its faculty, student body, and research staff, are deeply engaged in contemporary affairs, an engagement that necessarily implies a major interest in international issues and concerns. The attached survey was compiled by the Center for International Studies to try to assemble existing information about MIT's varied international ties. We undertook this task for a number of reasons -- it would be useful to have available in one place information about a facet of MIT's character directly relevant to this Center's interests; it would be informative to others at MIT and to interested outsiders to realize how deep and pervasive are the Institute's interest and involvement in the affairs of the whole world; it might help individual members of the faculty identify others with converging interests; and it might help identify some priority needs or opportunities. We are thus making it available to the MIT community and others in the belief it will be interesting and useful. Summary and Abstract The purpose of this survey is merely to describe MIT's varied international activities, not to evaluate or explain them. Moreover, the true international role of an institution like MIT cannot be expressed only by what can be counted. There are many other facets of that role -- international professional travel of faculty and staff; personal advisory activities for government, industry, and international organizations; or the effects on international affairs of the research and human products of MIT -- that cannot be meaningfully catalogued. Presentation of data on current international activities can, however, give some sense of the dimensions of that larger picture. Some general findings can be usefully summarized here: 1. MIT is pervasively international -- substantial numbers of its faculty, staff, student body, and research staff are from abroad and international subjects constitute a significant portion of the research and teaching agendas. (We cannot document it, but it is the clear impression of those who handle such matters that research funds from international agencies and foreign governments, industry, and foundations are becoming increasingly important.) Data in this document are primarily for the 1981/82 academic year. More current data are likely to differ in detail but not in broad outline and direction. Research for this report was performed by Hugh Carter Donahue, a graduate student in Urban Studies and Planning, working under the supervision of Amelia C. Leiss, Assistant Director of the Center for International Studies. -i- -ii- 2. Over a third of MIT's faculty and academic staff are from abroad. While concentrated in Nutrition and Food Science, Chiemistry, Biology, Materials Science and Engineering, and Mechanical Engineering, every Department at the Institute has some foreign academic appointees. 3. Most of these members of the faculty and academic staff from outside the United States are engaged in research. 4. Of the faculty itself, 15% are foreign nationals. Fully a quarter of Associate and Assistant Professors are foreign nationals. 5. Students from abroad constitute a third of MIT's graduate students and a fifth of the total student body. They earned in 1980/81 a third of all Ph.D.'s awarded by the Institute as a whole, and nearly half of those earned in the School of Engineering. They are enrolled in every Department at the Institute, with concentrations in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Civil Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Physics, Management, and Chemical Engineering. 6. By almost two to one, these foreign students come from the developing, as opposed to developed, countries. Most who come as undergraduates have family or HIT support. As graduate students, they are as a group primarily supported by MIT as TAs and RAs, with additional support from family and home government or institutions. 7. International corporations constitute a quarter of the participants in the Industrial Liaison Program, and are the fastest growing ILP component. Forty-four are from Western Europe, thirty-four from Japan. 8. Research on international.,* foreign, and comparative problems is pervasive. Faculty from 19 departments out of 23 are currently or have recently been engaged in research on these issues. (See Attachment I.) A high proportion of this research is conducted under the auspices of research centers, laboratories, and programs, singly or jointly. Some research is carried out within individual departments, a practice more common to some departments than others. 9. In Attachment II are listed 167 courses offered at MIT on international affairs, foreign countries, or comparative multi-country analysis of common problems. Of these, 34 are offered *International as used here and in the next paragraph includes research and teaching that concern foreign countries or areas or international issues, that take place abroad or in collaboration with or support of foreign institutions, that are intended for specific foreign applications, or that are comparative across nations. -iii- for undergraduates and the bulk (133) primarily for graduate professional-level training. These are taught by 100 members of the faculty, coming from 17 different MIT Departments. The numbers of international courses offered are, as would be expected, larger in the social sciences than in the engineering and science departments. But even in the latter a significant number of international courses are given, or co-offered. r October 1982 INTERNATIONAL ASPECTS OF MIT Compiled by the Center for International Studies MIT as an institution, its faculty, student body, and research staff, are deeply engaged in contemporary affairs, an engagement that necessarily implies a major interest in international issues and concerns. This involvement ranges from research and teaching in "traditional" international subjects to a wide spectrum of other activities including: research on international policy issues; cooperation with foreign institutions; comparative studies; training programs for foreign nationals; advisory roles to foreign and international institutions or governments, or to industry and the U.S. Government on international-related issues; exchange programs for faculty and students; foreign students, faculty, and researchers in residence; and substantial individual professional and personal activities of faculty and students outside the classroom and research setting. This is a sharp change from earlier years when MIT sought to restrain its international contacts. In 1945, for example, a quota of 300 was set for foreign student enrollment (130 undergraduate and 170 graduate) in part on the ground that "the Institute in its origin and character is characteristically American, and this character would be altered if foreign groups become too large a proportion of the total enrollment." (Faculty Committee on Stabilization of Enrollments: Report on Foreign Students, April 18, 1945, pp. 7-8.) The extent of contemporary involvement in international research, teaching, and other activities stems not only from the normal responsibilities of a university in this increasingly interdependent world, but also from the international status of MIT as a leading institution affecting the pace of scientific and technological change all over the world. The Institute's long concern with the implications of science and technology and the effects of advances in science and technology, not least on international affairs, stimulated these substantial and increasing international activities. It is difficult to document with great precision the totality of MIT's international activities. Much of it is so pervasive and extensive (e.g., international professional society participation by faculty, foreign visitors to the campus) that quantitative measures are not useful. More important, there is no natural boundary between "domestic" and "international." For this and other reasons, in particular the decentralized intellectual framework of MIT, international concerns are not segregated. Research, teaching, and other activities dealing with international subjects are found in most departments and research centers. Because international dimensions to the Institute's programs are so ubiquitous, it is very likely that the search that was undertaken in preparing this report overlooked some that should have been included. Furthermore, the detailed lists that follow do not reflect adequately the deep personal commitment of many members of the faculty of the Institute to international issues. Were we to include the roles that faculty members play as scholars and as private citizens in American and international -2- movements and organizations, the list would be formidable indeed. In terms of active membership in international professional groups and in public affairs programs concerned with international problems, it is not unreasonable to suggest that the larger part of the Institute's faculty is engaged in international activities. It is relatively easy to document the numbers of foreign nationals who come to MIT to teach, study, or undertake research. There is no comparably easy way to get a handle on the numbers of Americans at MIT who go abroad in connection with