Bishwapriya Sanyal

INTERVIEWER: This is an interview with Professor Bish Sanyal for the MIT150 Infinite History project. Professor Sanyal is a Ford International Professor of Urban Development and Planning, and director of the Special Program in Urban and Regional Studies and Humphrey's Fellows program at MIT. He first joined MIT in 1984 as an assistant professor and later served as the head of the Department of Urban Studies and Planning from 1994 to 2002. He also served as the chair of the faculty at MIT from 2007 to 2009. Thank you so much for speaking with us today Professor Sanyal.

SANYAL: Thank you.

INTERVIEWER: So let's start by talking a little bit about where you're from, your family background, and your upbringing in India.

SANYAL: Well, I was raised in Calcutta, in the state of West Bengal in India. And I went to school at the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, which is like 80 kilometers from Calcutta. And I pretty much stayed there until I finished my undergraduate, and then came back to Calcutta for two years to work with my dad, who was a civil engineer and had his own construction business.

He built bridges around the eastern part of India and also even outside. So I worked with him for two years. And then I left for a Master's degree, for the US.

INTERVIEWER: And tell me a little more about your childhood. What kind of family environment did you have? Was it a very academic family with an emphasis on education? Obviously, your father was quite a successful businessman.

SANYAL: It was a family with a lot of family members who have had advanced degrees. And many of them had degrees from England, because at that time England was the main source of good universities. So it was not uncommon in our family for young men to go abroad to study at all.

So it was not that difficult for me to convince when I wanted to go abroad, except that by this time the situation had changed and the United States was becoming more the prominent place to go to study. But I do come from a very well-established and educated family. It's been a privilege.

INTERVIEWER: And what were your early--- earliest academic experiences? What subjects do you remember interesting you? And did certain courses really inspire your love of learning?

SANYAL: In school--- I went to a Catholic school. And it was a very good school, now I think back. The school was known as Saint Lawrence High School. I liked painting, art, writing, math. I liked biology a lot, I remember.

So when I applied for higher education, there was an all-India competition for the few slots in the Indian Institute of Technology, which is the best university in India. And I got in. And when I applied, I wanted to do my degree in architecture.

That was my first preference, because I thought that I like art and that was kind of an overlap with my dad's business on construction. So why not go for something that we can combine in architecture and civil engineering? And so I started as an architect.

INTERVIEWER: And one of your bios says that you credit contradictory forces in your life for your intellectual journey. Can you expand on that a little bit?

SANYAL: Well, there are a couple of the things that I think I would call dual demands on the way, I think. And I'll give you one example about architecture and aesthetics, which I still enjoy very much. I just like looking at beautiful things, well designed things, parks, beautiful environments, beautiful clothing, furniture. And at the same time, having been raised in a city like Calcutta, I'm very conscious about poverty and about deprivation and inequalities. And this tension between aesthetics and inequality has always influenced my thinking.

So I worked in architecture. Then I moved to city planning to look at cities, how poor people manage to live in cities. But now if you asked me like you asked me before about JP, my first though was the Arboretum. So I am still very drawn to beautiful things. And that doesn't mean JP doesn't have poor people. JP actually has much larger share of poor people than probably Cambridge.

INTERVIEWER: And JP being--

SANYAL: Jamaica Plain.

INTERVIEWER: Where you live now.

SANYAL: Where I live now. So that was one set of tension that I had to deal with. I still kind of struggle with it. But I think it makes me a more interesting person, because I have this kind of dual need.

I'm also very much an academic. And I enjoy academia. I'm married to an academic person. I have family members who are academic. But at the same time, I like getting things done, professional things. So building things, like architecture, you have to build something to show. Same in planning. You make the city run. And so there is a difference between just understanding, which is in academia often the dominant mode, and actually getting things done and supervising it, doing it well.

And again, so I thought for a moment when I came to MIT, well, if I don't get tenure, which is possible, because it's so difficult, I'll just go back to practice. Yet, I know if I go to practice, I will miss the life of the mind, which is academia. Reading wonderful things, being with colleagues who have incredibly new questions to ask. So again, that's a duality.

