MIT's President Discusses What's Her University For. (November 12, 2005)

    This past Monday MIT's president, Susan Hockfield, delivered in the institute's Kirch Auditorium the Miller Lecture on Science and Ethics (named for MIT alumnus Arthur Miller, noted for his work in electronic measurement and instrumentation).

Professor Hockfield told her audience that MIT's founder, William Barton Rogers, believed the Institute's work should be to advance and develop science and then apply that knowledge to world problems, and for her, the overarching responsibilities of a research university are to educate students and to advance knowledge in ways that will help humankind.

She went on to say, "Our mission calls us to make the world a better place through education, innovation and power of example. This is what MIT has done with extraordinary success for nearly a century and a half," and added that part of that mission is to set an example through "integrity, independence and engagement with the world," and emphasised the critical role of faculty governance in the pursuit of that mission.

She then addressed the question of the juxtaposition of research and teaching at the university challenging John Henry Newman's 150 year-old claim that research and teaching are distinct gifts not usually found in the same person. "If the object [of universities] were scientific and philosophical discovery, I do not see why a university should have students."

MIT's Tech Talk reports:

In fact, research and education are mutually reinforcing, Hockfield said. “Today, the fusion of teaching and research is best exemplified in American universities, and perhaps nowhere more fully than here at MIT,” she said. MIT faculty members teach and perform world-class research, and 85 percent of MIT students do research as undergraduates through UROP, the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program, Hockfield said.
 

The responsibilities of a research university are significant. In addition to training the next generation of leaders, MIT must advance knowledge “in ways that will serve humankind,” Hockfield said. The Institute is a place that shrugs off the “ivory tower” idea of the university. “Our tradition of engagement with the world goes back to our founding 150 years ago.”