MIT Issues Self-Examinations; Reports Support Diverse Reform

In order to create a "distinctive intellectual community," the Massachusetts Institute of Technology needs to establish a new liberal arts program, according to a recent internal report.

The report, commissioned by the MIT Committee to Design an Integrative Curriculum in the Liberal Arts, recommended the establishment of a College of the New Liberal Arts to "enable students to achieve a high degree of competence in both a science or engineering subject and one of the HASS (humanities, arts, or social science) subjects."

However, Leo Marx, committee chairman and professor of science, technology, and society, said in an interview with the The Tech, the MIT campus newspaper, that he would be suprised if MIT ever adopted the recommendations.

Marx noted that funding would be a problem since the new college would be a prohibitively expensive project. If the program were instituted, according to the report, the college would accept approximately 150 students for the combined "Bachelor of Science and the Arts" degree.

"This is all part of MIT's effort to provide more rounded undergraduate education and to achieve a more diverse student body," said Robert E. Malchman, night editor of The Tech.

The report stated that the program hopes to "meet the growing demand in American society for men and women with such dual competency for a wide range of policy-making, managerial, and administrative positions in industry, government, and education."

Students and faculty of the new college would not be "second class," the report concluded, for the curriculum would be "exceptionally demanding." Marx warned, however, that MIT must be careful not to "dilute its strength as an engineering school" and become "a second rate Harvard."

"MIT will never be able to compete as a general university," he said.