So I wrote in that piece about this. I think I have two or three examples of that. Between India and the United States, but the allegiance to my place, my country where I grew up.

I still go. I just was there last week. I visit.

I do work there. I advise the planning commission. And I'm quite attached to my family members who are still alive, and to my old university, which just gave me a very nice award, distinguished alumni award, which I went to receive last week.

And yet I'm deeply drawn to the United States. This is the place where I got my best education. I married somebody from here. My child is here. And the level of things I have received in this country, starting from good health care to exceptional education to a lot of emotional support from my wife and my daughter, neighbors the setting, beautiful places to visit. It's just part of me now.

So you have this kind of dual allegiance, right? So I don't have to choose if I enjoy both. So it's another example of that.

INTERVIEWER: Growing up in India, this awareness of the poverty and the dichotomy between those who had resources and those who didn't, was that something that your family discussed? Or was it just something that you ended up coming to realize over time? Was it openly acknowledged?

SANYAL: I think West Bengal, where the City of Calcutta is located, is a very political state in terms of being run by political parties who do make inequality an issue. And it was one of the states that were controlled by the Marxist Communist Party of India for almost 30 years. And that's really one reason why I even left working with my dad, because we had a lot of labor troubles in managing the business.

But the empathy for labor, for inequality, it was cultivated in me also by the Jesuits. I think in my school, Catholic school, the Jesuit Fathers who taught us, they drew attention to it, that we were privileged that we were in a school in the heart of Calcutta with a vast amount of land. And right outside the school, there were very poor people sleeping on the pavements.

And same at home. And we'd come home, and right outside the main entrance to the building, there are people sleeping on the pavements still. Still. We're talking about 2012. And so it's not really possible to ignore that inequality if you are observant of anything in social life.

And I also realized that that was painful, that that was painful for me to watch. And because I like aesthetics and beautiful things, I wanted everything to fit into a beautiful setting.

So later I got more studying of economics, because I came to realize that the problem was not one of architecture and design, or physical design only, that the economy had to produce jobs for the people, for vast number of people. And then if their income goes up, they'll be able to buy. Then the city can respond to them.

They need disposable income. And so it's still a very central part of my writing and thinking as to how to create policies that would benefit those groups of people.

INTERVIEWER: And your undergraduate degree was earned in India, as you talked about. How different do you think that experience was versus maybe had you come to the US and come to MIT or an American undergraduate university? How do you compare?

SANYAL: It's hard to compare, because I didn't go through the undergraduate. But what I know of it now, I think I would have had more flexibility in the US in terms of choice of courses. In India, the curriculum is totally set. You don't have any choice. Everybody in the class they have to take the same courses.

And I think that also in terms of advising, specializing, let's say, within architecture, I had to come to my own decision what I wanted to do my thesis on, which was actually on a large student center that I designed. But I think if I was here, I probably would have had a number of people advising me on different things, like design of museums or design of amphitheaters or design of colleges. We didn't have that variety of options.

And how did it affect? It affected in two ways. One was that you had to do what you were asked to do. And there is some discipline that you need to do, sometimes you have to do. The downside of it was that you couldn't be as creative as you wanted to be, because your special parts of your strength was not sought out.

So I think the American universities are brilliant the way they do. And the flexibility they provide is immense. And I'll give you one example that really blew my mind. When I first came it was not for undergraduate. It was a course I was taking in my master's level.

And somebody told me in November, it was November, don't panic. Because if you don't finish, well, you can take an incomplete and work over the winter break. And then you will get a grade. I had no idea that something like this is possible.

And when I remember talking to this individual saying, so how did you guys start this, providing this incomplete? They said, the point is whether you know the material. If you know the material and you need one more month to finish and complete but ultimately you know it well, that's the goal, not to just push you in a corner, which is a very nice approach. I love the American approach to teaching and learning.

INTERVIEWER: Was there also an advantage to the more disciplined and the more narrowly focused approach that your undergraduate school took in India when you then came to the US for your graduate work?

SANYAL: There was an advantage in the sense that I was trained to work very hard. And it came from the Catholic school and it came from undergraduate work that you had to put an enormous amount of work. I was also quite used to very stiff competition, because there are many, many people in India competing for a few slots. So that kind of competitive mold that sometimes allows you to go that extra mile, that was cultivated well.

