Letter to the Faculty: Three new committees to start work

Dear Colleagues,

I hope you are doing well as we ramp up in the new semester! I am delighted to announce the formation of three new committees as follows:

1. The Committee on Graduate Admissions (CGA) will be chaired by Professor David L. Darmofal of the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics. During the 2011-2012 academic year, the Institute transitioned ten graduate programs to an all-electronic graduate admissions software platform developed by Professors Frans M. Kaashoek and Robert T. Morris in the MIT Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS), which has already resulted in enormous improvements. The CGA will serve as the primary Institute body for review and oversight of the graduate admissions transition to the EECS platform. The CGA will periodically review, discuss and provide feedback and recommendations to the project team on the all-electronic graduate admissions system. The full charge and membership of the CGA can be found here.

2. The Task Force on Graduate Student Professional Development (TFPRO) will be co-chaired by Professors Yang Shao-Horn of Mechanical Engineering and Stephen C. Graves of the Sloan School of Management. My office has recently created an electronic library and software platform, the Professional Development Portal or "PRO-DEPOT," which will develop into a comprehensive online repository of MIT-sponsored personal and professional development video content. The charge of the TFPRO will be to review desirable skillsets for MIT masters and doctoral graduates in various disciplines and employment sectors and to identify core competency areas, to map current MIT professional development offerings to identified skillsets and core competency areas, to identify best practices within and outside of MIT in the area of professional development, to provide recommendations for formulating a comprehensive coherent set of offerings to all MIT graduate students, to propose options for supporting and collaborating with graduate programs and connecting professional development activities to curricula, and to report on potential opportunities to leverage online platforms to provide professional development content and enhance in-person professional development activities. The full charge and membership of the TFPRO can be found here.

3. The Committee on Student Entrepreneurship (CSE) will be co-chaired by Professors Anantha Chandrakasan, Head, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) and Yoel Fink, Materials Science and Engineering, Director of the Research Laboratory of Electronics (RLE). The charge of this committee includes the review of policies and procedures, best practices, resources (e.g., Responsible Conduct of Research Training), and current literature relevant to student involvement in entrepreneurship and commercialization activities, as well as the creation of documentation clarifying these topics for broad distribution. The CSE will report to myself, Dean for Undergraduate Education Daniel E. Hastings and Vice President for Research and Associate Provost, Claude R. Canizares. The full charge and membership of the CSE can be found here.

It is very exciting to have faculty and students from across the Institute involved on these important topics in graduate education. Thank you to all who agreed to contribute their valuable time and efforts, as well as the ODGE Faculty Advisory Board for their input. I invite you to contact the chairs of the above committees or myself directly to engage in the work of these committees.

All the Best,

Christine Ortiz
Dean for Graduate Education