Reengineering MIT™s Administrative Processes Faculty ...web.mit.edu/fnl/vol/archives/fnl74.pdfVol. VII No. 4 May/June 1995 Printed On Recycled Paper Teach Talk Š Page 14 UROP Opens

Vol. VII No. 4 May/June 1995

Printed On Recycled Paper

Teach Talk � Page 14UROP Opens a Door to Industry � Page 16

Some Thoughts From A Departing Dean � Page 17Voices of Industry and MIT � Page 18

Also: Letters, M.I.T. Numbers

Bacow AssumesFaculty Chair

A Lawyer and SailorNewsletter Staff

The new chair of the faculty for atwo-year term beginning June15th is Lawrence S. Bacow,

professor of Law and EnvironmentalPolicy.

Bacow grew up in Pontiac, Michiganwhere he spent his time entering sciencefairs, building ham radios, and sailing.He was drawn to MIT at least as muchfor its nationally ranked sailing team ashe was for its academic reputation. Heentered MIT as a freshman in 1969 andgraduated three years later with a B.S. ineconomics. He received a J.D. fromHarvard Law School in 1976, and aMasters and Ph.D. in Public Policy fromHarvard’s Kennedy School of Governmentin 1976 and 1978, respectively.

Bacow joined the MIT faculty in theDepartment of Urban Studies andPlanning in 1977. His research focuseson developing non-adjudicatorymechanisms for resolving environmentalconflict. He frequently advises bothstate and federal regulatory agencies onenvironmental issues. He currently isworking on his fifth book, which exploresthe relationship between trade policyand the environment.

External and Internal Pressures

Some unpleasant external realities are challenging MIT’s ability tosustain its leadership in teaching, research, and national service. In thefew years since the end of the Cold War, MIT, along with the other

great research universities of the nation, has been faced with the real prospectof declining revenues from federally sponsored research as the governmentreorders its spending priorities. Until recently, MIT’s research volume grewat about the rate of inflation. Current signals from Washington, however,indicate that at best that volume will likely decline relative to inflation, andat worse will be reduced sharply in the struggle to balance the federal budget

by early in the coming century. It is unlikely that revenues from industrialand business sponsors will compensate for anticipated losses or that thosesponsors will support the costs and uncertain returns of basic researchactivities. At the same time we have seen a marked increase in thecompetition for available research dollars1 [endnotes are on page 13], andless willingness by federal sponsors to reimburse for indirect costs associatedwith the research enterprise. Thus, for the foreseeable future, decliningresearch revenues will cover a decreasing percentage of institutional costs.

Reengineering MIT�sAdministrative Processes

Isaac M. Colbert

This issue of the Faculty Newsletter focuses on the ongoingprocess of reengineering MIT. In addition to this articleprovided by Dean Colbert at our request, please seeadditional views, beginning on Page 3.

(Continued on Page 23)(Continued on Page 6)

Contents � Page 2

MIT Faculty Newsletter Vol. VII No. 4

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MIT Faculty NewsletterEditorial Board

*Stephan L. Chorover(Brain & Cognitive Sciences)Nazli Choucri(Political Science)*Ernst G. Frankel(Ocean Engineering)Kristina E. Hill(Urban Studies & Planning)*Jean E. Jackson(Anthropology)Gordon Kaufman(Management Science & Statistics)Daniel S. Kemp(Chemistry)Jonathan King(Biology)Lawrence M. Lidsky(Nuclear Engineering)Stephen J. Lippard(Chemistry)Fred Moavenzadeh(Civil Engineering)James Propp(Mathematics)Michael A. Rappa(Management)Merritt Roe Smith(Science, Technology, & Society)David Thorburn(Literature)Leon Trilling(Aeronautics & Astronautics)

*Editorial Committee for this issue.

David LewisManaging Editor

Address: MIT Faculty Newsletter, MIT Bldg. 38-160Cambridge, MA 02139; (617) 253-7303.

E-Mail: [email protected]: 617-253-0458

Subscriptions: $15/year On-Campus$20/year Off-Campus

Reengineering MIT's Administrative Process 1

Bacow Assumes Faculty Chair A Lawyer and Sailor 1

Editorial For Whom The Bell Tolls 3

Just Trying to be Helpful 5

Newsletter Founder Kistiakowsky Retires 5

Teach Talk The Jigsaw Puzzle of Teaching 14

UROP Opens a Door to Industry 16

Some Thoughts From A Departing Dean 17

Voices of Industry and MIT 18

Letters 23

M.I.T. Numbers 24

Contents

Lori Breslow is Lecturer, School of Management.Isaac M. Colbert is Associate Dean of theGraduate School; Captain, CommunityInvolvement Team.Lawrence M. Lidsky is Professor of NuclearEngineering.Norma G. McGavern is UROP Director.Thomas R. Moebus is Director of CorporateRelations, Industrial Liaison Program.Arthur C. Smith is Dean for UndergraduateEducation and Student Affairs.

Authors

MIT Faculty Newsletter May/June 1995

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Editorial

For Whom The Bell Tolls

Dear fellow MIT friends andfaculty members: If you wantto register support for the

following sentiments you can make yourthoughts and feelings known (contact theFaculty Newsletter by mail, fax, telephone,or e-mail):

An escalation of violence andpolarization seems to be tearing oursociety apart. On May 10, we learned thatsome person or party has sent at least onelife-threatening letter to a distinguishedmember of the MIT faculty. This is anunacceptably violent attack on us both asindividuals and as a community (scientific,academic, professional, etc.), and wedenounce and condemn those responsiblefor inspiring and perpetrating it.

******Let’s face it: we are living through

another of those singular moments ofhistory of which Max Planck spoke whenhe wrote about “living...in a moment ofcrisis in the literal sense of that term.”

This is a time in which paradigms keeprapidly changing, a time that providesmany opportunities to learn the truth ofEinstein’s remarks that our accustomedways of defining and dealing withproblems “[do] not suffice when it comesto solving the problems of our social life...”and that “We need a new way of thinking,if humanity is to survive.”

Bringing it all back homeIt appears our MIT community has

reached a watershed. Significant neweconomic constraints (imposed both fromwithout and from within) have necessitateda reevaluation of some of our core beliefsand practices. The administration hasembarked on a “reengineering” of MIT.Certainly many changes need to be madein the way administrative businesscurrently gets done. But legitimatequestions have been raised about the wayinformation was gathered and the MITcommunity informed about this process.We need to question what these proposedchanges mean for us as MIT faculty

members; what our rights andresponsibilities are in this time of profoundchange at the local, national, andinternational level.

As longtime members of the MITcommunity, we are deeply concerned atwhat we see happening to this institution.We certainly agree with the administrationthat its own activities regarding “theongoing reengineering effort at MIT” canand should be “focused on delivering thebest possible services to faculty andstudents as efficiently as possible” (TechTalk, May 1, 1995).

But what is “best” in this context? Andwho is to say? How are the intendedefficiencies to be attained? At what costs,and to whom? How are the results to bemeasured? For instance, how can wemeasure whether or not increasing“efficiency” compromises academicexcellence? Can the quality teaching andresearch programs we are known forsurvive the present frenzy of cost-cutting?Which programs can we afford to lose?

How such questions are answered (andby whom) will largely determine whetheror not MIT manages to emerge from a badsituation with its well-earned reputationfor academic and professional excellenceintact. In our view, no sustainableresolution of the present administrativecrisis can be achieved without a great dealof real cooperation between the MITfaculty and administration.

And make no mistake about it; whether,and, if so, how, MIT is going to surviveinto the next century will depend, at leastin part, on the manner in which weapproach and negotiate our way throughthe present moment of crisis. As weproceed, we also need to be mindful thatwhat is happening here has been broughton by a combination of events, includingsome unfolding in the wider societybeyond our institutional borders.

The role of the faculty?Certain members of the MIT faculty

pioneered concepts of reengineering, total

quality management, and otherorganizational management concepts andmethods. It is therefore curious that anoutside firm, CRC Index, with whatappears to us to be a less experiencedstaff, had to be hired to guide MIT in itsreengineering efforts. CRC Index hasnot, in fact, completed a reengineeringproject for an educational institution; muchof its methodology is based on corporatemodels (it is currently involved withimplementing a reengineering projectsimilar to MIT’s at the University ofToronto). And regardless of the questionof experience, an approach that fails toconsult important segments of its targetpopulation in a serious and sustained way(i.e., faculty, students, and large segmentsof support and service staff) is deeplyflawed.

Everything we know about institutionalchange tells us that the best and mosteffective way for organizations tonegotiate a fundamental change processis to make every effort to involve allforeseeable stakeholders in negotiating(defining, implementing, and dealing with)the change process. Everyone working inthis place, from the highest to the lowestpaid, at all levels in the institutionalhierarchy, in all disciplines, job categories,and fields of endeavor (including all realmsof academic inquiry and professionalactivity in all fields and sub fields ofscience, technology, and management)needs to be given the opportunity toparticipate in the process, and to be treatedwith equal kindness, respect, and fairness.For organizations that fail to proceed inthis way, the cost in morale and loss ofcommunity cohesiveness can beoverwhelming.

In the process so far, students andfaculty, rather than being substantiallyinvolved and consulted, have simply beeninformed of findings and decisions.Reengineering is being done from the topdown instead of from the bottom up. But

(Continued on next page)


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it seems to us that in order to work,precisely because its goal is to significantlyimprove services as well as to cut costs,reengineering must involve everyone. Theadministration projects that the equivalentof 675 jobs will be eliminated, and yetinteraction with support staff and otherworkers has been minimal.

