In Recognition of a Lifetime of Service, an Honorary Membership

When Ann Allen W ’68, HM ’18 received the letter last spring notifying her that she had been selected for honorary membership in the MIT Alumni Association, her first thought was that perhaps the letter had been for someone else. “There are a few Ann Allens in the MIT community,” she said. “I thought the letter might have been intended for one of them.”

Alumni Association CEO Whitney T. Espich assured Allen that she was indeed deserving of the honor—citing Allen’s “unwavering and devoted service to the Institute” for more than six decades.

The awarding of honorary membership status to non-alumni in the MIT Alumni Association was first conceived in the constitution of the Alumni Association, which was adopted at its annual meeting in 1897. Since 1900, 168 individuals have been designated HMs.

Allen’s MIT experience began when the 1956 University of New Hampshire graduate got her first job at the MIT Libraries, working in the Reserve Book Room. “I loved it here from the first day,” she says. Her life-long MIT affiliation began in earnest when she met and married the late Jonathan Allen PhD ’68, a professor in the School of Engineering and director of the Research Laboratory for Electronics (RLE).

As a faculty member’s wife, Ann Allen took a deep interest in her husband’s work and in the MIT community. Allen says that she has found most meaningful her work to improve the MIT student experience through the arts.

A longtime member of the MIT Women’s League, Allen, a musician and burgeoning art historian, wanted to help make connections between the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA) and the Institute. In 1981, she co-created an Independent Activities Period class in which she and other league members guided students through exhibitions. Later, as an MFA adjunct lecturer, she helped establish the biannual art history and appreciation course “Looking Together.”

From 2003 to 2018, Allen served on the Council for the Arts at MIT (CAMIT), where she chaired the Annual Meeting and Awards committees. In addition to judging student artwork for the Harold and Arlene Schnitzer Prize in the Visual Arts, she traveled around the world, visiting museums and installations and attending many performances on behalf of MIT as a CAMIT executive committee member.

At MIT, she twice co-taught a course, “The Supernatural in Music, Literature, and Culture,” with Dr. Charles Shadle and Professor Ellen Harris, and she also created a curated visit to the MFA for Burchard Scholars—MIT sophomores and juniors who have demonstrated excellence in the humanities, arts, or social sciences—and MIT faculty.

After Jonathan Allen died in 2000, Ann Allen became an active member of the Emma Rogers Society (ERS), which offers surviving spouses of alumni and faculty opportunities to stay connected to the MIT community. Allen has reached out to many new widows, especially faculty members’ wives, to offer an empathetic ear and to encourage them to attend events.

“I cannot think of coming to MIT events without Ann,” says Anna Newberg W ’72, a long-time ERS member. “Through her special tours of the MFA, she gave us a great way for surviving spouses to venture out and see things in a different light. I always think of her as part of MIT.”