But I do think that you pay a price for that. I think that competition is, of course, natural in any setting. But does that bring out from within us our best performance? Maybe sometimes it does, but not always.

INTERVIEWER: And did you pursue architecture because you wanted to be an architect? Or was it an area that interests you because of the beauty and the combination of many things that interested you?

SANYAL: Both. I mean I like beauty, as I said. I like aesthetics, I think they're more interesting aesthetics. And I wanted to go with that feeling that I had.

And then there was a kind of utilitarian approach towards doing something that is not just painting and art, which is very hard to make a living in India. And my father had the construction business, so I thought, if I do architecture, we could do something together, that I could do the design and maybe the other parts of the firm could do the construction.

But a beautiful living environment, I think it's exceptionally important for me. And I still feel that that's where I do my best work, when I'm in a setting of that nature.

INTERVIEWER: Would you say MIT is a setting of that nature?

SANYAL: Initially when I came, I was not that taken by MIT, because I came from University of California, Los Angeles, which has a very beautiful campus, as you probably know. UCLA campus was a place that you could take a walk.

You could sit in a cafe, there would be mountains you could see. Beautiful foliage. The buildings are beautiful. University had a beautifully planned campus, because the way they got land, they could do that.

So when I first came to MIT, what struck me was this 77 Mass Avenue sort of bifurcating the campus. It just created a different pace for me to deal with this busy street. And also, I didn't see the river as much as I wanted to see it. I wanted to feel that I am next to a river, beautiful river, right? It was still being cleaned at that time.

I found the hallways of MIT kind of drab. And it was not a place for aesthetics. It was a place to get work done. So I think the labs are the central part of MIT.

But I have to say that being here for all these years and having participated in this conversation about the Stata Center and this new group of buildings that have come up-- and our ex-dean, who died two years back, Bill Mitchell, was very strongly involved in that. And there was a conversation about do we need something like Stata Center? Do we need Stewart Hall's building?

And through that conversation I have come to realize that in MIT's own way, there is an aesthetics. If you define the term aesthetics differently and not in a kind of classical way, the students who come here, the faculty who are here, they have a very unique approach to life.

And this unique approach is what I think Frank Gehry tried to capture in the building, something very strange that from people outside say, what is this? And you often say that about MIT students. They are brilliant, but at the same time you can't exactly put them in a box. And so I thought isn't that interesting intellectual challenge, to capture the psychic of this faculty and student and express it differently in a built form?

And so MIT has grown on me. I have to say it's grown on me. I still like the Killian Court. But my best, absolutely my favorite spot, where I would go if I'm really looking for peace, is the chapel.

I love this chapel. I think it's an incredible piece of work. And it is very small. Inside it's not that many people can sit. But I have been there a couple of times, because many of my colleagues have died. Because I came in '84, and people who were at that time senior, many of them died.

Some died when I was department head, so I had to organize the memorial service, et cetera, for them. And so I would go to this chapel earlier, to make sure everything is in place. So there's not that many people. And you see the stream of lights coming down, and on this brick wall that's curved. It's a beautiful piece of work.

I was sitting there the other day in the student center looking at it from outside. And if you see the top of it, I was really asking myself what was Saarinen thinking? Why did he create this space? It's absolutely my favorite spot.

Now the new building, the new media lab building, which is also beautiful, I think, which Bill Mitchell also instrumental. You go to the top floor, which just has the conference rooms now, and there's a big patio that you can walk out and see the river. It's the first time I feel like there's a building at MIT where I can be in the building and observe the river at the same time.

It's very beautiful. And on a beautiful day, and you see Back Bay on the other side, it's just a gorgeous, gorgeous, place. So-- yes.

INTERVIEWER: So you found the spot with the river view that you were so seeking.

SANYAL: Yes. I think river is very important for a city, and for just the sense of water. Water has a different quality to it. And the water, quality of the water, the color of the water changes a lot in this city, because of the weather. And its volume changes. Its shade changes.

It deflects in a different way the light. It's very beautiful. And I think that the cities that I like generally all have water running through them.

