MIT School of Engineering strategy retreat (circa 1990)

24 senior and junior faculty at a three-day Cape retreat trying to define engineering. Tom (chosen by Flemings) attended as the junior member. Output: a definition Tom still thinks was good, and which the assistant dean Donna Savicki could not locate ten years later. Used as both a meta-illustration of the definitional problem and as a parable about institutional memory loss.

So pre-assessment is one thing. The other thing is, I sort of sandbagged you — there is no good definition of engineering. As Kahneman will say, I've essentially pre-programmed you. Actually I think there is a good definition. About 25 years ago, during a Columbus Day holiday, about 24 people from the School of Engineering — department heads and a few others; each department head was allowed to pick one younger faculty member, and I was the one Professor Flemings chose — went down to a retreat on the Cape to figure out the strategy we should have for the next 25 years for the School of Engineering. We spent a lot of time trying to define what is engineering. You would think that 24 engineers from the School of Engineering at MIT could define what engineering is. We spent about a day in little breakout groups, and we finally came up with what I still think is a very good definition, and I'll give it to you later. But about 10 years ago I asked the assistant dean, Donna Savicki, for a copy of it because I didn't have that little report. She barely even remembered it, okay.