PerceptionAt the May 3 “Town Meeting” to discuss

reengineering with the MIT community,President Vest, Provost Wrighton, Vice-President Dickson, and Vice-PresidentBruce (with Director of Physical PlantSirianni serving as moderator) attemptedto assuage the community’s fears andfurther delineate the processes ofreengineering. The meeting appeared tobe attended predominantly by buildingservice workers and support staff; preciousfew faculty members were present. Inaddition to the “Special ReengineeringEdition” of Tech Talk, Provost Wrighton’sMEMORANDUM “To: Members of theFaculty and other Research PrincipalInvestigators.” was distributed at the door.The memo, entitled “Indirect Cost Rate,Reengineering Expenses, Fringe BenefitsRate,” says, in pertinent part, that theIndirect Cost Rate for on-campus researchwill be going up 6.5% (from 52% in FY95to 58.5% in FY96). [See MIT Numbers,Page 24.] At the same time, the off-campus rate will be decreasing. Moreimportantly, approximately $9 million ofthe expenses that the administration hasincurred “associated with reengineeringin FY95 (current year) and FY96combined” which will amount to some$30 million, with “(m)ajor expenses(including) fees for consultants, cost ofsoftware and hardware...and training” areto be borne by the overhead increases.

In addition, that day’s Tech Talkannounced an increase in parking feesfrom $20/year to $300/year, regardless ofone’s salary or wage. Some faculty mayargue that an increase in parking fees arein order, but the differential impact onlower paid employees, and the timing ofthe announcement, are serious causes for

concern. Given these kinds of actions, it ishardly surprising that workers areexpressing fear and resistance. Custodialstaff has questioned the overall “team”plan and ask the fundamental question,“If there aren't going to be any layoffs, aswe've been told, how is the Institute goingto save money?” Both custodial and mailpersonnel are most concerned about down-the-road: “We've seen reengineeringelsewhere. After a year or so when itdoesn't work as expected, the workers areblamed and then the layoffs begin.”

What is to be done?By all accounts, those administrators

involved in reengineering have gonethrough a “TQM learning experience”costing $6.5 million, during which theysolidly bonded with one another andoutside consultants [see “Just Trying to beHelpful,” P. 5]. No doubt they emergedfrom the process feeling that the time andmoney was well spent, and believing thatthey now saw more clearly what it wouldmean to “[deliver] the best possibleservices to faculty and students asefficiently as possible.” [Tech Talk, May1, 1995.] But how serious and sustainedhas been the effort to include the rest ofthe MIT community in this learningprocess? The point is that we, the faculty,(who along with our students comprisethe academic core of this institution) needto be included more fully in the process ofdefining the needs and determining theoverall shape and texture of the kind oforganization that might best and mostsustainably be developed to meet them.

The $6.5 million that has already beenspent can be seen as another case ofoutsourcing. In this case, what is beingoutsourced are the rights andresponsibilities that properly belong to usby virtue of our membership in the MITcommunity – especially given theexpertise found among us.

As all serious students of social changewill readily attest, the organizations,institutions, and corporations that survive,and thus have a chance of prospering inthe years ahead, are made up of people

who have somehow come to share acommon vision of a more cohesive,constructive (and, perhaps, therefore moregenerally competitive) organizationalfuture. The lesson is clear: If MIT is tochange in ways that will enable it to retainits excellence as a place of higher learning,it must become a better and higher qualityversion of what our colleague, Peter Senge,has called a “learning organization.”Making MIT a better learning organizationmeans, in part, restoring an atmosphere ofcollegiality and trust between and amongits various constituencies. Relationsbetween the faculty and administrationneed to be guided by shared meaning andcommon purpose. To put it another way,we and they must become genuinelymutually supportive partners, equallycommitted to a common and consensuallyvalid view of institutional excellence. Andwe must be ready, willing, and able towork together to attain that vision.

Sadly, much of the responsibility forour current dilemma lies with ourselves,the faculty, for we have relinquished ourleadership, allowed collegiality todisintegrate, and permitted the fosteringof alienation. Reengineering, as it iscurrently being implemented, is promotingcynicism and demoralization. Rather thanjust standing by and letting it happen,rather than retreating into our comfortablecocoons happy to be “allowed” to doteaching and research, we need to bebuilding solidarity among the faculty andrestoring the collegiality and theadministration/faculty balance thattraditionally constituted the academicenvironment and made MIT great.

MIT is still Number One in most areas,but much of this reputation is based onpast performance, when MIT was muchmore a collegial assembly of scholarswho ran their own institution. And nowthere is a serious question of whether theInstitute can maintain its reputation – withdeclining faculty roles in decision-making,collegiality, and solidarity. It is up to us tostand up and be counted. No one can doit for us.

Editorial Committee

For Whom The Bell TollsContinued from preceding page


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I ’ve just looked up from my lonelypursuit of excellence to find that myInstitute has spent $6.5 million on

“technical and management consultants”and will charge $9 million ofreengineering costs to research overhead.Since reengineering is a communityproject, and since I seemed somehow tohave missed my chance to contribute tothe process, I’ve chosen the FacultyNewsletter for these suggestions in thehope of inspiring my colleagues to jointhis process which seems to be passingus by.

Reasons to hush it up1. It might make our colleagues in the

Sloan School feel somewhat neglected.2. It might make others wonder why

we neglected our colleagues in the SloanSchool.

3. It might make our research sponsorsuneasy to learn they are being requestedto pay now for benefits MIT will derivein the future.

Things we could havedone with $6.5 million

1. Buy each of the 250 members of thereengineering task force $26,000 worthof reengineering books and videos. Thereare enough available to avoid duplication.

2. Give each of the 250 members ofthe reengineering task force two monthsof individual personal consultant-trainers. Enough are available to avoidduplication.

3. Give $10,000 cash to each of theemployees who will be fired in theenvelope with the pink slip.

4. Spend $500,000 on a summer short-course for the reengineering task forceand put $6 million in the bank.

How to avoid the overhead hit1. Explain to any reasonably astute

banker that our investment inreengineering will pay for itself in onlytwo years! Borrow the money and pay itback from our savings.

2. Borrow it from ourselves and cutout the middleman.

[We are sure that the MIT faculty cancome up with other helpful suggestions.Please send them to [email protected] subject line should read “just tryingto be helpful.” The best suggestions willappear in the next issue of the FNL andthe Grand Prize winner will receive acopy of Reengineering TheCorporation: A Manifesto ForBusiness Revolution, by MichaelHammer and James Champy, retail value$13.00, 20% discount at New EnglandMobile Book Fair – also available atDewey Library.]✥

Just Trying to be HelpfulLawrence M. Lidsky

Newsletter Founder Kistiakowsky Retires

The MIT Faculty Newsletterwas founded in 1988,following the precipitous

disbanding of the Department ofApplied Biological Sciences. Theperson most responsible for creatingthe Newsletter, Professor of Physicsemerita Vera Kistiakowsky, hasannounced her retirement.

At a recent party in her honor,several speakers noted the importanceof her many contributions to the lifeof the Institute during her many yearsas a faculty member. In his remarks,

the Reverend Scott Paradise, formerEpiscopal Chaplain at MIT, read thefollowing pertinent lines:

In a roomwhere people unanimouslymaintaina conspiracy of silence,one word of truthsounds like a pistol shot.

Czeslaw Milosz

Vera, we wish you well....Editorial Committee


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This aggressive downward pressure onboth research income and overheadrecovery forces MIT to examine allactivities and attempt to maintainexcellence while reducing operationalcosts.

In the past, MIT has been able tomaintain annual tuition increases atnearly 4% above the rate of inflation.From 1988 to 1993, tuition and relatedincome grew by 47%, from about $126million to $184 million. However, inthe same period, net outlays forundergraduate scholarships (i.e., studentaid from agencies and foundations) grewby 58%, from $21 million to $32 million.These increased scholarship outlays haveslowed net tuition growth, but risingpublic concern about the cost of highereducation, in a national context of generalanxiety about cost containment, has alsoforced moderation in tuition rateincreases. With future increases held towithin 1% or 2% of inflation, largetuition increases will no longer be amajor income resource. At the sametime, government support forundergraduate and graduate tuition costsis eroding rapidly, placing more pressureon MIT to commit internal resources tomaintain its need-blind undergraduateadmissions policy and internal resourcesto encourage faculty to train graduatestudents.

Fundamentally, all the rules governingthe relationship between the federalgovernment and universities arechanging rapidly and in waysdisadvantageous to the Institute. At thesame time, public concerns about value,cost, and integrity have called intoquestion the once unshakable respect forhigher education and its role in thenational welfare.

Finally, internal growth in expenseshas created a pressing financial situation.Data from annual Reports of the

Treasurer have shown that while directresearch expenses at Lincoln Lab havedeclined since 1988, all other Instituteexpenses have grown steadily (Fig. 1).From 1988 to 1993, revenues grew at acompound annual growth rate of 3.4%,while expenses grew faster, at 3.6% andclimbing (Figs. 2,3). Over the sameperiod, the operating gap increased froman annual average of $4 million,experienced from 1975 through 1988, to$12 million annually. Projectionsindicated that this persistent gap wasexpected to grow to an average of $15million annually from FY1994 toFY2000 (Fig. 4). Since 1988, theInstitute has used more than $64 millionof unrestricted gifts and fundsfunctioning as endowment to fund theseoperating gaps. These are the only twosources of revenue to address thisproblem. Therefore, the dangerous trendof spending funds that should be investedfor future needs presses the issue ofreducing operating expenses. Doing sorequires reducing the operating budget


Colbert, from Page 1


by $40 million gross, with a net impactof $25 million after recovery ofoverhead.

