Some feel their responsibility ends there, and that they should have no input on such issues as residential life, Dr. Vest noted. Universities are offering an ever-greater scope of services to students. Societal expectations, funding patterns and legal requirements have also evolved. Generally, this is more efficient and in many dimensions more effective. With regard to the first point, MIT has an advantage because of its strong science focus.
Integrity is the only possible substrate upon which science can be built.
In teaching, demonstrating and guiding our research by the rigorous methods of scientific inquiry, we set a tone of action and decision-making that is very important. One example is when faculty members deviate from the rules for assigning term-end exams or reports. Similarly, the Report on the Status of Women Faculty in Science at MIT found that individual decisions and actions had an unintended cumulative effect. Change need not be dramatic, but it needs to be systemic. Many of these things happen quite naturally in graduate education, but not always for our undergraduates.