Naming Celebration for the L. Rafael Reif Innovation Corridor
Wow! A rhumba! Rafael, as I’m sure you realize, this is one of the wildly unfair advantages of hailing from Venezuela – versus, say, New Jersey.
So, huge appreciation to the incomparable John Harbison for composing the “Rhumba for Rafael” for his inauguration in 2012!
And a great, warm thank-you to the terrific ensemble for bringing it to life for us today!
Cindy painted a vivid picture of what it was like to work with Rafael – in the trenches, over a decade.
Rafael and I never had the opportunity to work together that way. But I did have the striking experience of arriving at MIT without knowing him well – and of encountering his imprint everywhere.
If you stay at one institution throughout your career, it’s bound to shape you, and I’m sure that MIT shaped Rafael. But I’ve come to understand that, in every role he played here – from his leadership of the Microsystems Technology Lab, and of EECS, to his time as provost and then as president – Rafael shaped the MIT we know today.
As I’ve said many times, three things really stood out for me when I got to MIT:
- One was the broad, deep enthusiasm for fundamental scientific discovery: The school that celebrates a Nobel Prize the way some others celebrate championship sports!
- A second surprise: the pervasive ethic of interdisciplinary problem-solving – and the instinct to run at the hardest problems, in service to humankind.
- And third was MIT’s extraordinary culture of entrepreneurship. From first-year students to senior faculty: the unstoppable drive not just to develop new ideas, but to get solutions out into the market, at scale, to make a difference in the world.
Rafael embodies these qualities, he encouraged them in others and he built an ecosystem to foster them, through transformative new initiatives and institutions:
- MIT.nano
- The Schwarzman College of Computing
- The Engine
- The top-to-bottom redevelopment of Kendall Square!
What’s more, he found new ways to use MIT’s strengths to serve the nation, from all the innovations of edX, to the Work of the Future initiative to his pivotal behind-the-scenes guidance on the federal CHIPS and Science Act. Not incidentally, the record-breaking capital campaign he led was called the MIT Campaign for a Better World.
Each of these initiatives shaped MIT – and each one has also reshaped MIT’s connection to the nation and the world.
It’s no accident that the space we dedicate today is not a courtyard, but a corridor: A channel for people and ideas to flow freely through the heart of MIT – and to carry us outward, to limits of our aspirations. You’ll see this spirit embodied in the marker we’ll unveil today.
At the same time, I’ve come to see so many ways that Rafael’s presidency was infused with care for the Institute as a community, from all the work he led to improve the quality of student life and expand student housing, to the transformative advances he made for the arts and design – from the new theater facility, to the incredible new Music Building we opened this past year, to the Met Warehouse, now well on its way as the new home for Architecture and Planning.
Rafael, it’s been a tremendous privilege to lead an institution that bears the mark of so many Reifian innovations.
My only regret is that I missed those dance parties!
In short: With his signature combination of new-world thinking and old-world charm as a grand thinker and doer, Rafael left an indelible mark on MIT.
And on a personal note, I must add that he and Chris have been extraordinarily kind and generous to me as well.
As a permanent testament to his service and his achievements in service to MIT, the nation and the world, we now dedicate this space as the L. Rafael Reif Innovation Corridor.
Please join me celebrating the Institute’s 17th president: Rafael Reif.