The Range of Actionsto Reign In Costs

In response to the financial and relatedtrends, a broad range of initiatives wasdeveloped. In academic areas, theProvost Wrighton initiated a three-yearprogram of 2% budget reductions forFY1994-1996. Similar cuts weremandated for administrative areas.Additionally, the School of Managementimplemented reorganization of itsadministrative functions into a matrix,to reduce duplication and improveeffectiveness. Similarly, the Schools ofArchitecture and Humanities moved toconsolidate administrative functionswithin their areas. Also, a committeewas established to evaluate MIT’srelationships with industrial sponsors ofresearch and to recommend how thoseties might be enhanced. And finally, ahigh-level panel was authorized to review

Figure 1


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health care options available at MIT andto recommend the best ways to fund andprovide medical services. Its membershipis currently being finalized, and the panelis expected to begin work soon.

Throughout the Institute, salary growthhas been restrained to the rate of inflation.However, a significant cost-reductioninitiative was begun to dramaticallysimplify administrative work at MIT,eliminating unneeded tasks, reducingprocess costs, and improving services.The methodology known as “BusinessProcess Reengineering” was selected forthis purpose.

The Choice of “Reengineering”About 15 years ago, scrutiny of

underlying causes of the recurringoperating gap suggested rapid growth inthe Institute’s administrative operations.Thus, early in the decade of the 1980s,MIT attempted to address this growth byreducing headcount in a series of threeannual 5% reductions in administrativeareas and more modest budget reductionsin academic areas. Ten years later,

administrative operations have recoveredtheir numbers, although approximately66% of that growth has occurred indepartments, labs, and centers ratherthan in central administrative areas.Why? The earlier reductions occurredwithout an examination of howadministrative work was done at MIT.Headcount was reduced, especially incentral areas, but the work remainedessentially unchanged, promptingdepartments to enhance local resourcesto provide needed services in support oftheir academic and research programs.2

With that lesson in mind, a reprise ofacross-the-board headcount reductionsdid not promise a long-term solution toa persistent problem. Rather, the growingpressures for changes reviewed abovesuggested that MIT must develop moreefficient ways to handle its administrativework and must examine and restructurebusiness processes that were designedmany years ago.

In the fall of 1993, President Vest andsenior officers of the Institute considered

alternative means of addressing thisissue. Although many operationsthroughout MIT were already engagedin efforts to achieve incrementalimprovements using the Total QualityManagement (TQM) approach, thatmethodology did not addressadministrative processes that werewidely viewed as cumbersome andoutdated.3 The decision was made to usethe methodology of business processreengineering. Used extensively in thecorporate world, this methodologyfocuses on processes rather thanfunctional organizations and questionsabout how work would be done if itcould be redesigned from the groundup.4 Many faculty have criticized thebusiness orientation of reengineering,arguing that it is an inappropriate matchfor an educational and researchenterprise. Yet many of MIT’sadministrative processes operate verymuch like their corporate counterparts:acquiring goods and services,maintaining physical facilities, and manyaspects of accounting and financialmonitoring. Moreover, business hasreported some success in using thismethodology to achieve fast, dramaticsimplification of processes similar tothose at MIT.

It was recognized that the Institutewould need help to apply thereengineering methodology. Using anexternal consultant firm was seen asadvantageous, since it would bring tothe Institute the unfiltered perspective ofthe external world; had access to best-practice examples from otherreengineering projects; would berelatively immune from our internalculture; and could prod the projecttowards aggressive deadlines to showresults relatively quickly.5 Althoughsome faculty were consulted about the


Colbert, from preceding page


Figure 2


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impending project, there was little initialinterest and perhaps some sense of dejavu following implementation of TQMand a number of marginally effectivemanagement efforts over the years toimprove administrative services. Afterconsidering a number of externalconsultant organizations that couldprovide the assistance, CSC Index wasselected in early February, 1994. Theconsult ing f irm has extensiveexperience in business and industryand many Institute graduates in itsranks, several of whom were assignedto the project.

President Vest designated vice-president Dickson as the “ProgramSponsor” and Prof. James Bruce, vice-president for Information Systems, asthe overall Program Manager. Dicksonappointed a Steering Committeecomprised of the other administrativevice-presidents, the executive vice-president of the Alumni Association,and Dean Joel Moses of the School ofEngineering.6 In early March, Dickson

then appointed a seven-member CoreTeam to work with Prof. Bruce in a high-level analysis of MIT’s administrativeprocesses leading to recommendationsof a set for initial reengineering.7 Theteam began its work on March 17, 1994,and reported its results andrecommendations nine weeks later.

In its work, the Core Team identifieda total administrative process cost baseof about $435 million, but only $227million of that was deemed “withinscope” of the project. Another $208million in areas such as educationadministration, revenue enhancementactivities, and a variety of other processeswere deemed “out of scope” becausethey did not represent significant costsor were deemed highly risky to undertakein the first round of reengineering.Recommendations were made in theareas of student services, facilitiesmaintenance, buy-pay, research proposalpreparation, and management reporting.8

Based on its rough analysis of costsassociated with these processes, the Core

Team estimated that redesigning all ofthe recommended processes mightreduce administrative costs byapproximately $43 million gross.

The Core Team also recognized thateach process is composed of variouscomponents or sub-processes, each ofwhich might require one or more teamsto develop and evaluate redesigns.Furthermore, processes are notindependent of one another. An exampleis the buy-pay process, which was viewedas having two primary components: buy-pay administration, which encompassesthe informational aspects of acquiringgoods and services (i.e., obtaining allthe relevant data and assembling it intouseful information about the process);and supplier consolidation, whichaddresses reducing the base of vendorssupplying goods and services.Administrative aspects of buy-pay areclosely aligned with concerns in themanagement reporting area. Similarly,components of the facilities managementprocess (design and construction, repairand maintenance, custodial services)might be addressed separately. Thus, inpresenting its own recommendations,the Core Team acknowledged thatvarious other options could beconsidered.

The Steering Committee evaluatedrecommendations and consideredalternatives during the Summer Term,1994. By early July, they returned withapproval to begin redesigns of a morelimited scope, but mostly within therecommended areas. Redesign ofStudent Services was delayed, becauseof resources needed to completedevelopment of the new StudentInformation System scheduled to go on-line in November, 1994. In August,teams were established to examine andsimplify processes in the custodial




Figure 3


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services component of facilitiesmanagement, mail, appointments, thesupplier consolidation component ofbuy-pay, and management reporting. InFebruary, 1995, a team was appointed tobegin redesign of the repair andmaintenance component of facilitiesmanagement. Figure 5 summarizes thestructure of the reengineering programas of March, 1995.9

The MethodologyThe corporate oriented language of

reengineering, while distasteful to some,provides a useful lens through whichMIT’s administrative processes can beviewed. The notions that support servicesshould be strongly “customer” focused,that certain tasks add little or no “value”to a process, or that a persuasive “businesscase” must precede investment in areengineering project are ideas that areboth reasonable and applicable withinMIT.

The methodology feels counter-cultural, considering how projectstypically proceed here. It is generallyexpected that a group (or individual)will be designated to go off and examinean issue exhaustively, considerreasonable scenarios and related issues,then draft detailed plans orrecommendations. The evaluation anddraft output are then presented forscrutiny, further refinement, and eventualconsensus by colleagues that theproposed solution is appropriate. TheDean of Architecture and Planning viewsthis approach as analogous to thedeliberate, highly consultative methodsused by architects as they work withclients to develop consensus on a design.Research teams operate similarly. Thereis usually the impression of a slow,deliberate process of study andconsultation.

In contrast, reengineering is a fastmoving, iterative, staged methodology.

A cross-functional team knowledgeableabout the process being considered isassembled to articulate within a brieftime a vision of the simplified process(the redesign) and its implications forjobs, skills, organizational changes,technology needs, and cultural impacts.For projects currently underway, thisphase was completed in eight weeks orless. Operational details of the redesignare then developed in several iterations,as a second group prototypes the solutionin a controlled environment (lab),modifying the redesign to conform moreclosely to reality. Input to these changescomes from experienced staff, who areinvited into the lab environment to testthe redesign and offer specificrecommendations. This phase is quitesimilar to the consultations and collegialscrutiny that are customary here, but itoccurs more quickly. Once the labproduces a refined solution, the redesignis further validated and modified in asmall-scale pilot in a real-worldenvironment before it is deployed

systematically into full-scale operation.Aggressive deadlines, rapid movement,and risk management characterize thisprocess. A high tolerance for ambiguityis necessary, since the details areincorporated along the way rather thanbeing worked through in advance.

The Financial InvestmentCorporations and businesses that have

successfully reengineered have reportedspending a one-time dollar for eachrecurring dollar saved. If true, then MITcan expect to invest $40-43 million tofind and remove the cost of work that isno longer integral to the services beingprovided. Overall, the effort is expectedto yield at least the same amount in netannual savings by FY1999.

Figure 6 shows the substantialinvestment costs associated with currentand anticipated redesigns, as well asanticipated returns and ongoing costs.By the end of FY1996, approximately$28 million will have been invested.$14 million will have been committed




Figure 4


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by the end of the current fiscal year,primarily for computer hardware andsoftware and for technical andmanagement support. Components ofthe $28 million include:

(1) Consultant costs for technical andmanagement consultation, estimated at$6-7 million. By the end of the calendaryear, the program expects to have fulfilledits need for further intensive managementconsulting from Index for processredesign and evaluation labs. By then,many of the current team captains willhave completed an entire reengineeringcycle, and should be experienced enoughto act as consultants for new redesignteams. Still, technical consultants willcontinue to be needed for assistance insoftware implementation.

(2) Costs associated with layoffs,estimated at $6-7 million. While thisfigure may seem high, the Institute has agenerous layoff policy that helps affectedstaff leave with dignity and with areasonable financial cushion for longerservice employees.10 Costs associatedwith layoff are typically charged toorganizational budgets; however, theirestimate has been included to present amore complete picture of the financialimpact of reengineering.

