MIT SLOAN SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT | 2020-2021 REPORT
IMMEDIATE NEEDS AND EMERGING OPPORTUNITIES FUND
MIT Sloan Office of External Relations 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Building E60-200 Cambridge, MA 02139
THROUGH THE PLEXIGLASS: A LOOK AT THE PAST YEAR It has been a full year since organizations around the world, in response to the growing threat of the COVID-19 pandemic, faced a seemingly insurmountable task: change everything. MIT Sloan was no exception. In the midst of the greatest crisis of a generation, and in true Sloanie spirit, the MIT Sloan community surged forward offering help. You mentored students and helped them find job and internship placements when their pre-COVID-19 plans fell through. You collected PPE for the campus and local communities. And, through your generosity to the MIT Sloan Annual Fund’s Immediate Needs and Emerging Opportunities (INEO) Impact Area, you equipped the school with the resources to respond to each new obstacle that arose. Thank you for the integral part you have played in ensuring MIT Sloan could face the many challenges brought on by the pandemic—and surmount them. Despite the difficulties of the last year, there is much hope. Looking back on 2020 and the early months of 2021, the MIT Sloan community banded together to do all that was possible to mitigate the effects of the pandemic—and did so with creativity, determination, and courage. Today, thanks to the many efforts of this wonderful community as well as its generosity, the school is stronger than it ever has been. Thank you. In the following pages, enjoy learning more about what your INEO support has made possible at MIT Sloan.
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ZOOMING IN ON MIT SLOAN’S RESPONSE TO COVID-19 500,000
900
$1.2M
In the last year, MIT has administered over half a million COVID-19 tests.
More than 900 generous donors like you have contributed to the INEO fund.
Since March 2020, the Immediate Needs and Emerging Opportunities fund has raised over $1.2 million, providing essential support for the MIT Sloan community during the COVID-19 pandemic and immediate, emergency funding for students facing:
The INEO Fund also supported new technology at MIT Sloan, including the development of the COVIDPass app. Students used COVIDPass to schedule COVID-19 tests, view their results, track their testing cadence, submit their daily health attestations, and gain access to campus. COVIDPass was integral to the school’s ability to bring students safely back to campus in the fall. Screenshots of the app’s interface, courtesy of MBA ’22 student Chris Schröder, can be seen below:
COVID-19–related travel restrictions and visa issues Housing and food needs due to the pandemic Financial hardship from lost employment Difficulties accessing technology, equipment, or stable wifi
2020 A year that MIT Sloan could only have faced with your steadfast commitment to the school, its community, and its mission to educate the next generation of principled leaders.
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ENGINEERING A SAFE RETURN TO CAMPUS Support from the INEO Fund also went toward retrofitting MIT Sloan’s physical spaces with new infrastructure, including the design of COVID-19 testing best practices and construction of the facilities in which to administer tests. Drawing on her background in architecture, Susanna Baker was instrumental in the design and fabrication of MIT Sloan’s COVID-19 testing facilities, like the testing booths in the Exec Ed dining room (left). Going from concept to prototype to final product in just four weeks, the testing booths were critical to bringing students safely back to campus for the Fall 2020 semester—and the spaces made so much sense, that the Institute bought 20 of the MIT Sloan-designed booths, for the main MIT testing site at the Johnson Athletic Center.
SUSANNA BAKER
DIRECTOR, SLOAN FACILITIES AND SPACE PLANNING As we prepared to welcome the MIT Sloan community back to campus for the Fall 2020 semester, our primary goal was to create a calm, organized, and safe environment so people could focus on what they came to campus to do—learn and teach. To accomplish this goal, MIT Sloan, together with MIT Medical, decided to implement on-site observed self-swab COVID-19 testing. We wanted to create an easily accessible location for Sloan students, faculty, and staff to test on a regular cadence. MIT Sloan Facilities and Space Planning and expert faculty worked together to develop a testing system, incorporating a booth and personnel flow plan that would be easy to fabricate, install, and clean. The layout of the room was designed to create a clear separation between the observers and those testing while maximizing throughput. The process was fast-paced and iterative; initial sketches to booth install was about a month. Ultimately, MIT Medical bought twenty additional MIT Sloan-designed booths, which were installed at the Johnson Athletic Center, to support COVID-19 testing for the entire Institute. As of early April 2021, MIT has conducted over 500,000 tests.
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A LOOK AT MIT SLOAN’S REDESIGNED SPACES To manage building density, MIT Sloan limited student entry to two staffed doors. Students were invited on campus if they had an in-person learning day and were cleared for access based on their COVID-19 test cadence.
MIT Sloan developed a hierarchy of directional signage to create easily-navigable spaces (below left) and removed 1,000 pieces of furniture from common areas and classrooms (below right) to allow for social distancing.
MIT Sloan is fortunate to have its beautiful green spaces, and COVID-19 presented an opportunity to use its outdoor areas in new ways. The addition of tents and outdoor lawn furniture supported potential queues at the entry points and provided a space for outdoor dining. More importantly, they provided a much-needed connection to the natural world, improving mental and physical well-being. Students poured onto the lawns for class breaks and team meetings, and the enhanced outdoor spaces were so incredibly well received, that the school is planning to purchase outdoor furniture for the MIT Sloan community to enjoy post-COVID-19.
