The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological research. MIT is one of two private land-grant universities and is also a sea-grant and space-grant university.
Founded by William Barton Rogers in 1861 in response to the increasing industrialization of the United States, the university adopted the European university model and emphasized laboratory instruction from an early date. Its current 168-acre (68.0 ha) campus opened in 1916 and extends over 1 mile (1.6 km) along the northern bank of the Charles River basin. MIT researchers were involved in efforts to develop computers, radar, and inertial guidance in connection with defense research during World War II and the Cold War. In the past 60 years, MIT's educational disciplines have expanded beyond the physical sciences and engineering into fields like biology, cognitive science, economics, philosophy, linguistics, political science, and management.
MIT enrolled 4,232 undergraduates and 6,152 graduate students for the Fall 2009–2010 term. It employs about 1,009 faculty members. Its endowment and annual research expenditures are among the largest of any American university. 75 Nobel Laureates, 47 National Medal of Science recipients, and 31 MacArthur Fellows are currently or have previously been affiliated with the university. The aggregated revenues of companies founded by MIT alumni would be the seventeenth largest economy in the world.
The Engineers sponsor 33 sports, most 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.
History
As early as 1859, the Massachusetts State Legislature was given a proposal for use of newly opened lands in Back Bay in Boston for a museum and Conservatory of Art and Science. In 1861, The Commonwealth of Massachusetts approved a charter for the incorporation of the "Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Boston Society of Natural History" submitted by William Barton Rogers. Rogers sought to establish a new form of higher education to address the challenges posed by rapid advances in science and technology during the mid-19th century with which classic institutions were ill-prepared to deal.
A 1905 map of MIT's Boston campus.
The Rogers Plan, as it has come to be known, reflected the German research university model emphasizing an independent faculty engaged in research as well as instruction oriented around seminars and laboratories. Rogers proposed that this new form of education be rooted in three principles: the educational value of useful knowledge, the necessity of “learning by doing”, and integrating a professional and liberal arts education at the undergraduate level.
Because open conflict in the Civil War broke out only weeks after receiving the charter, MIT's first classes were held in rented space at the Mercantile Building in downtown Boston in 1865. Though it was to be located in the middle of Boston, the mission of the new institute matched the intent of the 1862 Morrill Land-Grant Colleges Act to fund institutions "to promote the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes." Although the Commonwealth of Massachusetts founded what was to become the University of Massachusetts under this act, MIT was also named a land grant school. The proceeds went toward new buildings in Boston's Back Bay in 1866; MIT was called "Boston Tech." During the next half-century, the focus of the science and engineering curriculum drifted towards vocational concerns instead of theoretical programs. MIT rejected Harvard's proposal to merge MIT with Harvard's Lawrence Scientific School.
Campus
MIT's 168-acre (68.0 ha) campus spans approximately a mile of the north side of the Charles River basin in the city of Cambridge. The campus is divided roughly in half by Massachusetts Avenue, with most dormitories and student life facilities to the west and most academic buildings to the east. The bridge closest to MIT is the Harvard Bridge, which is marked off in a non-standard unit of length – the smoot. The Kendall MBTA Red Line station is located on the far northeastern edge of the campus in Kendall Square. The Cambridge neighborhoods surrounding MIT are a mixture of high tech companies occupying both modern office and rehabilitated industrial buildings as well as socio-economically diverse residential neighborhoods.
MIT buildings all have a number (or a number and a letter) designation and most have a name as well. Typically, academic and office buildings are referred to only by number while residence halls are referred to by name. The organization of building numbers roughly corresponds to the order in which the buildings were built and their location relative (north, west, and east) to the original, center cluster of Maclaurin buildings. Many are connected above ground as well as through an extensive network of underground tunnels, providing protection from the Cambridge weather as well as a venue for roof and tunnel hacking.
MIT's on-campus nuclear reactor is one of the largest university-based nuclear reactors in the United States. The high visibility of the reactor's containment building in a densely populated area has occasionally caused controversy, but MIT maintains that it is well-secured. Other notable campus facilities include a pressurized wind tunnel and a towing tank for testing ship and ocean structure designs. MIT's campus-wide wireless network was completed in the fall of 2005 and consists of nearly 3,000 access points covering 9,400,000 square feet (873,000 m2) of campus.
In 2001, the Environmental Protection Agency sued MIT for violating Clean Water Act and Clean Air Act with regard to its hazardous waste storage and disposal procedures. MIT settled the suit by paying a $155,000 fine and launching three environmental projects. In connection with capital campaigns to expand the campus, the institute has also extensively renovated existing buildings to improve their energy efficiency. MIT has also taken steps to reduce its environmental impact by running alternative fuel campus shuttles, subsidizing public transportation passes, and a low-emission cogeneration plant that serves most of the campus electricity and heating requirements.
From 2006 - 2008, MIT reported on-campus crime statistics that included 16 forcible sex offenses, 4 robberies, 13 aggravated assaults, 536 burglaries, 2 cases of arson, and 16 cases of motor vehicle theft.