(3) $2-3 million allocated for trainingfor those who will be using the redesignedprocesses. This includes technicalinstruction in how to use new computersystems supporting the redesigns, aswell as training in how to accomplishwork in the redesigned process and/ororganization. These costs are expectedto be ongoing at about the same level,as additional processes are redesignedand their training implicationsunderstood.

(4) $10-12 million, budgeted forhardware and software acquisition tosupport the redesigns. Substantial coststhis year are associated with

implementation of the SAP integratedfinancial system, which will supplant ortie together the Institute’s central, legacysystems.11

The costs of reengineering are carriedas operational expenses. Thus, it wouldnot seem reasonable to furtherdecapitalize funds functioning asendowment or to spend unrestricted giftsto fund the program. Rather, it wasdetermined that MIT’s research sponsorswill benefit down the line from reduceddirect costs of research resulting fromlower operational costs and should,therefore, share in the investment costs.Thus, of the $28 million in reengineeringexpenditures anticipated by the end ofFY1996, $18-19 million are consideredto be shared costs. Of this, 45%, ornearly $9 million12 will be charged toresearch overhead. For the averagefaculty member, this has translated intothe recently announced increase in theoverhead rate from 52% this year to58.5% for FY1996...painful and certainlyunexpected, but not entirelyunreasonable.

How Savings Will Be RealizedIf anticipated gains from reengineering

are realized over the next three or fouryears, then faculty, staff, students, andother customers of MIT’s administrativeprocesses should see a number ofbenefits. Services will be faster, lesscumbersome, less paper-intensive, morecustomer oriented, with fewer approvalsand at lower cost than they are today.Duplicate data entry and excessivereconciliation will be dramaticallyreduced or eliminated. Integration offinancial systems and access to data in aso-called data warehouse will broadendata access and facilitate planning,budgeting, and decision making. Theoverhead rate should be reduced by 6-8points, to about the 45% range. Directcosts of research should be reduced,since the cost of goods and servicesshould decrease. And administrationwill be considerably smaller than it istoday.

Removing unnecessary work fromprocesses will produce cleaner, more




Figure 5


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cost-effective ways of doing things, butwill ultimately cost jobs and painfultransitions. Because all of the changeswill not happen suddenly, normalworkforce attrition should account forsome of the savings, perhaps as much asone-third. Nevertheless, layoffs willbecome necessary in some areas, asredesigns are implemented Institute-wide.13

It is difficult to know or to projectprecisely at this point where layoffs willactually occur. The reason lies in theway that reengineering looks at peopleand work. Analyses preceding theredesigns identified process steps andtheir estimated costs, in order to highlightthe non-productive activities (multipleapprovals, waiting for a response,duplicate data entry, excessive errorcorrection, reconciliation, etc.). In aseries of focus group sessions involvinga cross section of staff knowledgeableabout each process, the processdescription, estimated numbers andlevels of staff involved at each step, theestimated time required for each step,and transaction volume estimates werevalidated. Because much of the workidentified as being of questionable valueconstitutes fractional portions of a staffmember’s effort, the data were summedand expressed as the number of EffectiveFull-Time Staff (EFTs) involved.Therefore, the precise impact on peopleand jobs in any given organization canbe determined only as redesigns areimplemented across the Institute.14 Asthe tools are provided to simplify tasksand reduce work, managers will verylikely reorganize their administrativeoperations to take advantage of savings.There are various options here, dependingon the size and complexity of theadministrative structure. These includereassignment of fractional portions ofadministrators’ efforts to other tasks,

outright reductions in headcount,encouraging part-time workingarrangements and sharing of admini-strative resources with related groups.15

The table [Page 12] summarizesprojections of EFT reductions for currentprojects, including Student Services, andFigure 7 shows how they are expected tobe distributed across staff classifications.These projections will almost certainlychange, as redesigns are implementedand the specific staffing implicationsbecome clear. Again, since most of thestaffing increments since 1983 occurredoutside of central administrative areas,most of the reductions are expected tooccur there as well. Understandably, thecontinued uncertainty as people awaitclarification about their individualcircumstances is stressful for many,including those who are participating inredesign activities.

It is also worth mentioning thatactivities other than reengineering willaffect staffing levels in non-administrativeareas. The graduate research staff will

begin to decrease near the end of thedecade, as the cost of tuition is onceagain charged as a direct cost of research.Also, the planned decrease in the size ofthe faculty, by approximately 50 by theend of the decade, continues itsimplementation.

Positive ImplicationsMethodology, rationale, and

implementing details aside, how canfaculty expect to be affected by thereengineering projects underway today?

• The costs of goods, services, andother operations will drop, making thecost of research cheaper through loweroverhead.

• Administrative services of all typeswill be far more user-friendly.

• Budgeting, planning for, andmanaging finances will be vastly simplerthan it is today, since data for thesefunctions will exist in one place.

• Hiring, promoting, and completinga variety of staff related actions will beconsistent, straight forward, and paperless.



Figure 6



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• Acquiring goods and services willbe a cheaper, flexible, and paper-freeprocess supported by purchasing cards,electronic catalogues, and customeroriented vendors.

• Maintenance and repair requests willbe handled in less time, with lesspaperwork and with more generalistswho can perform a broad scope of non-trade-specific repair work.

• Making travel arrangements andreporting related costs will be simplerand paper-free.

• Some faculty who were accustomedto having incoming mail delivereddirectly to their desks will have to collectmail at a distributed center.

However, services such as drop-offand collection of overnight mail, correcthandling of overseas mail, and reductionin volume of unwanted mail should offsetthe inconvenience.

• Obtaining help about administrativeworkstation problems or problemsrelated to an administrative process willbe far easier than it is today.

Final WordThis article has attempted to lay out

some of the history, rationale andimplementation plans for a very largeand far-reaching program to reduce thecomplexity and cost of administrative

processes at MIT. When all is said anddone, those who remain here should findthis a more satisfying place to work andadministrative tasks significantly morepleasant and effective. Faculty shouldfind the administration to be smaller andmore cost-effective, and their interfaceeasier. I have outlined some of the long-term financial benefits as well as someof the improvement in service qualitythat are anticipated as a result of theeffort. Others can perhaps do a better jobof explicating the anticipated positive

outcomes, and I would hope that they areinvited to do so in this publication.

Perhaps too little has been said hereabout the many hard working employeeswho will be leaving as cost reductionobjectives are realized. We care aboutthem, recognize their dedicated serviceto MIT, and find it difficult to talk aboutthe more painful ramifications for themof the major changes underway. It isworth another article to review theprograms that are in place or beingdeveloped to address the needs of thosewho will be leaving, as well as strategiesfor informing and involving members ofthe Institute community in the ongoingeffort. Hopefully, everyone shares inthe overarching objective to help MITmaintain its strength and its uniquecontribution to the nation and the world.The national economy, industrialrestructuring for global competition,changing technology, and changingnational priorities have led MIT intodifficult times. Our challenge is toemerge stronger and more competitive.We must succeed.✥



Projected EFT Reductionsfrom Administrative Reengineering

Management Reporting and Student Services 468

Supplier Consolidation and Corporate Credit Cards 141

Mail, Custodial Services, and Repair/Maintenance 66

TOTAL 675

*Includes service staff (union)


Figure 7


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ENDNOTES

1A healthy portion of this competitionis attributable to MIT’s success inproducing well trained engineers andscientists, who have initiated their ownexcellent programs elsewhere andcompete for increasingly scarceresources.

2During that decade, proliferation ofgovernment regulations and increasedreporting requirements also contributedto the need for more administration, toensure compliance and to maintainadequate records.

3Frequently cited examples includedMIT’s paper driven registrationprocess; and financial systems that donot share data, track purchasingcommitments, allow encumbrances foranticipated expenses, or provide timelyreports.

4According to the founders ofreengineering, Hammer and Champy,TQM asks the questions “Where is thework done and who does it?” while thereengineering approach asks “What isthe work and how is it done?” Oncework has been fundamentally redesignedand simplified, they contend, TQMmethods must be applied to ensurecontinued improvement.

5Also, at some point, consultants goaway...by design or choice.

6With the death of ConstantineSimonides last Spring, two newadministrative vice presidents wereappointed and have joined the SteeringCommittee. Currently, the group consistsof James Culliton, vice-president foradministration; William Hecht,executive director of the AlumniAssociation; J. David Litster, vice-president and dean for research; JoelMoses, dean of the School of

Engineering; Joan Rice, vice-presidentfor human resources; Barbara Stowe,vice-president for resource development;and Glen Strehle, vice-president forfinancial operations and treasurer.

7Members of the team includedKatherine Cochrane, director of AlumniInformation Services and Resources;Isaac Colbert, associate dean of theGraduate School; Marilyn McMillan,planning director for InformationSystems; Pamela Phillips, administrativeofficer of EAPS; Shirley Picardi, bursar;Steven Scarano, assistant for informationsystems, Office of the President; andAnne Whealan, assistant director offinance.

8Student Services refers to all studentco-curricular needs, includingregistration, bursary functions, financialaid, housing and dining, etc. FacilitiesMaintenance relates to construction,repair and maintenance, and custodialservices of the Institute’s physicalfacilities. Buy-Pay starts with identifyingneeds for goods and services and endswith acquiring and paying for them.Research Proposal Preparation iscomposed of the administrative aspectsof preparing proposals for researchfunding. Management Reporting refersto the process of assembling informationneeded to manage projects, programs,and operations of the Institute.