INTERVIEWER: I bet there aren't very many people running around the MIT campus who notice the color or the texture of the water of the river like you have.

SANYAL: Maybe not that many. But I think there are people who still appreciate. I have come to realize that even though there is this kind of technology and science and all of that, when I ask people questions about so where do take a break if you are feeling harassed or something? Do you go for a walk? And they would often say, like, oh, sometimes I take a walk across the road, which is a very busy road, which is sort of a barrier.

So people find peace. You ask doctoral students, for example, who are the most harried, and the doctoral student housing on Memorial Drive-- I have asked many doctoral students, so what do you love about the place? And they would say, oh, the view from the apartment is just beautiful. And then I asked how many students share that apartment? Oh, we have to share with three or four.

And I'm thinking, oh, wouldn't it be nice to have your own? So you can really see it, watch the sun go down and have a cup of tea or something. So I think that people are aware of it. But it's not as much celebrated at MIT, because that's not the culture of the place.

INTERVIEWER: Is that sad to you?

SANYAL: It's not sad, but I think I have seen that that's another approach to life. And I think that more and more you see that your approach is not the only approach. So I have mine. I know what I prefer.

But there are many others. And there are some of them are very well articulated, well thought out, and they're very smart people. And so MIT has this very nice style of look, you can do your work as long as you do it well and you do it very, very well, exceptionally well, no one will bother you.

I have to say this about when I came as assistant professor-- and as I said, I was a student at UCLA. I was struck by how little senior faculty tried to tell me what I should be working on. Not one. And in a way, people told me, maybe you are not getting enough advice. You should get some more mentoring. And this will hurt you later when you come up for promotion.

I don't know if it was because I was fortunate, but I felt like totally free to do what I wanted to do. And I did good work. I was engaged with what I did. And I was lucky to get tenure.

And that's the same policy I follow when we hire junior faculty. I don't want to sit over their back and tell them what to do. And if those are the types of people who need help, I don't think we should-- we don't want them at MIT.

INTERVIEWER: And you found that out once you had gotten here. But what was it about MIT that drew you here?

SANYAL: Well, the name. Of course, MIT the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is world-known. And when I applied to MIT, I also had the option of going back to the World Bank, where I had done some work for them. And I was posted in Zambia, you might have seen in my CV. So I had a choice of either going to the World Bank and working on development issues, or this position opened up as assistant professor.

My wife, who always wanted to be an academic and also was a doctoral student at UCLA-- that's where I met her-- when I asked her what do you think we should do, she said, go to MIT. And I said, well, why? And she said, well, we would be in Cambridge. I could probably get a teaching job there. There's so many other universities there.

And then I called my father, who I respected, and he told me, if you have an offer from MIT, you don't think of any other things. I mean, this is the ultimate. It's because technology, the idea of technology, is so central to the people who are into development process. And he was a civil engineer. So far engineers, this is it. There's nothing better than this.

So I thought, okay. I have a choice. And after a while, some people did warn me. If you're going to MIT, it's a very highly ranked place. You may not get tenure.

So I said, I'll take a chance. And if I don't get, I'll look for elsewhere or I'll go back to practice. It worked.

INTERVIEWER: And how much did that mean to you to get that first teaching position here and kind of launch that next phase of your career?

SANYAL: It meant a lot to get into MIT. And I remember when I mentioned it to my adviser at UCLA, after the interview-- I had borrowed his coat to come for interview because it was cold, and in California you don't need a coat. So I went and gave him back the coat. And I told him that-- he said, how did it go, the interview?

I said, I think it went well, but people were not overtly friendly or were not overtly critical. I think it went well, because California, the culture is very different. And then I got a phone call that I got the job. And they told me the salary. And I said, listen, I don't even to know the salary. I knew that this is an incredible, prestigious position.

So I went to tell my adviser I got the job. And he was just ecstatic. And I didn't know at that time, which I later found out, that he was at MIT for a while. And he was denied tenure, which I did not know, because he later went to Chile. And then he went and worked in Chicago. Then he was the head of the program at UCLA.

