Principal Investigator Sally Susnowitz
Project Website http://web.mit.edu/outreach/
MIT's outreach efforts are an active, open engagement between MIT and the community at large. This engagement is an acknowledgement of the fundamental relationships that exist between MIT and the public at the local, national, and global levels, and is motivated by a spirit of reciprocity.
The MIT Outreach Database allows community members to browse through and search for specific outreach programs available in a wide range of areas.
What is Outreach?
While there are different interpretations of what constitutes outreach, in the interest of practicality, the MIT Outreach Database Administrative Team has drawn a line determining what we consider it to be for the purposes of the MIT Outreach Database. As a result, the following is a list of very valuable work that falls outside the scope of outreach as we have defined it.
(*) Firstly, outreach must in some way reach outwards toward the external community. As such, activities that help only within MIT, such as campus tours, are not considered outreach.
(*) Secondly, outreach must be active and open. Outreach of this sort can be applied for and actually participated in by community members. For this reason, we have excluded academic work at MIT such as theoretical research, engaged scholarship, and service learning.
(*) Lastly, outreach must be ongoing or cyclical in some way. This excludes, for example, a one-time lexture, but can include lecture series as long as it satisfies the above criteria.
The mission of the Outrsearch Database is:
To grant the public access to and an understanding of the outreach opportunities and offerings of MIT.
To enable MIT faculty, staff, and students to see the opportunities available for collaboration and association for the connection and allocation of resources.
Goals include:
Access -- to enable those who want to take part in MIT Outreach programs to see the opportunites that are available to them.
Centralization -- to provide a centralized resource of outreach programs that will increase the profile of MIT's outreach initiatives on campus and beyond.
Communication - to communicate the resources and opportunities available at MIT and to improve the connections between MIT and the community. Sponsors
The Public Service Center, The Edgerton Center and the Office of Government and Community Relations have supported the development of this database.