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The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private research
university in Cambridge, Massachusetts known traditionally for research and
education in the physical sciences and engineering, and more recently in
biology, economics, linguistics, and management as well.
Founded in 1861 in
response to the increasing industrialization of the United States, the institute
used a polytechnic university model and stressed laboratory instruction. MIT's
early emphasis on applied technology at the undergraduate and graduate levels
led to close cooperation with industry. Curricular reforms under Karl Compton
and Vannevar Bush in the 1930s emphasized basic science. MIT was elected to the
Association of American Universities in 1934. 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 (68.0 ha) campus opened in 1916 and
extends over 1 mile (1.6 km) along the northern bank of the Charles River basin.
Today, the Institute comprises various academic departments with a strong
emphasis on scientific, engineering, and technological education and research.
It has five schools and one college, which contain a total of 32 departments.
Eighty-one Nobel laureates, 52 National Medal of Science recipients, 45 Rhodes
Scholars, and 38 MacArthur Fellows have been affiliated with the university. It
is one of the most selective higher learning institutions, and received 18,357
undergraduate applicants for the class of 2018¡ªonly admitting 1,419, an
acceptance rate of 7.73%.
MIT also has a strong entrepreneurial culture. The
aggregated revenues of companies founded by MIT alumni would rank as the
eleventh-largest economy in the world.9
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.
MIT was named a sea-grant college in 1976 to support its
programs in oceanography and marine sciences and was named a space-grant college
in 1989 to support its aeronautics and astronautics programs.6667 Despite
diminishing government financial support over the past quarter century, MIT
launched several successful development campaigns to significantly expand the
campus: new dormitories and athletics buildings on west campus; the Tang Center
for Management Education; several buildings in the northeast corner of campus
supporting research into biology, brain and cognitive sciences, genomics,
biotechnology, and cancer research; and a number of new "backlot" buildings on
Vassar Street including the Stata Center.68 Construction on campus in the 2000s
included expansions of the Media Lab, the Sloan School's eastern campus, and
graduate residences in the northwest.6970 In 2006, President Hockfield launched
the MIT Energy Research Council to investigate the interdisciplinary challenges
posed by increasing global energy consumption.71
In 2001, inspired by the
open source and open access movements,72 MIT launched OpenCourseWare to make the
lecture notes, problem sets, syllabuses, exams, and lectures from the great
majority of its courses available online for no charge, though without any
formal accreditation for coursework completed.73 While the cost of supporting
and hosting the project is high,74 OCW expanded in 2005 to include other
universities as a part of the OpenCourseWare Consortium, which currently
includes more than 250 academic institutions with content available in at least
six languages.75 In 2011, MIT announced it would offer formal certification (but
not credits or degrees) to online participants completing coursework in its
"MITx" program, for a modest fee.76 The "edX" online platform supporting MITx
was initially developed in partnership with Harvard and its analogous "Harvardx"
initiative. The courseware platform is open source, and other universities have
already joined and added their own course content.
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