So I knew there was some association with MIT, but I didn't know that he really wanted to be here and be tenured. So he announced to everybody, my student got into MIT. And until now, when I go to UCLA-- and I was there in September, because they had a meeting, they brought some of the alumni together-- it's always so nice when they introduce me as their alumni from Urban Planning who has been chair of the faculty. I mean, they're so proud of me.

And so I am more and more realizing how privileged I have been and how fortunate I have been. You know, when it happens to you directly, it's too quick to even sort of internalize it. But as I come, as I grow more into it, I see my daughter, other people, other friends, I just have an exceptionally successful and a privileged life. I don't know who I owe it to, but I have it.

INTERVIEWER: What a nice problem to have.

SANYAL: Yes. It's a problem only in the sense of do you feel like you're giving back enough? I think it's important. And still when I go to India and I see this level of poverty, et cetera, I'm really struck by how my life would have been different if I was born to one of those families. It would be totally different.

And so when you have the privilege and the opportunity to contribute, you have to. That's part of your moral upbringing. That's what we teach our students.

So are there more ways to give? It's a thought that comes to my mind quite a lot, because now the election's going on. And did you see the statistics on what share of the income each of the presidential candidates actually give to charity? It was very interesting for me.

And I know that some Christian families, like my wife's family, they're Methodists, they actually give like one percent a year. They decide at the beginning of the year. And so did they give it every Sunday when they go to church.

And I don't go to a church. But I think that the idea of giving back in many different ways, including monetary, it's important. Because ideally my income, between two of us, is more than sufficient, even with one child. So that's one way to give.

Do you feel like am I giving enough or am I buying more beautiful things because l like beauty? That goes back to the question I was saying. If I see a beautiful piece of furniture my immediate thought is, oh, it would be so nice to have this writing desk.

Do you need it? Could a kid go to school for this writing desk that you are taking for yourself? I think those are the questions that are very important.

And I think that I wish MIT as a place, as a university, would have more of those kinds of courses. That's one thing I would very much like to see offered. Our philosophy department is very good, but very small.

And I find our students-- because I teach a course called D-Lab with Amy Smith, who got actually the MacArthur prize award. And I see these are young kids who come and they want to go around the world solving problems for the poor Small technological devices they do. And so I know that that is there.

They are also thinking about the poor. Maybe they have come from a different angle, different trajectory, but they are concerned. And this is something that I'm very proud of MIT. People from outside did not realize how socially conscious our students are who are very smart technologically.

And so you need to get into the conversation. You need to share with them your thoughts. You need to say, this is what I did. This is what are the different options. And that's what I'd like to see more of at MIT, done in a more formal way.

INTERVIEWER: And when do you feel like that sense, that compassionate approach, the human element to looking at the world started to infiltrate your chosen career of architecture and then urban planning? Or was it always there?

SANYAL: I think it was there partly also in the Catholic school. I think this Catholic school, there is a very strong moral undertone to it. And these Jesuit Fathers now, even when I go now-- I was in Belgium two years back for another very nice conference, some occasion.

And I said, well, I'll go see the cities where these Jesuit Fathers came from near Brussels. These are beautiful cities, beautiful places. And then I started thinking, what made these young men leave these beautiful cities to go and stay-- stay-- in Calcutta when I'm leaving Calcutta, right?

They spent their whole life teaching, educating people, in Calcutta. So it made me think, why are they making these choices? And I think-- so the school cultivated by sort of examples. And there was a course called Moral Science in the school from class 1 to class 11.

And then the other part that I think cultivated this in me is reading fiction, which I like very much. And I think that's a very important source of looking at the world. And I still like fiction. I read widely. I also read many journals.

And at a moment like this now, with the way the economy is, with the way income inequality is, you can't start a conversation without addressing this issue. So unfortunately, it's going to be more and more important. And for us, people like us, who have the advantage of a good income, a good life, we need to lead that conversation.

INTERVIEWER: Going back to when you started here at MIT as an assistant professor, what was the transition like to the MI culture for you, both as someone who came from India originally, then from the West Coast and your schooling, but particularly because you were born and initially educated abroad?

