The MIT 100

Professor Patrick Henry Winston ’65, SM ’67, PhD ’70

Some say that the United States has a second diplomatic corps that is sometimes more effective than the official one.

Its origins are at places such as the Naval War College, the Air War College, and the Army War College, which are interesting to visit, in part, because of the variety of foreign uniforms you see on campus.

Most of the foreign military-school students are carefully selected by their home countries and most are on a fast track toward positions of high influence and responsibility. Having learned our values and bonded with people in our military, foreign graduates of our military schools provide a back-channel way of getting messages through.

During the Egyptian Revolution of 2011, American Officers who knew Egyptian Officers were getting in touch and reminding their Egyptian friends about some important principles.^*

So, why not have MIT create an analog of what happens in our military schools, an analog aimed at educating the next generation of world leaders both technically and culturally. Each year, we would welcome to the campus 100 seniors nominated by 100 universities from 100 countries all over the world. We would embed them in MIT dormitories and FSILGs for a senior year and perhaps a fifth year master's degree.

Sure, we have a lot of foreign students already, and we have a demonstrated appetite for deals with foreign universities that involve large financial packages. A big deal with Russia's government-funded Skolkovo Foundation is nearly final.^** But few students come from poor countries and none of our deals are with universities in poor countries or universities in the Western Hemisphere or especially universities in poor countries in the Western Hemisphere, such as, say, Haiti.

I waited a day and the idea still seemed interesting, so I started it off on a shakedown cruise, as I generally do, by writing up a prospectus, complete with possible solutions to a dozen obvious problems. I calculated it would cost a visionary donor about $10 million per year.

Of course, it might not work, and it certainly would not work at a place other than MIT, and perhaps the place up the street, and three or four other universities. On the other hand, if it worked, it would have a nice ring to it: the MIT 100, a corps of future world leaders all bonding together with MIT students headed in important directions.

^* Economist 24 February 2011.

^** Agreement announced 26 October 2011.