MIT Club of Washington DC Membership Session Overview

Nick Koreisha
President, MIT Club of Washington DC

Subject: Membership for Seminar XXI Fellows & Alumni in the MIT Club of Washington DC

Join the MIT DC Club >

Dear MIT Seminar XXI Fellows and Alumni,

I'm writing to inform you of an exciting offer received from the MIT Club of Washington DC, announced at our September 5th Introductory Session Dinner. The Seminar XXI Executive and Alumni Boards of Directors have approved the club's standing offer to Seminar XXI Fellows and Alumni to join the MIT Club of Washington DC as members.

Membership is inexpensive: $30/year

Founded in 1899, the club is a dynamic, volunteer-driven non-profit educational institution and foundation, serving more than 8,000 area alumni, current students, parents, friends and the greater metropolitan DC community.

Many MIT graduates make or have made valued contributions to public service. Graduates have included leaders of nations, a UN secretary general, Medal of Honor recipients, cabinet secretaries, military leaders, and government senior executives.

Why join? The club believes Seminar XXI Fellows and Alumni would derive good value from joining and participating in club events. Five reasons cited include: 

  1. A way to stay connected with your Seminar XXI classmates and make connections with fellows from other classes.
  2. The opportunity to attend some 50+ events scheduled every year, many of likely professional interest, including embassy dinners, speaker/dinner meetings on topics of political science, science, technology, and family-oriented social/educational events that can offer deeper personal and family connections.
  3. The means to connect with MIT professors, researchers, and alumni involved in cutting-edge work in a wide array of fields.
  4. The means to attend joint events with Harvard, Kennedy School of Government, and other Ivy schools with which the club regularly collaborates.
  5. A way to meet local area MIT alumni club members who are accomplished, interesting and "movers and shakers" in their own right.

Last year’s events included

  • USMC evening parade at 8th & I Barracks
  • Receptions/dinners at the Embassy of Ethiopia (w/Harvard); Embassy of Costa Rica; Embassy of Lebanon 
  • Alumni election view night (w/Kennedy School of Govt)
  • 2016 presidential election retrospective with journalist and Kennedy School lecturer, Susan Milligan
  • F-35 joint strike fighter program overview at Ft. McNair
  • A firsthand account of "Campaigning for Congress & the Groundtruth of Gerrymandering"
  • Tour of NIST’s Cybersecurity Center of Excellence
  • Cybersecurity and cybertheft expert panel discussion/dinner
  • Naval Surface Warfare Center Carderock tour
  • Professor Simon Johnson (ex-IMF chief economist) - What's next for the world economy (w/MIT Sloan alums);
  • US capitol tour.

This fall, the club's events have gotten off to a fast start with 

  • a joint Harvard-MIT reception and dinner at the Embassy of Haiti, hosted by MIT alum Ambassador Paul Altidor, and 
  • a performance of musical political satire by the Capitol Steps.

Upcoming events already organized and scheduled over the next 3 months include:

  • Guided African American History and Culture Museum tour- Sep 10 
  • Embassy of Belgium - joint MIT-Univ of Leuven alumni reception/dinner - Sep 13
  • Generational Outlook: The Federal Budget Now and In the Future - Sep 19
  • Butterfly pavilion @Natural History Museum - Sep 23 (family interest)
  • The Future of Terrorism - dinner/presentation by journalist Peter Bergen - Sep 27
  • The Problems with Cosmic Inflation - dinner/presentation by Princeton Professor Paul Steinhardt - Oct 11
  • Brookside Gardens tour - Oct 14 (family interest)
  • Security of US Elections - reception/presentation by research crypographer Josh Beneloh - Oct 19
  • "Discover Geology" field trip at Riverbend Park led by geologist & master naturalist Cynde Sears - Nov 18

Other events currently planned, but not yet scheduled:

  • Embassy of Peru reception/dinner
  • Historical DC boundary stones tour
  • Washington National Cathedral tower climb tour

(A number of Course 17 political scientists are expected to be engaged as speakers in the coming months.) 

Additionally, in October the club presents its 36th annual Seminar Series on an important national topic related to science, technology, and public policy. This year the series of 6 in-depth monthly dinner seminars addresses artificial intelligence & machine learning.  

Interested? Then visit www.mitdc.org to learn more.

If you’d like to join:

  1. First complete the form at https://alum.mit.edu/account/create/friend . 
  2. Then email Matt Lucerto at mlucerto@mit.edu with the subject line:
    “Seminar XXI Fellow Membership in the MIT Club of Washington DC”
    In your email, please include the following:
    - First Name
    - Last Name
    - Address
    - Email
    - A statement that you're a Seminar XXI fellow who wants to join the MIT Club of Washington DC
  3. Matt will then email you a confirmation so you may join and pay for membership online at www.mit.org/membership. You'll periodically receive email announcements well in advance of scheduled events.

If you have questions, please feel free to contact the club's president Nick Koreisha at nkoreisha@alum.mit.edu or executive director, Cynthia O'Connell at cjo@alum.mit.edu. If you'd like to recommend additional events and speakers of interest to you, please reach out to Nick Koreisha directly. He's looking forward to your inputs, and meeting and welcoming you at future club events.