SANYAL: It was hard a bit, but not as hard, partly because I was married to an American woman who helped me in many ways culturally to interpret how I'll be seen, how my gestures will be seen. But she's very social, like me, and both of us like friends. And we had a lot of friends in California, almost too many. And that's why I took time to finish my dissertation.

I love organizing parties in our house. It was a small house in California. So when I came, almost every weekend or so we would invite some faculty, even though they were not my age.

And they would come. They were surprised, because first of all, we are junior people, but we have both very strong sense of a social life. We read. We can have a very good conversation.

And gradually these people began to come. And that was a very big issue later for me. I realized that I was able to break through some of these power relationships because I had taken the initiative to do the social things.

They also were very impressed by my wife, because she was a scholar. And now, after being at MIT for 10 years, she just started at Harvard. She just moved to Harvard starting this January first. And she also loves the life of the mind. So people enjoyed our company. And we made some nice food, not huge, but some nice food. And I think MIT, what I realize is that MIT has a lot of people who would love to do that. But they don't do it.

So you might say, okay, let's have a coffee or something. But to say, let's have dinner and we will make the dinner and we'll make something unusual, it takes time. And that is why I think people often hesitate, because time is so precious, because of the tenuring, et cetera.

But I made so many friends. And I think the reason I was selected to be the department head after being here for only-- I came in '84. And 1994, when Phil Clay became the vice chancellor, they asked me to be the chair.

I think it was because I had created a sense of trust among a number of people within the department just because of social-- being together, reading their material, arguing with them over dinner. And I think it's helped me later, even in the larger MIT level. That's a big strength I have.

INTERVIEWER: That you were almost creating a community within a community.

SANYAL: Yes. Yes. I'm able to do that. That's a part of the strength I have. And fortunately I'm married to somebody who also loves that. So it works.

INTERVIEWER: Otherwise it wouldn't work, if she was an introvert.

SANYAL: Yes. Or if she would have been more sort of-- you know, if you have a set of beliefs that you very strongly stick to, then it's very hard to be with people who don't believe in that. But I think what is nice about MIT is that you could have a group of people who don't agree with you. And they will argue with you in a very forceful way and that you can't just dismiss.

And that's so interesting. That's how you grow. That's how you subject your own thinking to scrutiny. And if you do it over a nice dinner at a nice place, beautifully laid out table, it's the best moments.

INTERVIEWER: I was going to ask you about the sort of intense, high pressure environment that MIT is known for, mostly for the students, but it also sounds like it bleeds into the faculty life. And you are providing an outlet for that. Why do you think that was such a unique gesture on your part? Why is there a culture here that can't have both, that it's often a little more skewed towards the work and a little less towards the play? Is it just the prestige of the place?

SANYAL: I think that work, to do excellent work takes time. It takes time. There is no doubt about that. And people want to put that time first on their work.

And the junior faculty are even very worried because of tenuring. So they just see that socializing as the last thing. And they want to spend their time-- senior faculty, once they've got used to this junior lifestyle, they think it's very hard to get out of it. So they might socialize with one or two people, but not a lot.

Look at our faculty club. MIT doesn't really have a serious faculty club of the kind that Harvard has. And when I ask people, how come we don't have a faculty club, because people will go there for a drink, I was told that, listen, most people do not live nearby. And there is no culture of that kind of hanging out in a faculty club having a drink and then thinking of something like at Harvard.

There's a different culture to the place. But I don't think we want to make it black and white. What I'm saying is if I was able to create this small community, I am totally sure there are people like me in every department. There are one or two who can play that role. And they are probably playing that role. And often we don't hear about them that much.

INTERVIEWER: Right. Exactly. How do you think MIT today is different from the way you found it when you first got here? How has it changed?

SANYAL: Well, they are definitely more diverse. When I came it was not bad. But the international faculty, share of international faculty students have increased. African Americans have increased, not as much increased. Women have increased.

And my best moment so far was when I was not the chair of the search, but I was a member of the committee that brought Susan Hockfield. So serving in this presidential search committee and getting the first woman scientist to accept the job-- and I remember we had a small lunch with Susan before she was introduced to the whole MIT crowd in Building 10-250. And I was walking before her coming back from the lunch.

