[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 89 (Thursday, June 24, 2004)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7425-S7426]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         TRIBUTE TO CHUCK VEST

 Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, this month marks the end of a 
distinguished 14-year tenure for Chuck Vest as president of the 
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He has been an excellent leader 
for this outstanding institution in our State. He has attracted and 
retained a world class faculty, including Nobel Prize winners. He's 
maintained an impressive balance between consistency and change to meet 
the changing needs of the university in the modern high-tech world. and 
he has developed the research capacity of the institution far beyond 
its abilities when he took the helm.
  His commitment to diversity has also been impressive. In 1990, the 
undergraduate student body was 34 percent women and 14 percent 
underrepresented minorities; today the student body is 42 percent women 
and 20 percent underrepresented minorities--the result of a 
conscientious effort by President Vest and the community he cared about 
so much.
  His leadership was marked by many innovative reforms. He decided to 
publish all course material online so that it is freely available to 
anyone in the

[[Page S7426]]

world. He brought the unequal treatment of senior female faculty to the 
attention of the community, and held an open dialogue on how to correct 
the situation. He offered health benefits to same-sex partners. His 
leadership on financial aid methodologies laid the groundwork for the 
provisions that are now part of the Higher Education Act.
  Chuck has worked skillfully as well to obtain increased support for 
scientific research--especially in the physical sciences, and he was a 
familiar figure in corporate boardrooms and to many of us in Congress. 
His cooperative work with Lincoln Labs, with Harvard and with the Broad 
Foundation and his commitment to the Cambridge and Boston Public 
Schools are important parts of all he has brought to MIT. When he was 
named in February to the President's Commission on the Intelligence 
Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass 
Destruction, he said, ``I will concentrate on two priorities, MIT and 
the Commission.
  There is so much to be said about Chuck Vest--his intelligence, his 
appealing personality, his modesty about his own high accomplishments, 
and his tireless pursuit of excellence in everything he does. All of us 
who know him wish him well in the years ahead, confident that we will 
continue to think and act boldly about the role of science and 
scientific education in our changing world and its fundamental 
importance to the future of our Nation and its best ideals.

                          ____________________