The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1861 in response to the increasing industrialization of the United States, MIT adopted a European polytechnic university modeland stressed laboratory instruction in applied science and engineering. Researchers worked on computers, radar, and inertial guidance during World War II and the Cold War. Post-war defense research contributed to the rapid expansion of the faculty and campus under James Killian. The current 168-acre campus opened in 1916 and extends over 1 mile along the northern bank of the Charles River basin.
MIT, with five schools and one college which contain a total of 34 departments, is often cited as among the world's top universities.The Institute is traditionally known for its research and education in the physical sciences and engineering, and more recently in biology, economics, linguistics, and management as well. The "Engineers" sponsor 31 sports, most teams of which compete in the NCAA Division III's New England Women's and Men's Athletic Conference; the Division I rowing programs compete as part of the EARC and EAWRC.
As of 2015, 85 Nobel laureates, 52 National Medal of Science recipients, 65 Marshall Scholars, 45 Rhodes Scholars, 38MacArthur Fellows, 34 astronauts, 19 Turing award winners, and 6 Fields Medalists have been affiliated with MIT. The school has a strong entrepreneurial culture, and the aggregated revenues of companies founded by MIT alumni would rank as the eleventh-largest economy in the world.
The true and only practicable object of a polytechnic school is, as I conceive, the teaching, not of the minute details and manipulations of the arts, which can be done only in the workshop, but the inculcation of those scientific principles which form the basis and explanation of them, and along with this, a full and methodical review of all their leading processes and operations in connection with physical laws.
Curricular reforms
In the 1930s, President Karl Taylor Compton and Vice-President Vannevar Bush emphasized the importance of pure sciences like physics and chemistry and reduced the vocational practice required in shops and drafting studios.The Compton reforms "renewed confidence in the ability of the Institute to develop leadership in science as well as in engineering. Unlike Ivy League schools, MIT catered more to middle-class families, and depended more on tuition than on endowments or grants for its funding.The school was elected to theAssociation of American Universities in 1934.
Still, as late as 1949, the Lewis Committee lamented in its report on the state of education at MIT that "the Institute is widely conceived as basically a vocational school", a "partly unjustified" perception the committee sought to change. The report comprehensively reviewed the undergraduate curriculum, recommended offering a broader education, and warned against letting engineering and government-sponsored research detract from the sciences and humanities. The School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences and the MIT Sloan School of Management were formed in 1950 to compete with the powerful Schools of Science and Engineering. Previously marginalized faculties in the areas of economics, management, political science, and linguistics emerged into cohesive and assertive departments by attracting respected professors and launching competitive graduate programs. The School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences continued to develop under the successive terms of the more humanistically oriented presidents Howard W. Johnson and Jerome Wiesner between 1966 and 1980.
MIT has over 500 recognized student activity groups, including a campus radio station, The Tech student newspaper, an annualentrepreneurship competition, and weekly screenings of popular films by the Lecture Series Committee. Less traditional activities include the "world's largest open-shelf collection of science fiction" in English, a model railroad club, and a vibrant folk dance scene. Students, faculty, and staff are involved in over 50 educational outreach and public service programs through the MIT Museum, Edgerton Center, and MIT Public Service Center.
The Independent Activities Period is a four-week-long "term" offering hundreds of optional classes, lectures, demonstrations, and other activities throughout the month of January between the Fall and Spring semesters. Some of the most popular recurring IAP activities are the 6.270, 6.370, and MasLab competitions, the annual "mystery hunt"and Charm School. More than 250 students pursue externships annually at companies in the US and abroad.
The Maclaurin Buildings comprise Buildings 3, 4, and 10, and form a large U-shaped structure enclosing the section of Killian Court farthest from the Charles River. This is the outdoors area where formal Commencement ceremonies occur every June, and is the classic view of MIT featured in many publicity photos. The buildings were named in honor of MIT president Richard C. Maclaurin, who was instrumental in organizing MIT's move from Boston to "The New Technology" campus in Cambridge. The facade of Building 10 is dominated by a colonnade of 10 monumental columns of the classic Ionic order. The Brass Rat, MIT's class ring, features the Building 10 facade on the shank of each ring, including a portrayal of the Great Dome.
The Great Dome, which sits atop Building 10, is modeled on McKim, Mead, and White's Low Memorial Library at Columbia University, which is in turn an imitation of the Pantheon in Rome. The Dome was originally planned to be a cavernous assembly hall, but budget limitations threatened to prevent construction of the Dome altogether. A smaller library and lecture hall instead filled the space. Architectural historian Mark Jarzombek later described the library space as a "capacious oculus light into its center, and its perimeter surrounded by a row of Corinthian columns. Four curved topped aedicules [add] a counter-punctual element. More baroque in flavor that what one normally might have expected from Bosworth, the building seems in fact to be an inside-out quotation from Christopher Wren's St. Paul's Cathedral.
Bosworth noted that the columns of the Pantheon's porch are not placed along a straight line, but bow out a bit toward the central axis. This is a classical optical illusion also used in the Parthenon of Athens to make the line of columns appear straight. Bosworth replicated this technique at MIT; to observe it, one has to lie down and sight along the front of the steps.Rogers Building
The Rogers Building, named for MIT founder William Barton Rogers, is the second building of that name, the original having been demolished on its Back Bay site some years after MIT moved to Cambridge. Located at 77 Massachusetts Avenue, it is the official address of the entire Institute and serves as the entrance to the Infinite Corridor, the main pedestrian path connecting east campus with west campus. The Rogers Building was not a part of the original campus, but was built as a part of MIT's extension of the original Bosworth plan along Massachusetts Avenue.
The spacious lobby is an impressive vestibule topped by a small dome that rejects the neoclassical tradition of reducing scale between the interior and exterior, with the result that the "inner space remains at the less intimate urban scale. The glass oculus at the top was blacked out during World War II but was restored during a renovation in 2000. The School of Architecture and Planning is housed around the dome and the lobby court.
Business
MIT Press primarily publishes academic titles in the fields of Art & Architecture, Visual & Cultural Studies, Cognitive Science, Philosophy, Linguistics, Computer Science, Economics, Finance & Business, Environmental Science, Political Science, Life Sciences, Neuroscience,New Media, and Science, Technology, & Society.
The MIT Press is a distributor for such publishers as Zone Books and Semiotext. In 2000, the MIT Press created CogNet, an online resource for the study of the brain and the cognitive sciences.
The MIT Press also operates the MIT Press Bookstore showcasing both its front and backlist titles, along with a large selection of complementary works from other academic and trade publishers. The retail storefront is located next to the inbound Kendall Square Station of the MBTA Red Line subway in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The Bookstore offers customized selections from the MIT Press at many conferences and symposia in the Boston area, and sponsors occasional lectures and book signings at MIT.
In 1981 the MIT Press published its first book under the Bradford Books imprint, Brainstorms: Philosophical Essays on Mind and Psychology by Daniel C. Dennett.
A European marketing office was opened in 1969, and a Journals division was added in 1972. In the late 1970s, responding to changing economic conditions, the publisher narrowed the focus of their catalog to a few key areas, initially architecture, computer science and artificial intelligence, economics, and cognitive science. Other areas, such as technology and design, have been added since. The latest addition is environmental science.
The Institute's sports teams are called the Engineers, their mascot since 1914 being a beaver, "nature's engineer". Lester Gardner, a member of the Class of 1898, provided the following justification: "The beaver not only typifies the Tech, but his habits are particularly our own. The beaver is noted for his engineering and mechanical skills and habits of industry. His habits are nocturnal. He does his best work in the dark.