So I come in. And I looked at where you usually go and sit and I couldn't find a place. So I had to come through the stage. So I come in through the stage.

And I look up and like jam-packed 10-250 waiting for Susan. And so I'm looking. And Chuck Vest was sitting in the front seat. I found a seat next to Chuck. So I sit next to Chuck.

And then walks in Susan Hockfield. The level of applause was just moving. It was-- I knew that I had participated in a historical moment, that this is a historical moment that an institution like MIT has a woman scientist who is the president.

You wouldn't believe the feeling. I still cannot explain the feeling of that moment, that, oh, so I was part of this moment. So it has been one of the high points in my life to be able to participate in that way.

I think financially MIT's situation has changed. I think that the kind of way we finance ourselves, I had no idea when I came that it fluctuated so much. Because we were not that dependent before on endowments.

But now this current crisis-- and because I was also chair of the faculty, I could see the crisis from within, what was happening to the investment portfolio-- I was surprised. Though we are still one of the universities with one of the largest endowments. We are probably seventh in the nation.

But still if, we look at where the money's coming from, so there's research, there's endowment, research money from government research money was still okay. But it had gone down after the end of the Cold War, which was late '80s, right? So the Soviet Union fizzled out.

So the kind of way we funded ourselves had to be rethought. Endowment became big. And so that financial structure I think has shaped, partly, how we operate as a university.

And the last crisis when we had to basically freeze faculty salary, et cetera, made me realize that the institution was still somewhat vulnerable to the external economy. And since this external economy is still not in full steam, that's a worry I have, about how will it work. And particularly I think how will it work means, how will we ensure access of large number of undergraduate students who are not from wealthy families?

The statistics that I am so proud of MIT, this is something that I tell people when I mention MIT, almost 18 percent of the first incoming class last year were from families where they were the first one to go to college. And compare that with me. In my family, third generation back we had people going to England to study.

And these kids are here. But they didn't have the privilege. But we opened the door. And they're brilliant kids. What a wonderful thing to do. That is what I want MIT to be able to preserve.

INTERVIEWER: That's wonderful. Opening the doors even wider to this amazing place. Did you have many mentors early on in your early years here at MIT?

SANYAL: You know, I was thinking because I thought about this question. Because it was not a mentor in a formal way, but there was a professor here, professor Lloyd Rodwin, who was very respected. And he was the one who was instrumental, I think, in bringing me. Though he and my advisor who was my dissertation advisor at UCLA were archenemies.

And Professor Rodwin was instrumental, later I found out, in denying tenure to my advisor. But when I came and applied for the job he was polite. And he really wanted somebody who come from a different sort of school of thought. And my advisor had created a very different school of thought in development planning, very different from what Lloyd stood for.

So when I came in, I was very taken because Lloyd was very nice to me. But he gave me all the opportunity. He told me the courses I could teach. But he was not willing to listen to a not well-developed argument. He was very strict when given an argument's sake he would defend his position very well.

And I could develop my position well. And so I didn't need the kind of advising that sometimes we say to junior faculty, like what do you have to publish? Where are you publishing, and how many papers you've published? It just didn't happen in my case.

People are very happy with me from the beginning. I wrote. I wrote a major piece of work that I think got me the tenure. And the mentors were people who were mentors by their work. I just saw how they published, how they wrote, how respected they were in the profession, how rigorous they were.

And then they were mostly men, but one woman, I have to say, she came with me in 1984. But she came from Berkeley. And she had never taught at Berkeley, but she was much senior to me. Had just gone through a divorce and she was looking for a job. MIT offered her a visiting faculty position because she done an enormous amount of work for development agencies.

Her name is Judith Tendler. She just retired last year. And because she came in '84, I came at the same time, I was assistant professor. And of course, she didn't have any family. And my wife and she got along quite well.

Now looking back, I realize that in terms of intellectual impact, of shaping my thinking, I think this woman had immense impact. And that is why I went to a great length last year to play a big role in arranging for her retirement party, which was incredible.

What I think is interesting is when you look at institutions, there are some people who consider themselves marginal. And often people who are not mainstream or you're not white or male, you have to find your place. Now, of course, I was from international faculty.

