Should Harvard and MIT Be Combined?

[Marat]

Over the years there have been a number of proposals to combine Harvard and MIT into one single mega-university. Although each university now allows students to cross-register for courses in the other university, and there is a university-operated shuttle bus service linking the two schools along the short trip on Massachusetts Avenue between them, officially combining the schools would obviously generate many economies of scale and organizational simplifications, as well as enhancing the international prestige of the composite institution. Other benefits would be that the MIT library is pitiful, while Harvard's Widener library is the largest academic library in the world, and MIT has always suffered from the social problem of lacking a proper balance of male and female students, which combination with Harvard could help even out.

 

Some disadvantages would be that Harvard combined many years ago with Radcliffe to the North, and the total distance between the dorms of Radcliffe and the classes at the far end of MIT would be considerable. Also, perhaps the most difficult adjustment would be that Harvard, although it has excellent science, math, and engineering programs, has always had a humanistic atmosphere, while MIT definitely has more the flavor of a gigantic boiler-making factory full of nerds with ink-stained pockets, glasses held together with a strip of tape across the bridge, and the obligatory single shirt tail hanging out of their belt.

[BobSanchez]

Over the years there have been a number of proposals to combine Harvard and MIT into one single mega-university. Although each university now allows students to cross-register for courses in the other university, and there is a university-operated shuttle bus service linking the two schools along the short trip on Massachusetts Avenue between them, officially combining the schools would obviously generate many economies of scale and organizational simplifications, as well as enhancing the international prestige of the composite institution. Other benefits would be that the MIT library is pitiful, while Harvard's Widener library is the largest academic library in the world, and MIT has always suffered from the social problem of lacking a proper balance of male and female students, which combination with Harvard could help even out.

 

Some disadvantages would be that Harvard combined many years ago with Radcliffe to the North, and the total distance between the dorms of Radcliffe and the classes at the far end of MIT would be considerable. Also, perhaps the most difficult adjustment would be that Harvard, although it has excellent science, math, and engineering programs, has always had a humanistic atmosphere, while MIT definitely has more the flavor of a gigantic boiler-making factory full of nerds with ink-stained pockets, glasses held together with a strip of tape across the bridge, and the obligatory single shirt tail hanging out of their belt.

 

That's an interesting idea, but I think that leaving them separate would be in the best interests of the universities. The disadvantages you listed are precisely why it works so well separately. As prestigious as MIT is, it isn't really an Ivy League school. It is a nerdfest (which I say with the utmost reverence). Not to mention it would also, in some ways, end Harvard and MIT, both of which have incredible legacies and accomplishments. I think that they should remain separate. However, I think that they should strengthen their ties and collaborations. Perhaps allow MIT students to use Harvard's library or other similar measures?