2005 Infinite Mile Award Recipients

Hospitality in the Emma Rogers and Maclaurin Rooms is always embraced by your kindness, grace, and impeccable sense of service. Your ability to generate just the right atmosphere for a wide range of guests creates an environment where everyone feels at home. Always serene, resourceful, and flexible (as on the occasion of the Random Faculty Dinner miracle), your steady head, hand, and spirit are invaluable. Your culinary skills not only delight your guests, but your thoughtfulness in sharing treats also adds an extra measure of camaraderie to our team. The care, concern, and attention to detail that you always bring to your work represent the best in hospitality and collegiality.

You worked tirelessly to ease the transition of the Vests from Gray House, their home for 14 years, to a new residence, and then you helped the Hockfield/Byrne family settle into their new home. You oversaw the myriad details of the moves and the necessary repairs to the house, all amid an ongoing and busy schedule of events, which you always managed flawlessly and with exquisite attention to every detail. Your professionalism, decorum, and goodwill make each of you a joy to work with. You inspire others to always try a little harder and do a little better. The collaboration and teamwork you display help to preserve and protect an essential element of our presidents’ lives – their living environment.

As Administrative Assistant in the MIT Washington Office, you build and maintain an extensive network of colleagues, both in Washington and in Cambridge. Your skill in organizing the MIT Congressional Staff Seminars contributes greatly to this program’s success, and your energetic recruitment of this year’s seminar produced the richest mix of participants in the program’s history. Each year you recruit and help manage MIT’s student intern program in Washington, giving our talented students an opportunity to witness and contribute to the process of policy making in our nation’s capital. When a staff member was recruited for another position, you stepped in to help fill the gap by representing the Office at meetings, hearings, and events critical to our work.

Your role in staffing the search process for MIT’s 16th President and your long-term support of MIT’s LeaderShape program exemplify your talents for problem solving and leadership. In the presidential search, you integrated the work of the Faculty Advisory, Student Advisory, and Presidential Search committees – over 40 people in all. The process was made even more complex by the critical need for confidentiality. Your excellent judgment, good humor, and discretion were all essential to the search. Over the past ten years, the LeaderShape program has helped hundreds of students develop skills in imagining and creating a better community. Your role in LeaderShape has been critical to its success over the years – through your dedication, your personal example, and your resolute recruitment of faculty and administrative leaders each year. LeaderShape has made as big a difference in the lives of your colleagues as it has in the lives of the student participants.

You always go the infinite mile to build connections and community at MIT. In your support of the MIT Retirees Association, the Community Giving Campaign, the Quarter Century Club, and major Institute events such as the Inauguration and Commencement – you are as creative as you are collaborative, and as organized as you are energetic. Your vitality and openness to the ideas of others encourage colleagues to be at their creative best, too. With grace and professionalism, you adjust complex plans when the New England weather doesn’t cooperate – on the occasion of the Uncommon Block Party, for example! And you make even the rain plans a lot of fun! Your attitude, work ethic, and contagious positive enegery are inspiring.

To many at MIT, you exemplify the spirit of excellence that makes the Institute such a special place. You play a crucial role in projects and issues that affect all of MIT. The wise counsel you always provide is informed by a deep understanding of our history, traditions, and – most important of all – values. Although your accomplishments extend over a period of 38 years, the past 12 months have been exceptional, even by standards of your remarkable service. The illness of one of your directors required that you step in to lead the day-to-day operations of a very busy office. You did that while continuing to serve as a key player in the Institute’s response to sensitive media issues, and orchestrating press coverage related to the Presidential transition. You made certain that the President’s Office stayed on an even keel through a time of multiple, overlapping changes. You continued to shepherd long-term projects such as the development of a new Integrated Conflict Management System. And you worked tirelessly to ensure that the Presidential transitoin provided opportunities to showcase the best of MIT, and to draw students, faculty, staff, alumni, donors, and Cambridge together. For all that you do in your wonderful style, you are so deserving of our recognition and thanks!