And I never felt marginalized, to be honest with you. But nevertheless, there are conversations that happen that are kind of unusual conversations on the fringe. And I think women, particularly this woman, and others often create small conversations. And those are on the fringe of institutions, but they're often very interesting.

And I was fortunate, because of her, to bring a critical perspective on the mainstream issues which my other advisers were working on. But the other advisers were never turned off by this. They were actually quite excited. They wanted some fresh voice.

So I had the benefit of both. I had the support of these people whose support mattered in terms of political power. And I had the intellectual support of this woman who really give me a new way of looking into problems. And she's still there, around. And I think that-- so it was a very good combination.

INTERVIEWER: That's pretty invaluable, to have people in your career--

SANYAL: Unusual. Very unusual.

INTERVIEWER: Now are you in the role of mentor today? How do you approach that? Do people come to you now?

SANYAL: Yes. They do. And you know, when I was department head, of course, I was in a formal role of a mentor. And we hired a lot of people, junior faculty.

And I always remember what had happened to me. I never forced myself as a mentor, but my door was open. I told them, tell me what you will need.

I started creating some new policies, like giving a fully-paid semester off before people come up for tenure, because I realized time is what they need. We gave good salaries. I gave starting salaries to junior faculty so they didn't have to immediately go and apply for grants. Lower teaching load, et cetera.

And then they did their own work. And they were not all hired in my field, because we have a very big department. So for me to go and advise somebody, let's say, who was working on environmental issues-- which I don't work on, though of course it's an aspect to think about-- it's not appropriate because there's other people who know more. So I didn't formally advise people.

But one thought I'll share with you. I think that when you have to tell a junior person that they have been wonderful but they're not going to be up for tenure or they didn't work, it's the most painful thing for me.

As a department head, that was the worst thing that I had to go through, when I had to sit with somebody young and give them this news without breaking their confidence, which obviously it's devastating when you tell this to somebody, that it didn't work. It's not you're fault. What do you say exactly, that you are not good enough for us? And I just think that the less we have to do that, the better.

And the best way is to be very strict about who we bring in. We should bring in the very best. Then the process is easier later. But if we just bring in thinking, well, they'll come. And then after seven years they'll leave-- like what happens at Harvard. Harvard, their rate of tenuring is very low.

But the process, the emotional cost that a young man or a women have to go through, it's a huge damage that they will spend their whole life reconstructing. And that, I think, needs to be talked through more, how to do it.

INTERVIEWER: How to avoid it.

SANYAL: How to avoid it and what arrangements do you need. It will invariably happen in a top place. But there are good ways of doing it and there are terrible ways of doing it. And within mentoring, I would say that's one key element that I would like to think more about it.

INTERVIEWER: You have multidisciplinary interests, clearly. You have a degree in architecture, but this strong interest in social sciences, which then led you to doctoral studies in international development and planning. Does any one of these disciplines resonate with you any more than the other? Obviously you have the architectural foundation for all of it.

SANYAL: I think it varies in terms of your intellectual trajectory. When you solve a problem or you have addressed a problem for a while, then other things may come up. For example, I've been working on India and the cities in India. And you know, I have been very worried about this, how to house this large number of poor people who are sleeping on the streets, et cetera. Housing, housing for the poor, I've been working with a lot.

And lately when I was there, I realized that in some of the cities the parks were over-used, because these poor people have nowhere to go. They don't even have house. So the parks, they're sleeping. They're not taken care of.

And I started thinking, oh my. I think I would give a little more thought to how to design some beautiful parks. Of course, I use a beautiful park myself, which is Arnold Arboretum.

But it will again bring me back to aesthetics. So it's a constant fluctuation between worrying about this income, poverty, how to do this, and worrying about other things in life that are not can be tied down to money, but are just aesthetically beautiful. Beautiful park.

I really think for a poor person that-- there was a time in my field when there was a discussion about whether we should be spending money on these things. When people don't have water, don't have electricity, why are we worrying about aesthetics, et cetera? I have come to the point, thinking now, that aesthetics matter a lot. It actually matters more for people who don't have anything else.