Vest has also earned a reputation as a defender of academic freedom in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

“Knowledge creation thrives in openness and suffers in isolation,” Vest wrote in MIT’s 2001-2002 MIT annual report.

Vest said at a February 2003 forum at the Institute of Politics that he was concerned not only that more research will become classified, but that new designations of “sensitive but unclassified” will expand, creating confusion over what can be published and what cannot.

Vest’s administration also oversaw the creation of MIT’s recent OpenCourseWare initiative, which places the teaching materials for over 2,000 of its courses—including science classes that address potentially sensitive subject areas—freely available online.

Inspired in part by the 1997 death of an undergraduate during a fraternity hazing ritual, Vest also undertook a revitalization of MIT’s undergraduate housing resources and in 2001 instituted a requirement that all MIT first-years live on campus.