9 In preparation for the Town Meetingheld on May 3, each team prepared aone-page summary of its objectives,activities, and progress to date. Theywere published on May 1 as a specialedition of Tech Talk, and the reader isreferred to that edition for descriptionsof current projects. Updated summarieswill be published sometime this comingfall, when further progress can bereported.



10In the recently announceddiscontinuation of the Office ofLaboratory Supplies, staff affected bythe layoff have periods ranging fromeight weeks for recently hiredemployees to 43 weeks of notice forlong-service personnel.

11SAP is one of the leading integratedfinancial software packages on themarket. (Its major competitor is Oracle.)It was selected because of its superiorMacintosh-like user interface, its clientserver technology, and the company’swillingness to partner with MIT inconfiguring the package for effectiveuse in research university environments.While SAP has an open and flexibletechnology, the translation from itsconfiguration for profit makingbusinesses to the way MIT organizesfinancial matters is challenging.However, the main design objective is tomake it simple and easy for faculty andstaff to maintain financial information.

12 This assumes an aggregate recoveryrate of 45% for central and departmentaladministrative expenses, andapproximately $1.5 million per overheadpoint.

13Where layoffs must occur, they willbe planned in close consultation with thearea management and with the cognizantSenior Officer, and existing policies willapply.

14Estimated EFT reductions are, atbest, a third-order derivative (if cost andstaffing estimates are accurate and ifredesigns are implemented fully and ifEFTs are harvested fully, then we mightreap all the projected savings).

15Where local managers have smallnumbers of staff and can reassignfractional savings to other tasks, it is notclear how to capture the value of thesaved effort.✥


- 14 -

One of the best pieces of adviceI’ve heard recently onteaching came from one of

our senior faculty members. The twoof us were attending a workshop forgraduate students who had beenchosen to lead recitations in hisdepartment the following semester.It was the last day of the three-dayworkshop, and we had already satthrough a dozen or so attempts on thepart of the new recruits to present 10to 15 minutes of their best teaching.As was to be expected with these firsttries at flying solo in front of a class,we had seen our share of abortedtake-offs, spin-outs, and even a coupleof crash landings. Finally, on thatthird day, as we sat through one moreexplanation of a problem whosepurpose and method were not as clearas they might have been, thisprofessor’s patience must have wornthin for he gruffly admonished thegroup as a whole, “Don’t turn thelessons you teach into mysterystories.”

Mysteries, of course, can beterrifically engaging. They can pulltheir readers/viewers/listeners into aweb, keeping them guessing aboutwhat will happen next, or where thenext twist or turn will be. A mysteryis mysterious precisely becauseinformation is doled out in measuredamounts; gaps are purposely created;crucial elements of the story arewithheld. Mystery makers challengetheir audience to see if they can outrunor second-guess them, fitting the

clues together before the surpriseat the end is finally revealed. Butthis, I believe, is not the best modelfor what should happen in theclassroom as we try to teachcomplex ideas.

In the classes I’ve watched, often(although unfortunately not always)

the instructor starts well byannouncing what the subject of theday will be: the harmonic oscillator,Markov chains, two-dimensionalmomentum transport processes. Ifthe topic gets written on the board aswell as being announced, all thebetter. Here is a good way to begin toinoculate students against thecreeping inroads that the mysteriouscan make.

Then the class launches into theday’s work. Very often, this meansproblems are introduced, examplesoffered, or proofs presented.Numbers fill the board, equationsabound, calculations accumulate.This level of detail is rightly at theheart of what should go on in manyMIT classes; it is fundamental to the

work of the scientist, mathematician,and engineer. The danger is thatboth instructor and student canbecome so absorbed by these detailsthat they lose sight of what I call the“picture on the box.”

Sometimes I think teaching a classis akin to working a jigsaw puzzle. In

order to put together a jigsaw puzzle,you need to alternate between thedetails – all those hundreds of piecesof oddly shaped cardboard – and thepicture on the box, which providesthe overall design for how the piecesgo together. As I’ve said, theindividual pieces – the problems, theequations, the calculations – areimportant in their own right. Theyare the building blocks of the lessonswe teach. But there is a danger thatthe details can be so delightful in andof themselves, that the larger picture,the “why are we doing this” somehowgets lost. Observing MIT classes,I’ve sometimes felt as if I werewatching a movie in which thedirector begins with a fabulous

The Jigsaw Puzzle of TeachingLori Breslow


As I�ve said, the individual pieces � the problems,the equations, the calculations � are important intheir own right. They are the building blocks ofthe lessons we teach. But there is a danger thatthe details can be so delightful in and of themselves,that the larger picture, the �why are we doingthis� somehow gets lost.


- 15 -

panoramic view – perhaps of theskyline of New York or windsweptrocks overlooking a vast expanse ofocean – and then gives the audiencenothing for the next two hours butclose-ups of the leading man’s nose.Without the long shot, without somecontext, much is lost.

The good news is that this is asimple problem to remedy. Everyonce in a while (maybe every 15minutes), all you need do is pull backthe lens and survey the territory. Itisn’t enough to simply announce thetopic at the beginning of class;students, like most of us, have shortattention spans. Research into theinformation processing capabilitiesof members of an audience showsthat attention is greatest at thebeginning and end of a presentation,with a substantial dip in the middle.(One study found that students’attention begins to wane after 10minutes!) So continually remind yourstudents why you’re solving theequation, what the problemexemplifies, how the calculationfurthers an understanding of the topicat hand.

Transitional statements help, too.How does subpoint A relate to thetheme of the day’s lesson? How doessubpoint B relate to subpoint A? Doesone idea further the next, or is it acontrast? Is subpoint C a consequenceof subpoint A and B? Why did youneed to talk about A and B before youpresented C, anyhow? Provide clear,explicit signposts along the way

reminding students where youstarted, where you are in the processat a particular point in time, andwhere you expect to end up.

What all this means, of course, isthat you need a unifying thread thatwill weave itself throughout the class.Patrick Winston, in a handout entitled

“Lecturing Heuristics,” whichaccompanies his not to be missedIAP presentation, “How to Speak,”writes of the “central, excitingquestion” that forms the basis of anygood lecture. The faculty membermentioned at the beginning of thiscolumn talks of the need to identifyand articulate the “importantproblem” that must motivate everyclass period. The question thatstudents need answered for them is,“Why are we learning what we arelearning?” What is the keyviewpoint, the fundamental insightthat propels the rest of the day’smaterial? What does the picture onthe box look like, anyway? Studieson what makes lectures successfulidentify two basic components: a

The Jigsaw Puzzleof Teaching

Breslow, from preceding page

simple organizational plan and anumber of germane examples. Bothelements are necessary, for theeffectiveness of the lecture will beweakened if either is missing.

As I’ve observed classes here overthe past year, I have beenextraordinarily impressed at the

ability of those I’ve watched tomanipulate the symbols that buildthe examples, the problems, and theproofs. Sometimes I feel as if I ambeing treated to amazing feats ofunderwater endurance; as theinstructor fills the board from oneend to the other, it is as if I’mwatching a swimmer glide effortlesslylap after lap on a single breath. Butit is important to come up for airregularly, to look around, to checkwhere you’ve been and where you’reheaded. I would like to suggest thatthat is good pedagogy, because ithelps students figure out how thepieces come together not only sothey can duplicate the picture on thebox, but ultimately so they will havethe confidence to create their own.✥

Sometimes I feel as if I am being treated to amazingfeats of underwater endurance; as the instructorfills the board from one end to the other, it is as ifI�m watching a swimmer glide effortlessly lap afterlap on a single breath. But it is important to comeup for air regularly, to look around, to check whereyou�ve been and where you�re headed.


- 16 -

UROP Opens a Door to IndustryNorma G. McGavern

This month a brochure will bemailed to hundreds of corporatemembers of the Industrial Liaison

Program about a joint enterprise calledthe Undergraduate Corporate ResearchFellows Program. The program isessentially a version of UROP designedspecifically for corporate sponsorshipand support. Both UROP and ILP hopethe Undergraduate Corporate ResearchFellows Program will increase thenumber of opportunities available forundergraduates to do interesting research.It will help corporations make moredirect connections with undergraduatesthan they can now within the typicalUROP framework.

There are two options for companiesin this program: They may propose aspecific project with a particular designor product outcome in mind; or theycan propose exploratory researchwithin a broad area of science orengineering. In either case, the projectis expected to meet regular UROPguidelines for credit-worthiness in thesupervising faculty member’sacademic department.

The first option allows a company topropose a specific project that facultyhaving expertise in the appropriate areawill be asked to review and eventuallysupervise. A willingness to supervisewill bring with it a modest amount ofmoney to cover the project’s materialsand services costs and a UROPer’sstipend paid for an entire academic year(fall term, IAP, and spring term), withoverhead and employee benefitsincluded. Total cost to the companywill be $9,475. The student may be ajunior or senior and possibly a sophomoreif he or she has sufficient expertise orresearch experience. The choice ofstudent will be up to individual faculty.At the end of the spring semester thestudent will be expected to report directlyto the company and may be invited to

work at the company on-site during thesummer. Faculty member and studentwill be asked by the UROP office toevaluate the work accomplished in theusual manner.

The second option offers money formaterials and services and an academicyear stipend for a UROPer working fora faculty member with research interestsin the general area in which the companyhas an interest. The cost to the company

will be $8,260. Faculty will be able todefine projects of their own choosingwithin the given research area. Here,too, the usual academic standards forUROP projects apply: that they must becredit worthy, appropriate to a studentworking part-time, approximately 10 to15 hours a week, and supervised by afaculty member.

