Wow. Seth Lloyd is a very well-known name in Quantum Computing. It's pretty shady that he's depositing $50,000 gifts from known sex offenders directly into his personal bank account...
The $60,000 gift in "2005 or 2006" is the only one the report says was deposited into his personal bank account. Because it was not sent to MIT, "this gift ... is not included in the $850,000 in" total donations the report indicates were accepted by MIT.
In contrast, the $125,000 is included in the $850,000, as indicated by the breakdown in the table on page 9. Thus, though not stated explicitly, the report indicates that the $125,000 was sent to MIT (to fund Seth Lloyd's research but not into his personal bank account).
(At any rate, the fact that he accepted a gift of any amount, especially into his personal bank account, is very concerning. Sounds like currently he has been put on administrative leave and we'll see what happens after they're done deciding what to do.)
Usually it means the professor is taking a break from teaching so they can focus on their research. There's no sabbatical police force though, so if the professor wants to hike the AT or backpack across Europe or something that's their prerogative.
Reif's e-mail [1] indicates he was forced into administrative leave, and that the leave was not Lloyd's decision.
> The actions of a senior faculty member have raised new concerns. In keeping with MIT practice on faculty discipline, I have asked his department head to consider any appropriate action. In the meantime, in consultation with the provost, dean and department head, I have placed him on leave.
Also I think administrative leave is different from other types of leave, which are all also different from sabbatical.
This is from 2020, the sabbatical GP and above are talking about was in 2017, as mentioned here:
> Eventually, in July 2016, Professor Lloyd affirmatively contacted Epstein by email to ask for funding to support his upcoming sabbatical. On June 1, 2017, Epstein emailed his accountant and Professor Lloyd: “send 125 k to mit for seth lloyd from gratitude.”
What does "ask for funding to support his upcoming sabbatical" even mean? Is that for research, or is it money for him to just go on vacation for a year?
Full-year sabbatical is the norm, but the home institution does not necessarily offer salary for that full year, so it's up to the professor to find funding for the rest of it from the host or some grant. According to their web site[1], MIT pays salary for half of the sabbatical year, leaving Lloyd to raise the other half himself. 125k sounds to me like a believable half-year salary for a full professor at MIT.
> Q: What steps is MIT taking to ensure that its fundraising processes and practices are consistent with Institute values?
See most people have never been faced with the position of making sure convenient sums of money offered to them are consistent with the values they represent
Tenured professors do sometimes take leaves of absence to work for a period with some company on a problem they think is interesting. And many do consulting on the side.
Tenured professor at an elite school certainly isn't a bad gig. But compensation isn't mostly at the senior engineer FAANG levels that people like to throw around. But then LOTS of jobs that people both enjoy and are useful to society aren't.
While I have a lot of critics for Academia in particular regarding code publication or reproducibility or the chase for the next conference paper, this is completely uncalled for.
Their real world constraint is publish or perish, and they do have a timeline: the next conference. And their requirements does not include usability and maintenance.
Also writing a good paper is a long endeavor, often frustrating, sometimes with politics involved.
Yeah but all of that actual work is typically done by grad students and then professors just put their name on the top of it. (Even the grant proposals are often written by grad students.)
