Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Organization and administration

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Organization and administration

MIT is chartered as a nonprofit organization and is owned and run by a privately appointed board of trustees known as the MIT Corporation. The current board consists of 43 members elected to five year terms, 25 life members who vote until their 75th birthday, three elected officers (President, Treasurer and Secretary), and four ex officio members (the president of the Association of Former students, the Governor of Massachusetts, the Massachusetts Secretary of Education, and the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts). The board is chaired by John S. Reed, former president of the Stock Exchange of New York and Citigroup. The corporation approves the budget, new programs, degrees, and faculty appointments as well as electing the president to serve as the CEO of the university and presiding over the Institute's faculty. MIT's endowment and other financial assets are managed through a MIT Investment Management Company subsidiary (MITIMCo). Valued at $ 9.7 billion in 2011, MIT's endowment is the sixth-largest among American universities.

MIT has five schools (Science, Engineering, Architecture and Planning, Management, and Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences) and one college (Whitaker College of Health Sciences and Technology), but no schools of law or medicine. While academic committees assert substantial control over many areas of MIT's curriculum, research, student life, and administrative affairs, the president of each of the 32 academic departments reports to the dean of the MIT School of that department, which in turn informs the president under President. The current president is L. Rafael Reif, who previously served as rector of President Susan Hockfield, the first woman to hold the office.