Between Town and Gown

Continued from page 3

By Sally Atwood

June 2003

The Spirit of Public Service

MIT has a long history of public service to the community. In 1991, when Charles M. Vest HM became president, those efforts began to grow significantly. "I think it comes straight from Chuck [Vest]," says Gallop. "He says we have a responsibility to provide service, and that's what we are doing."

In the last three years or so, several new initiatives supported by the Public Service Center have been designed to meet this responsibility. An expanded fellowship program funds students to work full time in nonprofit agencies during the Independent Activities Period in January and during the summer. Last year, the center spent $80,000 of privately donated money to support about 30 students in January and another 10 last summer. Sally Susnowitz, director of the center, says they could have placed others had more money been available.

Last spring, in partnership with the Edgerton Center, the center established the IDEAS (Innovation, Development, Enterprise, Action, Service) Competition, which awarded $22,000 to six student-initiated projects that addressed community needs. One of the six was an outgrowth of Graduate Volunteer Day, an orientation program in its third year that pairs graduate student volunteers with local agencies for a day. Eight students found themselves at the Salvation Army homeless shelter, where, while scrubbing floors, they talked with staff members about the shelter's technology infrastructure needs. Most of all, they were told, the shelter needed a way to track the services it provides the homeless. The grad students tackled the problem and came up with a Palm Pilot with a scanner attached. They then provided each homeless person with a bar code card. Every time a person uses a shelter service, whether a shower, a hot meal, or a bed, the card is scanned and the information goes into a database that tracks the services provided. This information not only helps the shelter focus its services, but it also provides valuable documentation for potential funding agencies.

Another innovative effort supported by the two centers encourages faculty to incorporate public service into their classes. The idea behind this "service learning" program is that students learn their course material by working on community projects that closely match their curricula. Students in Eric Klopfer's teacher education program, for example, must spend one to three hours a week per semester for three semesters in a science or math classroom in Cambridge schools observing and helping the teachers. Many of the course's assignments are based on what happens in those classrooms. Program coordinator Amy Banzaert acknowledges that some faculty had previously incorporated service learning into their courses, but notes that it is now a structured and funded program, with guidelines and professional staff to support it.

ome slightly older but still evolving educational programs are the direct result of the 1998 finding by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that MIT was not in compliance with some government regulations. In lieu of paying a fine, MIT has partnered with Cambridge public schools to develop new environmental-education programs. In fact, the EPA hopes that MIT's programs will serve as a model for other schools.

In recent years, MIT has stepped up its recycling efforts. In response to the city's Climate Action Plan, the Institute has agreed to recycle 40 percent of its waste by 2005. MIT has a long way to go: it now recycles only 17 percent of its waste. Dan Winograd, environmental counsel for MIT, says the Institute is examining its current recycling efforts and making modifications to improve its performance. MIT is also undertaking several new programs, including recycling books, student furniture, and demolition debris (96 percent of Building E10 was recycled when it was torn down last year), replacing some of the Styrofoam and plastic in dining halls with reusable china and flatware, and encouraging offices and departments to purchase recycled materials.

But perhaps the most visible of MIT's public-service efforts are the more than 50 programs it supports that engage the Institute in science and math education in Cambridge's public schools. Parravano initiated the relationship with the schools in the early 1990s. Melanie Barron, science coordinator for the Cambridge school district, describes the Institute's presence as pervasive: it brings MIT students into classrooms, provides support to service departments of the district, and offers summer classes to help teachers keep abreast of new content. Most of all, Barron says, the MIT connection gives Cambridge schoolteachers a "way to stay alive intellectually." 

Still, city officials would like to see more. Mayor Sullivan is interested in new programs that would help alleviate the achievement gaps among students. And Councilman Maher says the school system and the Institute could coordinate their efforts better than they do now, perhaps through a master plan for improving the schools.

As much as the relationship between MIT and Cambridge has improved in recent years, both sides recognize that maintaining it will require significant effort. "The smart thing for us to do and for the civic leaders in Cambridge is to find out what benefits there are and maximize them for the citizens," says Parravano. "Where there are problems, or perceived problems, we need to be sure those things are talked about and negotiated and worked out in a way that is acceptable to everybody."

Mayor Sullivan agrees. "We should be willing to work with others to make things better," he says. "I don't think they can just continue to give us stuff. At some point there has to be some recognition that we are all neighbors, that we're all contributing to the larger community."