Getting involved in research has longbeen a highly valued aspect of an MITundergraduate’s education. Half theundergraduate student body has beeninvolved in ongoing research with facultyin recent years, and these kinds ofresearch opportunities have beenadvanced because of UROP, which hasbeen around since the fall of 1969. Butthere are far more students interested inhaving a research experience than thereare available opportunities – especiallypaid opportunities. Changes in federalregulations having to do with indirectcosts affected UROP greatly and havelimited the money available to support

undergraduate research stipends. Thisnew program may help make it possibleto expand those opportunities withcorporate support and, at the sametime, make it easier for corporationsto tap student creativity and selectivelyrecruit.

The Undergraduate CorporateResearch Fellows Program is not anentirely new idea. Bringing corporationsinto closer contact with undergraduate

research was discussed and planned by acommittee put together by the School ofEngineering several years ago.Competing concerns kept UROP frommoving the program forward at the time.In the 1970s UROP had a successful “offcampus” program that involved severalhundred students working for localindustry, government agencies, and not-for-profit organizations. These studentshad off-site corporate supervisors andMIT faculty supervisors. As internshipopportunities at MIT grew and UROPfunding from faculty- sponsored researchbecame more readily available duringthe 1980s, interest in research outsideMIT began to fade. During the past yearor so this interest, both on the part ofstudents and area companies, hasrevived. We at UROP hope theUndergraduate Corporate ResearchFellows Program will help fill thisdesire for increased researchopportunities and stimulate corporate-undergraduate interaction.✥

There are two options for companies in this program: Theymay propose a specific project with a particular designor product outcome in mind; or they can proposeexploratory research within a broad area of science orengineering. In either case, the project is expected tomeet regular UROP guidelines for credit-worthiness in thesupervising faculty member�s academic department.


- 17 -

This July, Art Smith will be steppingdown as Dean of UndergraduateEducation and Student Affairs. DeanSmith, who joined the Institute as aProfessor of Electrical Engineering onJanuary 1, 1959, provided the followingbrief memoir in response to a request bythe Faculty Newsletter.

As I have thought about writingthis article (an activity whichhas been a substitute for actually

writing it for some time), I concludedthat a well-organized memoir shouldcontain a little wisdom, some descriptionof what the Dean does, a look back ataccomplishments or experiences, and alook forward, perhaps setting someimpossible goals for my successor.However, the duties of being Dean havetaken the time that could have beenspent in writing about being Dean, sothis is not the well-organized memoir Ihad hoped to write but rather is simply acollection of observations.

The first day that I was officially theDean for Student Affairs I received analumni magazine from my undergraduateuniversity which had an article by aretiring dean in which he tried to givesome sense of what it had meant to be adean. I found this interesting and thoughtit must have acquired some cosmicsignificance by arriving on such anappropriate day. I didn’t save the article,but I did note his three principles ofdeaning and I have found them to beapplicable in many situations. In casethey might be useful to others, I reproducethem here:

1) Much that comes to a dean’s deskis best handled by doing nothing at all;innumerable other matters are betterhandled slowly than promptly.

2) Never attribute to malice what canbe explained by incompetence.

3) Always remember that it’s mucheasier to get forgiveness than permission.

In addition to such guides to action, Ihave accumulated some factualobservations about deaning as a result offive years of hands-on experience, forexample:

• Deans get more junk mail thanmost faculty. The world is full of peopleand organizations that are willing to domy job, make my job easier, tell me howto do my job, etc., for a suitable price.None of them have seemed particularlyrelevant to deaning at MIT.

• Faculty status (“one of us”) getssuspended immediately on becoming adean (“one of them”). I can only hopethe reverse process takes place at thesame rate, a sort of detailed balancetheorem of faculty-administrationtransitions.

• Students generally are completelyunaware that deans exist until they runinto one. These encounters may besocial, academic, economic, ordisciplinary; they play an important rolein keeping deans appropriately humbleregarding their place in the universe.

As I have prepared to leave the Dean’soffice, a number of people have hadpositive things to say about my tenure inthe job and in particular about my attitudetoward and relations with students. If Ihad to give a single piece of advice to mysuccessor, it would be one I heard longago (source unknown) and which I havetried to follow with my children as wellas with students:

• Treat them as if they already arewhat you hope they will become.

I have assumed that we want ourstudents to emerge from MIT asintelligent, capable, independent adultswith exceptional capabilities for workand real understanding of the foundationsof their intended professions. I have

taken that to imply that it is my job toincrease the number and variety ofopportunities in all aspects of studentlife and give them the power to chooseamong them. I have had modest success– there is plenty more for my successorto do.

One of the tasks given to deans andother highly placed administrators is towrite one sentence mission statementswhich are supposed to encapsulate theessence of large and complexundertakings which are poorlyunderstood and constantly changing.Faced with this necessity, I devised thefollowing description of the role of theoffice of the Dean for UndergraduateEducation and Student Affairs:

• It is our role to make it more likelythat students will succeed in achievingwhat they came to MIT for.

There are many other possible missionstatements but I like this one.

There are aspects of being Dean that Iwon’t miss (preparing budgets, dealingwith tragedy, too many meetings, andtoo little time to do real work) but overallit has been a fascinating and satisfyingexperience. As with all worthwhileactivities, there is never a good time toleave – there are things begun and notfinished, commitments to people thatare not complete, opportunities unknownover the horizon – and I feel real regretat the prospect. However, my personalexperience has been that the next phaseis often better than the one just completedand that moving forward with enthusiasmis a good idea. One reason for enthusiasmis that I hope to have the time to thinkabout some of the things I have learnedas Dean and perhaps write them down.If that happens, I may submit an amendedand expanded version of this memoirbut until then these will have to stand asthe thoughts of a departing dean.✥

Some Thoughts From A Departing DeanArthur C. Smith


- 18 -

I n 1994, the Office of CorporateRelations launched two studies –dubbed Voice of Industry and Voice

of the Faculty – designed to take thepulse of individuals on both sides of theuniversity/industry partnership. Whatexpectations do they bring to the table?How do faculty members and businessleaders view themselves, theirorganizations, one another, university/industry collaborations, and finally,Corporate Relations and the ILP?

The Voice of Industry and Voice ofthe Faculty studies are part of a largereffort within Corporate Relations toredesign the organization and update theservices of the Liaison Program toaddress the needs of industry and thefaculty into the latter part of the ’90s.The results of the Industry and Facultystudies, based on extensive interviewswith representatives from both groups,cannot only provide the basis for changesinitiated as part of this largerimprovement effort, called IQ^(Innovation and Quality), but cancontribute to a greater understanding ofthe needs of both the university andindustry and perhaps, to some degree,provide the basis for more mutuallyrewarding collaborations.

Survey ProcessSubjects for the Voice of Industry

interviews were selected to provide arich mix of industry opinion. Scheduledthroughout 1994, the interviews includedindividuals from over 30 companies andorganizations representing a variety ofindustries, from aerospace to the servicesector. Participants were drawn fromcompanies large and small and fromdiverse locations. The group includedrepresentatives from active and relativelyinactive ILP member organizations,

former corporate members, andcompanies that have never participatedin the Liaison Program.

ILP interviewers posed open-endedquestions designed to elicit responsesreflecting their subjects’ fundamentalbusiness concerns. For example,interviewers asked subjects to commenton the important forces at work shapingtheir organizations, specific problemsthey and their own businesses face, andchanges in the way R&D has beenconducted in the last five years. Thestudy’s participants also discussed theirdefinitions of success, their competition,and the strengths and tools they need toremain competitive. Finally, afterobtaining input on the businessenvironment, interviewers askedquestions relating more specifically tocollaborative R&D efforts, university/industry cooperation, participants’impressions of MIT and, if applicable,their experiences working with the ILPand the Institute.

Twenty-six faculty members, drawnfrom all of MIT’s Schools, participatedin the Voice of the Faculty study.Participants included new and seniorfaculty members, academic admini-strators, those who have worked routinelywith industry and others with littleindustry involvement. Questions forfaculty members, like those addressedto industry participants, were selected toprovide a very broad field of discussion.The aim was to focus not only on day-to-day challenges and opportunities forimprovement, but especially on longer-range issues facing faculty personally asmembers of the MIT community. Facultymembers were asked to comment, forexample, on the mission of MIT, theirprofessional environment, the issues

facing the Institute, the role of industryconnections, and the potentials forimprovement within the ILP and theOffice of Corporate Relations (includingDevelopment).

Through its Voice of the Faculty andVoice of Industry interviews,Corporation Relations succeeded inamassing a generous body of subjectiveimpressions. Tackling the informationgathered for each study separately, andworking under the guidance of the Centerfor Quality Management in Cambridge,the ILP team then used a Total QualityManagement, “KJ” process – namedafter Dr. Jiro Kawakita, the Japaneseprofessor credited with its development– to sift through subjects’ comments,methodically extracting higher-level,systemic issues from a sea of input. In thisway, the team was able to identify a coreof shared concerns among the impressionsrecorded from each study group.

Mounting Pressures in IndustryDownsizing. Dwindling profits. The

demise of middle management. All areby now familiar symbols of a changingeconomy. As expected, industrialrepresentatives as a group reported thatthe current business environment isextremely competitive, and that profitmargins have indeed narrowed. Mostbusinesses are still struggling to adapt tomassive disruptions triggered by theeconomic downturn, they said.

Many organizations are now operatingwith a smaller workforce than they did afew years back. And the work pace isaccelerating. That is, competition hasheightened internal and externalpressures to produce more quickly, whileclients and consumers concurrentlydemand more value for their money.

Voices of Industryand MIT

Thomas R. Moebus

Office of Corporate Relations



- 19 -

“Sale is the only reward,” baldly statedthe CEO of a biotech firm.

