Qualifying Paper

Once my doctoral committee at HGSE approved this Qualifying Paper,¹ graduation was only a thesis away. Fletcher Watson chaired the committee, as my principal faculty adviser; Dick Light kindly agreed to serve on the committee, as did David Tiedeman, a distinguished member of the Statistics faculty but a stranger to me, hitherto.

For these three worthies, my thesis project was their first exposure (and, I suspect, their last) to Forresterian ideas and techniques. Accordingly, with their gracious concurrence, I asked Jay Forrester if he would serve as the fourth member of my committee. He agreed, to the perceptible relief and gratification of the HGSE contingent. Formally, of course, as an MIT professor, he could only “advise” the committee. We all expected, whether we said so or not, that he would understand the process and the product better than his fellows, for obvious reasons.

You’re right: all this was most irregular, and it couldn’t have happened without the uncommon willingness of my mentors, particularly Fletcher and Jay, to step beyond customary boundaries and to stay there, in some respects doubtless outside their comfort zone, long enough to see the project through. They showed imagination, flexibility, good will, and charm. I hope my gratitude comes through, in this account.

¹The paper resides in my library.

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