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Faculty Life: Election Issues, Quality of Life Survey

  • Nancy DuVergne Smith
  • slice.mit.edu
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2016 Quality of Life Survey: Satisfaction with being an MIT employee. Credit: FNL.
2016 Quality of Life Survey: Satisfaction with being an MIT employee. Credit: FNL.

The MIT Faculty Newsletter (FNL) offers an inside view into faculty issues and interests and the September-October issue ranges from pondering the presidential candidates' takes on science policy to the results of a faculty and staff quality of life survey. Here are some highlights:

Presidential Candidates Weigh In On Science Policy Issues

How would the competing candidates for president act on issues of science policy, an issue close to many MIT hearts? According to a questionnaire prepared by a national science consortium, ScienceDebate.org, the candidates that responded initially—Hillary Clinton, Jill Stein, and Donald Drumpf—have distinct takes on 20 key science policy issues. On the threat of climate change, for example, both Clinton and Stein called for forceful action while Drumpf called for more assessment before action. Here are the candidates’ answers to the 20 questions, which also included Gary Johnson’s views.

2016 Faculty Quality of Life Survey

What makes MIT attractive to faculty? While many faculty members received job offers from competing institutions, one of the key factors that makes them want to stay at MIT is the high quality of the undergraduates, graduate students, and postdoctoral associates. Coming in second is the quality of their colleagues. What would faculty like improved? Support for using more technology in their teaching in the form of classrooms that facilitate making videos, interactive teaching, and downloading chalk board notes.

More than have of MIT students gain international experience as undergraduates. Credit: FNL.
Half of MIT students gain international experience as undergraduates. Credit: FNL.

What Makes MIT Global?

The people at MIT make it a global enterprise: 42 percent of faculty, 43 percent of graduate students, and 65 percent of post-docs hail from countries outside the U.S.; 151 countries are represented on campus. MIT students also experience the world directly: faculty and students are working in more than 75 countries, and 50 percent of graduating seniors now report having had at least one international educational experience, up from 23 percent in the class of 2006.

Read the FNL online for more on these stories and on the MIT-Haiti Initiative.

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Comments

Adam

Thu, 10/20/2016 3:56am

MIT is the high quality of the undergraduates, graduate students, and postdoctoral associates. Coming in second is the quality of their colleagues.

One more question:

Have you changed MIT to MIP??

Alan Friot

Wed, 10/19/2016 9:43am

Have you changed from MIT to MIP?

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