Massachusetts Institute of Technology

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. 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.

http://web.mit.edu

History

Founded by William Barton Rogers in 1861 in response to the increasing industrialization of the United States, the university adopted the German 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 programs have expanded beyond the physical sciences and engineering into social sciences like economics, philosophy, linguistics, political science, and management.

MIT enrolled 4,172 undergraduates, 6,048 postgraduate students, and employed 1,008 faculty members in the 2007/08 school year. Its endowment and annual research expenditures are among the largest of any American university. 73 Nobel Laureates, 47 National Medal of Science recipients, and 31 MacArthur Fellows are currently or have previously been affiliated with the university.

The Engineers compete in the NCAA Division III's New England Women's and Men's Athletic Conference and sponsor 33 sports. While students' irreverence is widely acknowledged due to the traditions of constructing elaborate pranks and engaging in esoteric activities, the aggregated revenues of companies founded by MIT affiliates would make it the seventeenth largest economy in the world.

Collaborations

The university historically pioneered research collaborations between industry and government.Fruitful collaborations with industrialists like Alfred P. Sloan and Thomas Alva Edison led President Compton to establish an Office of Corporate Relations and an Industrial Liaison Program in the 1930s and 1940s that now allows over 600 companies to license research and consult with MIT faculty and researchers. Throughout the late 1980s and early 1990s, American politicians and business leaders accused MIT and other universities of contributing to a declining economy by transferring taxpayer-funded research and technology to international —especially Japanese— firms that were competing with struggling American businesses.

MIT's extensive collaboration with the federal government on research projects has also lead to several MIT leaders serving as Presidential scientific advisers since 1940. MIT established a Washington Office in 1991 to continue to lobby for research funding and national science policy. In response to MIT, eight Ivy League colleges, and 11 other institutions holding "Overlap Meetings" to prevent bidding wars over promising students from consuming funds for need-based scholarships, the Justice Department began an antitrust investigation in 1989 and in 1991 filed an antitrust suit against these universities.While the Ivy League institutions settled,MIT contested the charges on the grounds that the practice was not anticompetitive because it ensured the availability of aid for the greatest number of students. MIT ultimately prevailed when the Justice Department dropped the case in 1994.

MIT's proximity to Harvard University has created both a quasi-friendly rivalry ("the other school up the river") as well as a substantial number of research collaborations such as the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, Broad Institute, Center for Ultracold Atoms, and Harvard-MIT Data Center. In addition, students at the two schools can cross-register without any additional fees, for credits toward their own school's degrees.

Walker Memorial is a monument to MIT's 4th president, Francis Amasa Walker

A cross-registration program with Wellesley College has existed since 1969 and a significant undergraduate exchange program with the University of Cambridge known as the Cambridge-MIT Institute was also launched in 2002. MIT has limited cross-registration programs with Boston University, Brandeis University, Tufts University, Massachusetts College of Art, and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

MIT maintains substantial research and faculty ties with independent research organizations in the Boston-area like the Charles Stark Draper Laboratory, Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution as well as international research and educational collaborations through the Singapore-MIT Alliance, MIT-Zaragoza International Logistics Program,and other countries through the MIT International Science and Technology Initiatives (MISTI) program.

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. Summer programs like MITES and the Research Science Institute encourage minority and high school students to pursue science and engineering in college. Project Interphase accelerates incoming freshman whose educational backgrounds did not fully prepare them for MIT coursework.

The mass-market magazine Technology Review is published by MIT through a subsidiary company, as is a special edition that also serves as the Institute's official alumni magazine. The MIT Press is a major university press, publishing over 200 books and 40 journals annually emphasizing science and technology as well as arts, architecture, new media, current events, and social issues.

Campus

MIT's 168-acre (68.0 ha) Cambridge campus spans approximately a mile of the north side of the Charles River basin. 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.

Academics and Reputation

MIT is a large, highly residential, majority graduate/professional research university.The four year, full-time undergraduate instructional program is classified as "balanced arts & sciences/professions" with a high graduate coexistence and admissions are characterized as "more selective, lower transfer in".The graduate program is classified as "comprehensive". The university is accredited by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges.

Several rankings place MIT among the top colleges and universities in the United States and internationally. The School of Engineering has been ranked first among graduate and undergraduate programs by U.S. News and World Report since first published results in 1994.A 1995 National Research Council study of US research universities ranked MIT first in "reputation" and fourth in "citations and faculty awards" and a 2005 study found MIT to be the 4th most preferred college among undergraduate applicants.

Research

In 2007, MIT spent $598.3 million for on-campus research. The federal government was the largest source of sponsored research, with the Department of Health and Human Services granting $201.6 million, Department of Defense $90.6 million, Department of Energy $64.9 million, National Science Foundation $65.1 million, and NASA $27.9 million. MIT employs approximately 3,500 researchers in addition to faculty. In the 2006 academic year, MIT faculty and researchers disclosed 487 inventions, filed 314 patent applications, received 149 patents, and earned $129.2 million in royalties and other income.

In electronics, magnetic core memory, radar, single electron transistors, and inertial guidance controls were invented or substantially developed by MIT researchers. Harold Eugene Edgerton was a pioneer in high speed photography. Claude E. Shannon developed much of modern information theory and discovered the application of Boolean logic to digital circuit design theory. In the domain of computer science, MIT faculty and researchers made fundamental contributions to cybernetics, artificial intelligence, computer languages, machine learning, robotics, and public-key cryptography.

Current and previous physics faculty have won eight Nobel Prizes, four Dirac Medals,and three Wolf Prizes predominately for their contributions to subatomic and quantum theory. Members of the chemistry department have been awarded three Nobel Prizes and one Wolf Prize for the discovery of novel syntheses and methods.MIT biologists have been awarded six Nobel Prizes for their contributions to genetics, immunology, oncology, and molecular biology. Professor Eric Lander was one of the principal leaders of the Human Genome Project.

Departments and programs

COURSE

Aeronautics and Astronautics,Anthropology, Architecture,Biological Engineering,BiologyBrain and Cognitive Sciences, Business see Sloan School of Management,Chemical Engineering,
Chemistry,Civil and Environmental Engineering,Comparative Media Studies,Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences ,Economics,Electrical Engineering and Computer Science ,
Engineering Systems Division ,Foreign Languages and Literatures ,Health Sciences and Technology,History ,Linguistics and Philosophy, Literature ,Management see Sloan School of Management,Materials Science and Engineering,Mathematics ,Mechanical Engineering ,
Media Arts and Sciences (Media Lab),Music and Theater Arts,Nuclear Science and Engineering,
Philosophy see Linguistics and Philosophy,Physics,Political Science,Science, Technology, and Society,Sloan School of Management,Theater Arts see Music and Theater Arts,Urban Studies and Planning,Writing and Humanistic Studies

Schools

School of Architecture and Planning
School of Engineering
School of Humanities, Arts, and
Social Sciences
Sloan School of Management
School of Science
Whitaker College of Health Sciences
and Technology

Massachusetts Institute of Technology was ranked 9th in the 2008 THES-QS World University Ranking