School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences

Prof. Parag Pathak, U.C. Berkeley Prof. Christopher Waters and University of Chicago postdoctoral scholar Guthrie Gray-Lobe “tracked more than 4,000 students from preschool through high school, comparing the outcomes of those who won pre-K seat to those whose lottery number wasn’t high enough,” writes U.C. Berkeley Prof. and New York Times guest writer David L. Kirp. “Those who attended preschool were less likely to be suspended or become entangled with the juvenile justice system,” writes Kirp.

MIT President L. Rafael Reif and Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry discussed the urgency of addressing climate change during the Climate Grand Challenges Showcase event, reports Chris Lisinski for the State House News Service. “Climate change has been called a ‘super wicked’ problem. In Boston, that might sound like a local way of saying ‘really hard,’ but this phrase is actually a technical term,” Reif said. “It describes any enormously complex societal problem that has no single right answer and no clear finish line as well as multiple stakeholders with conflicting priorities and no central authority empowered to solve it.”

Prof. Emeritus Leo Marx - "a pioneering student and then teacher of American studies” - died on March 8 at the age of 102, reports Bryan Marquard for The Boston Globe. Marquard notes that Marx was “a professor so thoroughly engaged with his students that he took delight when, on occasion, one nudged him aside to offer an alternative view.”

Writing for The New York Times, Prof. Emily Richmond Pollock and University of Michigan Prof. Kira Thurman explore how the idea that performing or listening to classical music is an apolitical act flourished in the wake of World War II due to the process of denazification. “In moments of war and violence, it can be tempting to either downplay classical music’s involvement in global events or emphasize music’s power only when it is used as a force for what a given observer perceives as good,” they write.

Prof. Jon Gruber speaks with Boston Public Radio hosts Jim Braude and Margery Eagan about the current state of inflation and what to expect in the future.  “I think a gradual increase in interest rates can get us there [combating inflation] without throwing us into a recession,” says Gruber.

MIT announced five projects "targeting the world's toughest climate riddles" that were selected following a rigorous two-year competition, reports Benjamin Kail for Boston Business Journal. “Climate Grand Challenges represents a whole-of-MIT drive to develop game-changing advances to confront the escalating climate crisis, in time to make a difference,” says President L. Rafael Reif.

Prof. Joshua Angrist speaks with Steven D. Levitt about natural experiments, the Talmud, and his path to winning the 2021 Nobel Prize in Economics on the Freakonomics Radio Network's podcast, People I (Mostly) Admire. “Natural experiments started to attract people like me, partly because it was interesting and fun, and we had the opportunity to actually say something concrete about the world,” said Angrist.

Prof. Jonathan Gruber speaks with Boston Public Radio hosts Margery Eagan and Jim Braude about his experience working on the Affordable Care Act over twelve years ago, and how he thinks health coverage can be improved moving forward.

Prof. Jonathan Gruber speaks with Boston Public Radio hosts Jim Braude and Margery Eagan about his latest research on a program designed to increase health care access to immigrants across New York. “We reached out through a variety of mechanisms through non-government organizations through social media and we offered them a program to improve their healthcare. We brought them in and what we did was basically just connect them with doctors,” says Gruber.

With the announcement of the new MIT Morningside Academy for Design, MIT is looking to create “a hub of resources for the next generation of designers, integrating areas of study such as engineering and architecture in the process,” reports Dana Gerber for The Boston Globe. “This is really going to give us a platform to connect with the world around problems that communities are facing,” explained Prof. John Ochsendorf, who will serve as the academy’s founding director.

Prof. Emily Richmond Pollock speaks with Isaac Chotiner of The New Yorker about how some Western institutions have cancelled performances by Russian artists following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. “Some of the discussion of these issues has fallen into some old patterns of thinking that we as musicologists are alert to,” says Pollock, “and want to warn against, which includes reacting to these kinds of bans by insisting that music is apolitical, or that there’s something fundamentally and inherently apolitical about music, which is a really problematic and untrue statement, and a knee-jerk response.”

Prof. Agustín Rayo ’01, dean of the MIT School of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, speaks with The Tech about his goals for his time as dean, the importance of an education in the humanities, arts and social sciences, and his plans for advancing the school’s DEI efforts. “The humanities, arts, and social sciences are crucial to understanding the human condition and our complex social, political, and economic institutions,” says Rayo. “MIT’s SHASS classes help develop powerful career, leadership, and problem-solving skills.”

MIT has announced the creation of a new multidisciplinary center, called Morningside Academy for Design, which is intended to serve as a “focal point for design research, education, and entrepreneurship,” reports Michael T. Nietzel for Forbes. 

MIT has announced the establishment of the MIT Morningside Academy for Design, reports Susan H. Greenberg for Inside Higher Ed. The new center “aims to foster collaboration and innovation across academic disciplines – including engineering, science, management, computing, architecture, urban planning and the arts – to address such pressing global issues as climate change, public health, transportation, and civic engagement,” writes Greenberg.

Prof. Emeritus Leo Marx, “a cultural historian whose landmark book exploring the pervasive intrusion of technology on nature helped define the field of American studies,” has died at age 102, reports John Motyka for The New York Times. Motyka writes that Marx was a “pioneer in an eclectic and still evolving quest to determine an American national identity.”