Remarks

Second Annual Charles L. Miller Lecture, April 14, 2003

Joseph M. Sussman
JR East Professor
Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering
and Engineering Systems
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge, Massachusetts

Welcome to the Second Annual Charles L. Miller Lecture. I am thrilled to see such a large audience for what I am confident will be an excellent and historic address by the new Department Head in Civil and Environmental Engineering, Professor Patrick Jaillet.

I will say a few introductory words about Charlie Miller, Department Head in Civil and Environmental Engineering at MIT 1962-69, who died on February 29, 2000. Professor Miller is honored through the naming of this continuing lecture series. After these introductory words, I will turn to the program over to Dean Tom Magnanti to introduce Professor Jaillet, our Miller lecturer for 2003.

It is often said that politicians have greatness and leadership thrust upon them by the circumstances in which they serve. Would Churchill have been Churchill without the Second World War and the Battle of Britain? Would Roosevelt have been Roosevelt without the Great Depression and the Second World War to follow? I believe that Charlie Miller had leadership and greatness within him, but it is also clear that the circumstances in which he became the Department Head in what was then Civil Engineering in 1962, required leadership and greatness.

At that time, serious questions were being asked about the viability -- even the survival -- of civil engineering at MIT. Perhaps slow to react to a changing educational and research paradigm, CE had a small undergraduate enrollment and lacked a cutting-edge research agenda in some important areas; morale, I am told, was low.

Charlie came in -- incidentally, at the time an untenured Associate Professor from perhaps the most traditional branch of the Department: surveying -- with a mandate from then-Dean of Engineering Gordon Brown to dramatically change the department.

Miller had two insights that would shape the Department for decades to come. First, he recognized that computers -- we now call it information technology -- would revolutionize the practice and teaching of civil engineering. Second, he recognized the idea of civil engineering as the producer of large, complex systems, with a tremendous capacity to change -- for good or ill -- quality of life of people around the world, as these civil engineering systems intersect with economic, environmental and social systems.

These two initiatives, computers and systems, may seem obvious after the fact, but recall that he took over the helm of this department more than 40 years ago, when computers were thought of as "just a faster way of doing calculations that people could do anyway", and systems were viewed as lacking in intellectual substance, contrasted with more microscopic ways of looking at engineering problems.

Over the next seven years, Charlie radically altered the face of the Department with a number of new faculty appointments, with the establishment of the Civil Engineering Systems Lab, and the development of the software for Integrated Civil Engineering Systems, better known as ICES -- remarkably, still in use today. He revamped the transportation program through appointments of people like the late Marvin Manheim, the late Shef Lang, Richard de Neufville, Dan Roos and Felipe Ochoa, to reflect a systems-design -- rather than facility-design -- perspective. He appointed Bob Logcher, who brought a fresh systems and computer orientation to structural engineering. He laid the groundwork, through the appointment of Fred Moavenzadeh, for CE at MIT to take a leadership role in an industry-wide and international perspective in the construction field. He kept the engineering science focus of the Department strong through the appointments of Chiang Mei and Herbert Einstein. And in water resources he appointed Dave Marks and Frank Perkins, pioneers in the systems approach to water resource and environmental management.

Charlie made a remarkable contribution over seven years at the helm of Civil Engineering, and his influence continues to be felt to this very day. That is why we honor him with this continuing lecture series, supported by the Miller Endowment, raised through generous contributions of alumni and friends, many of whom are here today.

Bob Logcher, Dan Roos and I have the honor of serving as the trustees of this Fund and we are gratified to see the turn-out here today.

Let me now introduce our Dean of Engineering, Tom Magnanti, an Institute Professor, one of only 12 at MIT, and Professor of Management Science and Electrical Engineering, who will introduce Patrick Jaillet. Please help me welcome Tom Magnanti to the podium.