And how do business leaders, for theirpart, define their missions and gauge thehealth of their organizations? Mostbusinesses find crafting an effectivestrategy for success in this intenselycompetitive marketplace an ongoingchallenge. Many industrialists reportedthat establishing a position of technologyleadership in their industries is key tomaintaining competitive advantage.“Our mission is to deliver newtechnology to the marketplace asaffordably as possible,” indicated oneCalifornia-based research manager. Butfor many firms, this goal is growingmore elusive.

Many companies have cut basicresearch to the bone. With funding nowlargely limited to product development,opportunities for achieving majortechnological breakthroughs andidentifying new product categories aredwindling. Businesses that would haveengaged in basic research efforts, givena climate of greater economic certainty,may now be cut off from sources offuture product ideas. This is perceivedas a future problem by many of thebusiness leaders surveyed who reportthat they define success in terms of theircompany’s ability to profit from newrevenue sources.

Cutting basic research has alsoimpacted company hiring processes. AVP of a large conglomerate noted, “Weare not hiring Ph.D.s, and sometimesdon’t know what to do with the ones wehave.” The lack of hiring came up inmany of our conversations, and appearsto have deeply affected the nature ofuniversity/industry interactions, sincestudent recruiting has traditionally beena pillar of the relationship.

Increasing CollaborationBecause there is no room in industry at

present for basic research, industry

leaders have a growing interest inestablishing collaborative relationshipswith outside research groups. Many areworried about their vulnerability downthe line, when the fruits of longer termresearch would pay off. They look atuniversities as a place where they hopeto buy research they would haveconducted internally in the past. Adirector of Technology Planning for acommunications firm noted, though, that“commissioned research will be funded

by industry not for the research itself,but for the strategic intelligence itprovides on business opportunities andthreats.”

There is a push to find networkingopportunities that will enable theircompanies to identify and pursuepotential collaborative arrangements.Most firms are searching out “focused ortargeted” research engagements withuniversities. Some resent MIT and otherelite universities selling them “academic”research projects, instead of workingwith industry to develop research ideasmore germane to real industrial problems.Intellectual property disposition hasbecome more of a bone of contention in

discussions with universities, MITincluded, because of the demand thatcompanies get a fully usable“deliverable” as a result of the researchproject. Companies which seek to investin research in order to gain competitiveadvantage oftentimes find themselves atodds with faculty members interested inpublishing the results of sponsoredresearch. The two parties must find away to compromise on intellectualproperty issues if collaborations are to

be mutually rewarding, the ILP studiessuggest.

Networking is also valued as a meansof expanding a company’s intellectualresources. “We want to pick somebody’sbrain to enhance our own mission,” notedan executive from a West Coast biotechfirm. Many of the ILP study’sparticipants view their companies asknowledge-based communities,dependent for economic survival on theirability to continue to learn and grow.Because they cannot get all of theinformation they need through their owninternal sources, companies need toestablish knowledge networks, they said.


Moebus, from preceding page


Most firms are searching out �focused ortargeted� research engagements withuniversities. Some resent MIT and other eliteuniversities selling them �academic� researchprojects, instead of working with industry todevelop research ideas more germane to realindustrial problems. Intellectual propertydisposition has become more of a bone ofcontention in discussions with universities, MITincluded, because of the demand that company�sget a fully usable �deliverable� as a result of theresearch project.


- 20 -

“But, we don’t have time to build thenetwork,” claimed the same executive. Amanufacturing company VP concurred,“We are running lean and mean, and haveeliminated middle management. Thesepeople were the communicators withuniversities and others.”

University/industry interactions offeropportunities to both supplement acompany’s limited research efforts andexpand its knowledge base. “Universitiescan be our window on the world, cananticipate our competitors, where theywill emerge,” said the director ofAdvanced Materials of a defense firm.Interaction with MIT in particular isvalued, in part because of the Institute’sinternationally-recognized leadership inthe areas of science and technology, andbecause of the university’s ties withU.S. policy makers. Some respondentsmentioned the value of MIT’s accessand influence over government policiesand plans.

Companies turn to MIT to keep abreastof leading-edge technology, and theVoice of Industry study’s participantsindicated that they look to MIT forinformation about technologydevelopments, not only at MIT, butaround the globe. Familiarity with thesedevelopments helps corporate strategicplanning efforts, they said. Furthermore,the business community views MIT asan important intellectual hub that canserve as a knowledge resource in a widevariety of disciplines. Many respondentswere drawn to MIT’s managementexpertise. Others mentioned that MITcould boost their knowledge ofenvironmental issues impacting industry.

MIT's Faculty SpeakFaculty members report a host of

pressures of their own. They worry aboutimpending or potential federal cutbacks,and about increasing demands fromcurrent or potential industrial sponsors.But perhaps the greatest of their worries

is the constant pressure to raise theresources needed to sustain their researchefforts. Devoting time to the ongoingeffort is difficult, given the need to spendtime on teaching, research, and relatedadministrative activities. And, as somepointed out, faculty members aren’ttrained fundraisers. Although somefundraising assistance is available fromwithin MIT, these efforts are looselycoordinated, faculty members said.

While MIT researchers have alwayscompeted with their counterparts at otheruniversities for outside funding, theynow face increasing competition fromnational labs. It isn’t an even playingfield, some say. “I can’t compete withthem because they have people who donothing but write proposals,” one harriedfaculty member said. “I have to do it allmyself.”

Junior faculty members are the moststressed, as acknowledged both by themdirectly, and by observation of the seniorfaculty. They are the first to feel theeffects of tightening budgets. And, inaddition to other pressures, they mustcompete with one another for tenure.The need to compete tends to discouragecollaboration among faculty members,because individuals working in a teammay not be recognized for their individualcontributions. The tenure system cantend to deprive faculty members of thebenefits they might derive by poolingtheir resources, some said.

A Clear MissionThe ILP’s Voice of Faculty interviews

reveal almost unanimous agreementamong the faculty on the Institute’soverriding mission: to strive for academicexcellence. The goal, one faculty membersaid, is to become “the premiereducational institution on the planet inour areas of activity.” And the best wayto gauge our success as educators is tolook at students and graduates, the study’sparticipants said. Are students recognized

worldwide? Are graduates moving on togood jobs, assuming influential teaching,research, and policy-making positions?Do they leave MIT as capable problemsolvers and confident researchers?

Second only to MIT’s educationalmission is its research mission, manyfaculty members said. MIT should tacklelong-term, high-risk research projectsthat push the limits of knowledge, theysaid. Some stressed that MIT’seducational and research missions areinextricably intertwined. Research isn’tundertaken primarily to gain newknowledge, but to teach others how todo research. As one faculty member putit, “Our goal is not to win the NobelPrize, but to do good research; to providevery good examples of research.” Onerespondent said faculty members shouldactually do more research and lessteaching, implying that students andteachers alike learn more doing researchthan they do pondering abstractions in aclassroom.

Faculty members judge their personalsuccess by their ability to assumeleadership roles in their chosen fields.Having ideas and accomplishments thatare taken seriously by others in the fieldis important. Some respondents alsomentioned the desire to contribute tobasic science. Others looked for tangibleproducts – including inventions, devices,and publications – to attest to theirsuccess. But the most disturbingprofessional failure, for many facultymembers, is to fail in one’s role as ateacher. In addition to the responsibilityto educate students and conduct usefulresearch, the Institute should help toestablish national priorities, some facultymembers said. MIT faculty, studentsand alums should play a role in shapingpublic policy and in helping to determinehow we will provide for the welfare offuture generations.





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Faculty members, in turn, expressed –although not in large numbers – aninterest in learning from industry.Collaborating with industrial partnerscan open up a new world of knowledge.Exposure to this world can be particularlyhelpful for students. Some facultymembers look to industry to providethem with real-world problems to tackle:“We provide the framework. Theyprovide the problem.”

Others wonder whether it is evenpossible for an MIT researcher to stepinto a business associate’s shoes. “I havea lot of doubt about whether even thebest engineer from MIT can get [a] feelfor a company and for the way in whicha product has to be developed and whatit takes to push it through the productionprocess for marketing,” one facultymember said. But spending some timeworking in a company’s research andoperating division – in their facilities oron the shop floor – can help facultymembers familiarize themselves with aworld that would otherwise be foreign tothem, others suggest.

Some MisgivingsBoth the business and faculty

representatives interviewed by the ILPhave some reservations about university/industry interactions. Not surprisingly,both sides feel that their concerns are notadequately understood by the other.Departing attendees at a recent high-level meeting of industrialists and MITfaculty leaders were heard to say, “Theyjust aren’t listening,” in referring tomembers of the other group.

To collaborate with businesseseffectively, universities including MITmust make a greater effort to understandthe challenges facing industry and toadjust their expectations accordingly,participants in the Voice of Industrystudy suggest. For example, comparedto the pace at which most industries havelearned to operate, the pace of university

research is leisurely. While the universityand industry have always worked underdifferent time constraints, the current,very competitive economic climate tendsto exaggerate the difference. MIT mustaddress industry’s need to complete someresearch within a short time frame,respondents said.

Faculty interviews revealed that manyMIT faculty members are, in fact, less-than-intimately acquainted with the vastchanges taking place in industry. Andmany agree that, as a whole, MIT isn’tsufficiently tuned in to industry needs.MIT must demonstrate respect, interest,and concern for the challenges facingindustry, they say. However, others feelthat industry’s needs may diverge tooradically from the university’s, and worrythat too great an interest inaccommodating commercial interestsmay therefore jeopardize the Institute’sbasic mission. The Institute can’t be allthings to all people, and in our haste toattract potential industrial partners, wemay compromise our strengths, theywarn. Because the goals of industry andthe university are not identical,differences extend beyond the pace ofwork to the nature of the work itself.Given current economic pressures,industry interest is increasingly focusedon the rapid development of deliverables,while universities maintain a greaterinterest in long-term research and infurthering intellectual progress in avariety of disciplines. Industrial partnersoften grow disenchanted if their researchinvestments do not result in tangible,applicable results. “We give money forsomething specific but get somethinggeneral back,” one industrialist lamented.

