Letters To The MIT Community

To the members of the MIT community,

As we mark the successful finale of the MIT Campaign for a Better World, I find myself thinking back to where we started.

As a community, we began the Campaign with bold aspirations — and a passionate belief that the work of MIT can have broad and lasting value for the world. In the years since, I have been deeply moved to see the global MIT community embrace this Campaign, grounded in our shared mission and values, and I could not be more grateful for the enthusiastic willingness to answer its call to action.

The Campaign’s closing milestone speaks to the breadth of its appeal: 112,703 donors collectively raised $6.2 billion.

MIT transformed

But most impressive and indelible are the ways that the Campaign is transforming MIT and will advance our mission. Because of the support and engagement of our alumni and friends, MIT’s magnetic ability to attract the world’s finest talent and to help every member of our community flourish has never been stronger. Hundreds of new scholarships, fellowships, and professorships across the Institute have been complemented by extensive new funding for labs, learning spaces, innovation and entrepreneurship, and discovery research. And unrestricted gifts made during the Campaign were crucial in helping MIT adapt to the unexpected challenges of Covid‑19.

Already we can see the Campaign’s effect on MIT’s physical campus and academic landscape, which are humming with new potential. Just a few examples: Kresge Auditorium, the Hayden Library, the Chang Building, and the Simons Building have all been renewed. The Samberg Center offers an exhilarating new place for our community to gather. Before long, the members of our School of Architecture and Planning will come together in a first-rate new hub, the Earth and Environment Pavilion will unite our research communities focused on environmental and climate questions, the MIT Stephen A. Schwarzman College of Computing headquarters will rise as a new intellectual center of gravity on campus, and the MIT Museum will have a brand-new roost in Kendall Square to welcome the world in. We’ll soon have a new wind tunnel and, as a wonderful coda, the Institute will have a worthy new home for music, right where it should be, at the center of student life.

In keeping with the Campaign’s aspirations to impact and service, the Institute is now much better positioned to help confront humanity’s great challenges, from climate change, environmental degradation, water and food scarcity, and cancer, to economic, educational, and health inequality around the globe.

In short, because of the devoted efforts of an enormous global team of alumni, friends, volunteers, faculty, students, and staff, MIT is poised — in countless ways — to help make a better world.

You can gain a fuller picture of the Campaign’s range and impact here.

Special thanks to faculty and staff

Through the course of the Campaign, I have watched with humility and admiration as hundreds of faculty and staff went out of their way to help raise funds to support MIT’s mission. You are among the Institute’s most inspiring ambassadors; for our donors around the world, your insight and enthusiasm make the wonder of this community come alive. At this milestone moment, I want to express to all of you my deepest personal appreciation.

It is a continuing honor to be part of this work, in support of the people and mission of MIT.

With boundless gratitude and high hopes for the future,

L. Rafael Reif