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A NEW KIND OF CLASSROOM SMART On March 10, 2020, MIT announced that beginning on March 30, all classes would be delivered online for the rest of the Spring 2020 semester. In the intervening days, MIT Sloan’s faculty and staff jumped into action, shifting every one of the school’s classes online with astonishing speed. As if one redesign wasn’t enough, to prepare classrooms for in-person learning for the Fall 2020 semester, MIT Sloan Technology Services upgraded all classrooms to support “Hyflex Learning” (pictured below) with some students in-person and some learning remotely. Your generosity to the INEO Fund ensured that no matter when or where students logged on, the school and its spaces were ready.
Active Speaker (View for faculty)
Remote Participants (View for students)
Remote Participants (View for faculty) AV Tech
REFLECTIONS FROM A FULLY REMOTE STUDENT My SFMBA program began in the early summer of 2020—just after the first wave of COVID-19 in the U.S.—and I was unsure about balancing my work slate amid so much uncertainty. Although MIT Sloan gave me the option to have a hybrid in-person and remote learning experience, I decided to stay home and be a fully remote student for the entirety of my one-year program.
MELISSA MURPHY SFMBA ’21
Now that I’m about to graduate, I can say that, in many ways, being a completely virtual student was even better than I imagined. Because I didn’t have to commute to campus for class and regular COVID-19 testing, I could maximize class time and channel all of my energy into my studies. Plus, I am an extremely sociable person, and not being able to gather with others alleviated a great deal of social pressure.
Thanks to the technological solutions MIT Sloan made available, I still had all of MIT’s resources at my fingertips, and I felt like I could capitalize on every aspect of the SFMBA program. I did not squander a second of it. The virtual resources allowed me to schedule meetings at times that typically would not have been available, and even though I was thousands of miles away, I was able to conduct research and build relationships with MIT Sloan’s amazing faculty and other members of my cohort. I’ve achieved so much this year, and I genuinely don’t think it would’ve been possible without the flexibility of being a remote student.
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REDEFINING THE T IN TECHNOLOGY WES ESSER
CIO & EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR MIT SLOAN TECHNOLOGY SERVICES
Ramping up to fully remote course delivery in March 2020 was a marathon— and a sprint. We took a ‘this is hard, but happening’ approach, and we worked with faculty and staff to find out what they would need to be as successful as possible. We hosted classes for faculty on how to use Zoom to its fullest extent, and dozens of volunteers came together to perform practice class sessions with them. When courses were back in session online, we held faculty town halls where they could share tips and tricks and learn what others were finding effective in their remote delivery. At the same time, we were trying to get staff set up from their homes. We distributed technology and equipment and conducted hundreds of hours of trouble-shooting. In June, we started thinking about the fall semester, when we planned to deploy a ‘hy-flex’ hybrid model for in-person learning, where students would participate ‘on Zoom and in the room.’ We brought back the training sessions of the previous March, but to orient faculty with the in-classroom infrastructure. We also worked with MBA program staff and faculty to maximize campus time and space so that the core semester courses could take place in person. Over the course of the year, seeing my colleagues, our staff, students, and faculty—it’s been apparent that as a school and community, we are as flexible and resilient as we have always said we were. What we have accomplished is the result of distributed leadership—there is simply no way to do top-down planning when the rules and needs shift so quickly. It’s just lots and lots of people who showed up, who raised their hand and said ‘I have something to contribute.’ That is what makes the MIT Sloan community so strong.
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THE COVID-19 STUDENT EXPERIENCE MIT Sloan’s mission to deliver an unparalleled educational experience looked a lot different this year, but faculty brought the same dedication to their Zoom rooms as to their classrooms, and students attended online classes with as much tenacity and drive as they ever have. Read on for more perspectives on what the student experience has been like during the pandemic.
SANTIAGO RAFFO MBA ’22 This has certainly been a different experience, but when I look at the situation in perspective, I feel privileged for being a part of MIT Sloan: it was one of the few schools that was able to successfully deliver in-person classes during the fall semester. MIT Sloan’s plan to return to campus was a clear demonstration of what MIT is capable of, and it made me feel proud to belong to this community. I was also impressed by the commitment of each and every member of the institution—ranging from faculty and staff to students themselves—to make this plan work. It proved how people committed to a clear, common goal can overcome the biggest obstacles to succeed—even during the worst pandemic in world history. I am looking forward to sharing many more experiences with my classmates and getting to know more people, hopefully through in-person activities and Action Learning courses in semesters to come.
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TEMI OHIOMOBA MBA ’22 I have had incredible opportunities to learn and establish strong relationships in my short time in school. While COVID-19 has presented several challenges, it has also provided opportunities to observe and appreciate the ingenuity at MIT. My classmates and I, with the assistance of the staff, have been able to maintain high morale and camaraderie by hosting small group dinners, virtual coffee chats, and Zoom trivia. Additionally, I have participated in various admission panels to help prospective students, and I have enjoyed sharing in their dreams and excitement about getting into MIT Sloan.
