The following letter was sent to the MIT community today by President L. Rafael Reif. To the members of the MIT community, I write to announce three encouraging and related steps in our ongoing efforts to make MIT more welcoming and inclusive.

First, this summer, I asked Institute Community and Equity Officer John Dozier and Vice President for Human Resources Ramona Allen to reexamine our roster of Institute holidays. After outreach that included students, staff and faculty – and building on extensive work by then-interim ICEO Alyce Johnson – they concluded that while the overall reconsideration of holidays can and should continue, we should move swiftly now to consider renaming the holiday we recognize each year on the second Monday in October.