[2845] in Discussion of MIT-community interests
[Mit-talk] Faculty meeting discussion on Task Force (part 2 of N)
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Michael Lieberman)
Wed Nov 15 20:35:39 2006
Date: Wed, 15 Nov 2006 20:35:12 -0500 (EST)
From: Michael Lieberman <mathmike@mit.edu>
To: mit-talk@mit.edu
Cc: edcomm-sac@mit.edu
Errors-To: mit-talk-bounces@mit.edu
For those interested, here's a lot of what was said at today's faculty
meeting.
First of all, there will be no decisions made until the February
meeting (no motions were passed today, but two motions were withdrawn
and replaced with a motion to thank the taskforce for their work and
to make no decisions until at least February). Also, there will be an
extra faculty meeting in two weeks (Sept 29) for further discussion
but no faculty meeting over December break.
In my opinion, most of the faculty who spoke had good points. There
were three members of the task force in the front of the room to give
their thinking, and in my opinion the most useful thing they said
(repeatedly) was that certain issues were undecided and left up to the
faculty to figure out. I won't bother mentioning much of what they
said, but I have more specific (less polished) notes in my Public.
Two foreign language professors stood up against the new HASS
requirement, as making it harder to take languages early (which is
really useful for international experiences to happen). One of them
also went on to criticise the large lecture format of proposed fresman
experience classes. She would much rather see small classes, where
freshman *and* upperclassmen can engage in active discussions. She
thinks the current system could use simplication, but the proposal
would be more complicated.
Other than those two, the comments were all about the
Science/Engineering Core.
Leeb mentioned a few concerns:
He doesn't want people to be able to choose their science GIRs, either
by choosing 5 or 6, or by choosing Geophysics over 8.02, because the
science GIRs are important for everyone to know.
He gave an example of a simpler change to the GIRs, where the
institute lab is simply replaced by project-based classes.
One of the task force members pointed out that one open point is
whether departments can require boxes... or specific classes within
boxes... and how many.
Silbey suggested that maybe Quantum (rather than geophysics) would
better fit into a Physics box.
Rheinberg (Course 22) is in favor of allowing a smaller HASS
requirement for students that want to go all-out into their field,
pointing out that top European technical institutions don't require so
much HASS.
The task force thought about this, but that's not changing any time
soon. They like an MIT mission that includes HASS.
Craig Carter (Course 3) expressed interest in more crossover between
HASS and technical fields.
David Karger (Course 6) doesn't see the point of singling out 18.01
18.02 and 8.01.
Becker (Course 8) thinks 8.02 is essential to an MIT education, as
well as the MIT reputation.
Charles Coleman (Course 16) asked if the task force had looked at what
other schools do (including top European schools). He also didn't see
students getting much of the attempted flexibility anyway, because
departments or medical schools would require specific classes.
Dave Trumper (Course 2) first mentioned that he wanted to hear less of
the Task Force and more of the faculty. He then went on to say that
the current document is so mutlidimensionally flawed, that he prefers
the current system... The document is trying to do too many different
things. It would lead to broader students, with more international
experiences but he cares about those less than the technical
experience they would lose.
Dean Magnanti mentioned that he wants to go around to departments to
find out what specific courses, and what boxes they would like to
require, and report back to the faculty.
David Mendel (STS/Eng Sys) (also on task force) pointed out that while
there are many controversial issues in the task force report, he
would like to see the easier ones quickly enacted, like the removal of
the double degree (that requires 90 extra units) in favor of a double
major (that doesn't).
Ruth Miller:
Loves Mendel's previous comment.
She loved 8.02 so much she took it twice. She (and undergrads) think
that 8.02 is an important part of the MIT education/reputation.
There was still small line of people with comments who will be first
in line at the next meeting. First in line is Slocum. I happened to
talk with him later and he might bring up an idea about having 18.01
recitations taught by various departments to give students flexibility
in their learning style. (This would of course extend to some of the
other science GIRs.)
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