CAROLINA SANTIAGO MORALES MBA ’22 I have learned a lot from MIT Sloan’s leadership in navigating the pandemic. Starting from the summer, they have been transparent in communicating and acknowledging the uncertainties that we are all experiencing. They have held many town halls to keep everyone on the same page and are always available to answer all questions via our Slack group chat. The school outfitted every room with cleaning supplies, high-tech microphone and connectivity systems, and someone from STS to help make the experience seamless between those of us in the classroom and those joining virtually.
GAURAV MEHTA SFMBA ’21 Life throws you lemons. We make lemonade. MIT Sloan has gone above and beyond to enable an in-person experience. Professors like Dr. Andrew Lo brought in incredible guest speakers to every class who typically would not be able to do so in person. We were able to connect with some students for team meetings. In addition, the online experience allowed us to connect with some networks that would typically not have been available to us.
ROB YEGON MBA ’22 While COVID-19 presented sizeable challenges, MIT Sloan proved that it was able to rise to the challenge by using its operational expertise to make the best out of a difficult set of circumstances. As an MBA student, I was delighted at having a sizeable proportion of in-person classes, something that many peer schools did not offer. Regular COVID-19 testing and social distancing protocols gave me confidence that health was the priority when I was in person.
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MIT SLOAN’S FACULTY RESPONSE TO COVID-19 Your support of the Immediate Needs and Emerging Opportunities Fund provided resources for faculty to shift the focus of their research to topics related to COVID-19 and the ways the pandemic affected communities around the world. By enabling MIT Sloan faculty to share their expertise, your support of the INEO Fund has been felt in every corner of campus, and indeed across the globe.
KATE KELLOGG DAVID J. MCGRATH JR (1959) PROFESSOR OF MANAGEMENT AND INNOVATION, PROFESSOR, WORK AND ORGANIZATION STUDIES
Professor Kate Kellogg switched the focus of her research from innovative models of work and employment to nursing homes in the wake of COVID-19. Working as a part of the COVID-19 Policy Alliance with other MIT faculty and students, as well as the Massachusetts Senior Care Association, Professor Kellogg and her team have worked to provide nursing homes in the state with much-needed volunteers, PPE, and Coronavirus testing kits. Professor Kellogg’s team has worked with partners as far away as China to funnel equipment into the hardest-hit, most-vulnerable communities. Citing these partnerships as integral to long-term success, Professor Kellogg says, “I’ve always believed that MIT’s true uniqueness comes from the fact that collaboration is imprinted in its DNA.”
MIT’s true uniqueness comes from the fact that collaboration is imprinted in its DNA. —KATE KELLOGG
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CHARLES SENTEIO DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. VISITING ASSISTANT PROFESSOR
Visiting Assistant Professor Charles Senteio from Rutgers is researching vaccination inequity and the reasons why underrepresented populations, who tend to report higher levels of medical mistrust, may not be vaccinated. A licensed clinical social worker and health informaticist, he is pushing back on the assumption that minority populations have lower rates of vaccination because they mistrust the healthcare system. He is investigating the effect of trustworthiness of providers and care teams on health behaviors and outcomes to focus more closely on the groups and systems responsible for the drivers of mistrust. He seeks to describe how increasing the credibility of providers and care teams may improve persistent inequity in health outcomes.
DAVID G. RAND ERWIN H. SCHELL PROFESSOR, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF MANAGEMENT SCIENCE AND BRAIN AND COGNITIVE SCIENCES
Partnering with Professor Senteio, Professor David Rand researches misinformation, which is particularly important in regard to COVID-19 and facts around vaccinations. He has found that people sometimes share misinformation that they would be able to identify as false if they had stopped to think before sharing. This is not to say people are knowingly sharing false information, but rather that they may not be paying attention to what is true because of how social media works, with catchy headlines and sound bites getting more traction and interactions. “Most people don’t want to share misinformation,” Rand says. “While scrolling, they forget to think if what they’re sharing is true or not. I’ve done the same thing myself even though I study this.”
Together, Professors Senteio and Rand are measuring vaccine hesitancy and the underlying, cultural perceptions people have. They aim to develop messaging to address the causes of this hesitancy, as well as understand the structural factors that may present barriers to vaccination—work and research they believe can be applied far beyond the pandemic and Coronavirus vaccinations, to health equity writ large. In the first phase of the project, they will use validated research instruments to investigate how attitudes about COVID-19 vaccines vary among Black Americans. Preliminary work demonstrated that those who were more immersed in African American culture were more skeptical of a COVID-19 vaccine. They will build on this initial work with a larger population to confirm the correlation. The insights gained from this initial phase will form the underpinning for a future project addressing the second phase, which is to design and test tailored messaging to high-risk groups of Black Americans. The hope is that this research can also be used to understand more generally how perceptions may influence health behaviors such as cancer screening, attending primary care appointments, and medication adherence.
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ENGINEERING A BRIGHTER NEW NORMAL.
MIT Sloan School of Management Office of External Relations 77 Massachusetts Avenue, E60-200 Cambridge, MA 02139-4201 mitsloan.mit.edu/alumni