Bish Sanyal, Ford International Professor of Urban Development and Planning and former Head of the Department of Urban Studies and Planning (1994-2002), is the new Chair of the MIT faculty. His term runs until 2009.
Bish, whose full name is Bishwapriya in Bengali, credits contradictory forces in his life for his intellectual journey from Kolkata, India. Bish was born into an orthodox Hindu family, but attended a private Jesuit school for 11 years. He is deeply drawn to visual aesthetics ¨C particularly of the kind exemplified by good architecture, which he studied as an undergraduate at the Indian Institute of Technology ¨C and yet he is equally drawn to social sciencesĄ¯ analytical traditions, which inspired him to do his doctoral studies in international development planning at the University of California at Los Angeles. In between, Bish worked for his fatherĄ¯s civil engineering firm building bridges and managing a difficult business enterprise at a time of major labor unrest in India. Even though this labor unrest deeply hurt his fatherĄ¯s business, Bish was moved by the plight of the poor construction laborers ¨C men, women, and even children ¨C who relied on unpredictable daily wages, lived in ramshackle houses, and lacked the privileges Bish grew up with in India. Before joining MIT as an assistant professor in 1984, Bish also worked for the World Bank and was posted in Zambia in south central Africa to supervise five large urban projects to provide housing and services for the urban poor in Lusaka. His doctoral dissertation, which grew out of this experience, demonstrated a paradox: that a large percentage of the urban labor force relied on food they grew within the city as a stepping stone in the process of industrialization and modernization.
At MIT, as a young faculty member in a professional school, Bish was equally drawn to both outstanding scholars whose preoccupation was to better understand the role of cities in national development, and to innovative practitioners with experience in urban planning to make cities more efficient, equitable, and aesthetically attractive.
As a result, he engaged in serious research while simultaneously advising major international institutions, such as the UNDP (United Nations Development Programs), UNCHS (United Nations Center for Human Settlements), International Labor Office, United States Agency for International Development, The World Bank, as well as the Ford Foundation and national government agencies and universities in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America.
The ease with which Bish holds opposing ideas in his mind helped him play a bridging role between scholars and practitioners, and that is why he was asked to be the Head of the Department of Urban Studies and Planning in 1994, when he was still an Associate Professor. Bish accepted the responsibility with apprehension, as he and his wife, who was then commuting between New York and Boston, were then expecting their first child. The dual strain of new administrative work and family responsibilities was difficult at times, but overall it was a memorable learning experience, primarily because of the collegiality of departmental colleagues and his parental love for his newly-born daughter, a new sensation Bish cherished despite the work overload.
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