Some faculty members say theuniversity must teach industry toappreciate the value of basic research. Along-term perspective yields the biggestpayoff, they say, but it is hard to conveythat notion to business associates. It is

true that CEOs and other high-levelexecutives generally have a broaderperspective than the individuals workingunder them, but may not have therequested longer-term horizons, somefaculty members say. “We needsophisticated techno-politicalperspectives,” noted an executive of amultinational electronics firm. Butunlike their employees, higher-upsdon’t always appreciate thecomplexities of a technical problem.

There are faculty members who believethat instead of (or along with) convincingsponsors of the merits of long-termresearch, MIT ought to consider spendingup to 10 percent of its efforts on whatsome might call development. MIT needsto rethink traditional definitions ofappropriate research, they say. Othersemphatically state that productdevelopment cannot be part of theuniversity agenda. A head ofInternational Development for a majorcommunications firm cautioned, “Someuniversities are getting into the productdevelopment phase, and it’s a waste oftime. What’s happening in the productdevelopment world is different – it’s thesum of all technologies. It’s looking atthe cross fertilization of technologies, togenerate a new set of applications forsociety and new markets.”

Some participants in the Voice ofIndustry study complain they haveencountered arrogance on the part ofsome faculty members and ILPrepresentatives. To work together, MITand industry need to collaborate on anequal footing, they say. Beforeattempting to respond to industry’s needs,MIT must first work with industry tobetter understand those needs. “Youshould learn more about our company,”said a VP of a financial services firm.Faculty members must understand theindividual business as well as the overall





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business climate, and customize theindustry/university relationship to meeta company’s unique requirements. “ILPmust understand the meaning ofdecentralization in industry; mustintroduce MIT to the rest of thecorporation,” indicated a head ofResearch for a materials firm.

Faculty members also had somecomplaints about the quality of theirinteractions with industry. Specifically,many faculty members felt that it isbecoming quite difficult to work withlarge companies, in part becausecorporate hierarchies are cumbersomeand getting anything done is a challenge.“Fortune 500 companies are all walkingdinosaurs. The vigorous part of societywill be the small entrepreneurs’companies and the mobile personnelwithin them,” said one faculty member,who had himself started a small company.Echoing this sentiment, a chairman of anearby instrumentation firm said “AllMIT (founded) companies are small tomedium, yet MIT programs are gearedto large companies. In a way MIT isignoring its heritage.”

MIT and Industry:A Tradition and the Future

Most of the industrialists surveyedwere highly complimentary of MIT’soverall efforts to work with industry.Having noted the cultural mismatchesbetween university and industry, manyof those surveyed agreed with onecomment that “MIT was most successfulat matching impedance between industryand MIT.”

The Industrial Liaison Program can beinstrumental in facilitating access to MITresources, the survey’s participants said.Although company leaders perceive thereis a vast wealth of knowledge andinformation at MIT, they find it hard toget a handle on those resources. “ILPfunctions as an interpreter betweendifferent cultures,” expressed the head

of a materials laboratory. To manyoutsiders, the Institute is like a “vastcanvas covered with blotches of paint,”with no connection between them. Thelack of interconnectivity between thevarious departments and centers at MITmakes it time-consuming to work withany university. By focusing on clients’needs, the ILP can help its memberslocate the information and expertise theyrequire more efficiently. “ILP should beinteracting at the holistic level, gettingus to think across the white spaces in theorganization” said a project manager ofa chemicals firm.

MIT faculty members agree thatcommunication within the Institute needsimprovement. Insufficient mechanismsexist for communicating acrossdepartments, they say. Even facultymembers use the ILP to learn what’shappening at the Institute. “I learn morefrom ILP visits about other people atMIT than through any other mechanism,”one faculty member said. Harking backto the comments about the need for moreknowledge about industry, facultyencourage Corporate Relations to “focusless on membership,” “act like a bird-dog to identify and qualify prospects,determine a match between a firm’sneed and the MIT product,” “identifyopportunities in companies and focusthem onto faculty who will be interestedin doing those things.”

Strengthening company relationshipsis the central aim of our survey, and isenigmatic in this time of change. Manycompanies claim to want to increaseuniversity relationships, and makedemands on MIT to behave more liketheir development labs. In an era ofcutbacks, broad-based programs, likeILPs or affiliate programs, often faceelimination as a matter of internalcorporate policy. While R&D has beena satisfactory customer in the past, thechanged topology of industry generally

requires us to seek other, more product-oriented customers with the money tofund research and knowledge programs.This creates a shift in the locus ofinteraction from a scientist whoseinterests might easily parallel those ofan MIT faculty member, to a productmanager who is looking at an upcomingbottom line.

Through its Voice of Industry andVoice of the Faculty studies, the ILP hasmade a proactive effort to understandthe environment and needs of itscustomers, and is now using thatunderstanding to redesign its productsand services. ILP conferences nowfeature more industrial content, and areformatted to allow for a greater amountof networking among the attendees andwith faculty and students. The traditionalpublications continue to be revised tosegment and match customer needs. AGuide to Industry Programs provides ahigher-level view of MIT industryprograms to encourage greatersponsorship by the industry community.MIT Report is being modified to providea more strategic view of technology,while MITbits is being added to providepunchy updates on technology topics. ACR faculty newsletter is being prototypednow to provide useful info on industry tomembers of the faculty. ILP has justlaunched an effort to connect juniorfaculty with firms in the New Englandarea. We have just completed acollaboration with UROP [see Page 16]to launch Undergraduate CorporateResearch Fellows, to link the under-graduate classroom with industry practice.

It is hoped that sharing the results ofour survey with the faculty can contributeto a broader dialogue on campus aboutthe present and future of MIT’srelationships with industry, and mayhelp to bridge the culture gap which caninhibit the most fruitful exchange ofknowledge and resources.✥




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LettersTo The Faculty Newsletter:

I enjoyed your new column [TeachTalk] in the Faculty Newsletter alot and I am looking forward to

see it continued in future issues. I amnot sure that it will be easy for theProfessor Xs among us (whichinclude myself) to change theirclassroom style (since some of it ispresumably personality), but it helpsto be reminded of the Professor Ysaround and learn what they do.

Steve PischkeDepartment of Economics

[Ed. Note: See this issue's TeachTalk beginning on Page 14.]

To The Faculty Newsletter:

The last thing I need is moreelectronic mail or anotherbulletin board or Worldwide

Web page to peruse. I accomplishmy reading on the MBTA which hasyet to install internet ports. Often thetopics in the Newsletter, e.g.retirement plan news, are importantitems for my spouse to read as well.Going electronic might be a stepforward toward the future, but a stepbackward in actual utility.

(name withheld upon request)[Ed. Note: This letter was receivedvia e-mail.]

Larry’s undergraduate experienceinspired a deep and abiding interestin undergraduate life at the Institute.He has served on the Committee onthe Undergraduate Program, theCommittee on the Humanities Artsand Social Sciences DistributionRequirement, the Pre-ProfessionalAdvisory Committee, the Nomi-nations Committee, and the IAPPolicy Committee which he alsochaired. Larry was uniquely suitedto this last task – IAP was createdduring his sophomore year, and he

recalls vividly how this change in thecalendar influenced life on campus.

In 1982, Bacow chaired the facultyeffort that led to the creation of boththe Center for Real Estate, and thenation’s first graduate degreeprogram in real estate development.Sheparding this program through theInstitute’s committee structureprovided Bacow with an importantlesson in faculty governance. Thisinterdisciplinary program spans fivedepartments and four schools, andhas inspired more than 20 similar

programs at universities throughoutthe world. From 1990 through 1992,Bacow served as the director of theCenter, having served previously asits Director of Education and Directorof Research.

Larry lives in Newton with his wifeAdele (MCP ’77) and their twoteenage sons, Jay and Kenny. Heremains a passionate sailor, andspends the summers cruising with hisfamily on Buzzards Bay, VineyardSound, as well as the coast ofMaine.✥

Bacow AssumesFaculty Chair

Continued from Page 1

Electronic Newsletter Won'tAbandon Hard Copy

A s plans for electronicdistribution of the FacultyNewsletter and a faculty

electronic bulletin board proceed,readers who enjoy the traditional hardcopy can take heart. The NewsletterEditorial Board has no intention ofeliminating the paper edition.

Board members suggest the intentof the electronic version is to increasethe accessibility of the Newsletter,allow easy access to past issues, andadd features now unavailable. Onesuch addition would be a plannedsearch feature that would allowretrieval of articles from past issuesbased on author or topic.✥

○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○


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M.I.T. Numbers

Indirect Cost andFringe Benefit Rates

FY95 FY96 FY97 FY98 (current)INDIRECT COSTS(MTDC base) On-campus 52.0% 58.5% 60.0% 61.0% Off-campus 12.05% 9.0% 9.5% 10.0%

EMPLOYEE BENEFITS(S&W base) General 37.7% 39.0% 40.0% 41.0% On-campus 43.1% 44.5% 45.5% 46.5% Off-campus 46.3% 47.7% 48.7% 49.7% UROP 6.5% 6.5% 6.5% 6.5%

Source: Office of the Provost

Documents

Reengineering MIT™s Administrative Processes Faculty ...web.mit.edu/fnl/vol/archives/fnl74.pdfVol. VII No. 4 May/June 1995 Printed On Recycled Paper Teach Talk Š Page 14 UROP Opens