Human touch
No one can be all things to all people. But President-elect L. Rafael Reif is regarded by many members of the MIT community as “warm,” “humble” and “human,” and as someone who cares deeply about education. Those traits were a central theme of the reaction on the MIT campus to Wednesday’s announcement that Reif, currently MIT’s provost, will become the Institute’s 17th president on July 2. Faculty and students alike anticipate that Reif will bring core elements of his character to bear on a diverse group of institutional challenges. Institute Professor Ann Graybiel, a cognitive scientist who served on MIT’s Presidential Search Committee, called Reif a person of “deep humanity” with “total dedication to MIT’s goal of improving the human condition through the unique set of talents brought together on our campus.” Graybiel added: “He is humble yet strong, gentle yet determined, and has a clear sense of how...