Sanjay Sarma to step down as vice president for open learning

To the members of the MIT community,

I write to let you know that Sanjay Sarma, the Fred Fort Flowers and Daniel Fort Flowers Professor of Mechanical Engineering, has decided to step down from his role as vice president for open learning on June 30. He will take a semester of leave, followed by a semester of sabbatical, before returning to his normal faculty duties in the Department of Mechanical Engineering in summer 2023.

One of the most creative thinkers I know, Sanjay joined the administration in 2012. With the promise of MITx and edX just starting to become clear, we sought a visionary leader to help usher in an exciting new era in online learning. We found that leader in Sanjay.

You can read about Sanjay’s contributions on MIT News.

Shaping Open Learning and MIT’s future

As director and then dean of digital learning, and then as MIT’s first vice president for open learning, Sanjay built Open Learning from scratch, infusing the organization with his own boundless curiosity, unwillingness to settle for the status quo and unwavering commitment to the power of education.

Under Sanjay’s leadership, Open Learning has grown to encompass the Office of Digital Learning, the MIT Integrated Learning Initiative (MITili), the Center for Advanced Virtuality and the Abdul Latif Jameel World Education Lab. These units, and the entire Open Learning organization, are united by a grand aspiration: to transform teaching and learning at MIT and around the globe through the innovative use of digital technologies.

Sanjay co-led two of the most consequential Institute-wide efforts of the last decade. The first was the Task Force on the Future of MIT Education, whose 2014 report spurred the rapid adoption of blended learning models in MIT classrooms and paved the way for the MicroMasters credential and MITili, a cross-disciplinary initiative that fosters rigorous research in diverse fields to gain new insights into how people learn.

The second effort Sanjay co-led was Task Force 2021 and Beyond, whose purview extended beyond education to help us shape a post-pandemic MIT. Last fall, the task force presented an ambitious menu of actions for the coming years, with a report and recommendations that are already bearing fruit – from the Work Succeeding initiative, which imagines new ways of working at MIT, to a recently released draft strategic plan for graduate advising and mentoring.

Next steps

As we prepare for Sanjay’s departure from Open Learning, we take great comfort in the extraordinarily talented and dedicated team he has assembled. I have begun a process to identify a leader who will build on their work as we look ahead to Open Learning’s next chapter. I am meeting privately with colleagues to solicit input into my search for Sanjay’s successor, and welcome suggestions from the community at openlearning-search@mit.edu. I will, of course, treat any guidance I receive as confidential.

I expect to name the next vice president for open learning before the end of June.

Gratitude

Sanjay first told me of his intention to step down more than two years ago – and then the pandemic intervened. He was one of the first people I knew who saw Covid-19 for what it was and fully grasped, earlier than anyone else at MIT, the impact it would have on our community. He selflessly agreed to continue to serve, providing essential leadership as we navigated the myriad challenges the pandemic has presented. I have always appreciated Sanjay’s partnership and counsel, but never more than during this challenging pandemic time.

Sanjay recently said that he will be at Open Learning’s service for the rest of his life. That won’t surprise anyone who has had the privilege of working closely with him. For all he has done for our community, for his indelible mark on open learning, locally and globally, and for his continued commitment to inventing the future of education, I express to him my deep gratitude and admiration.

Sincerely,

L. Rafael Reif
President