Nov. 5 forum and draft reports on gender harassment

To the members of the MIT community:

We are writing to share draft reports from the four working groups President Reif established to respond to the recommendations of the 2018 National Academies Committee on Women in Science, Engineering, and Medicine Report on the Sexual Harassment of Women. As described in our initial announcement last April, these groups of faculty, students, staff, and postdocs have been reviewing our practices and making recommendations to foster a more inclusive, respectful, and equitable culture, specifically examining matters of leadership, policies, training, and the power imbalances in working and academic relationships.

We strongly encourage all of you to read the reports and to make any suggestions or comments on the draft recommendations here. We also hope that many of you will attend the following community forum where the working group co-chairs will provide summaries of their groups' ideas and collect your feedback:

The comment period will be open until November 15. The working groups will then update their reports to reflect community input before finalizing and submitting the reports to an advisory board of senior officers and faculty leaders (see the board’s membership below). The board will be responsible for reporting to President Reif on an implementation plan, and the final reports and implementation plan will be shared with the MIT community over IAP.

Engaging our community on the reports’ recommendations and implementation marks an important first step in our work with you to make a better MIT. We look forward to the forum and to receiving your ideas and insights so that together we can all create a roadmap for change.

Sincerely,

Cynthia Barnhart, Chancellor

Martin A. Schmidt, Provost

Advisory Board Membership

Ramona Allen, Vice President for Human Resources

Cynthia Barnhart, Chancellor

Rick Danheiser, Chair of the Faculty; Arthur C. Cope Professor of Chemistry

Mark DiVincenzo, Vice President and General Counsel

Leslie Kolodziejski, Chair of the Committee on Sexual Misconduct Prevention and Response; Professor of Electrical Engineering

Martin Schmidt, Provost

Susan Silbey, Leon and Anne Goldberg Professor of Humanities, Sociology and Anthropology; Professor of Behavioral and Policy Sciences, Sloan School of Management

Sheila Widnall, Institute Professor