 Student teams working to lift sticks in unison--a surprisingly difficult task Marking the start of the MIT Portugal Program’s fourth academic year, nearly 200 new and returning Doctoral and Executive Master’s students from all seven educational programs gathered for a Student Welcome Event at the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto on September 27, 2010. Held the day before the Second Annual Symposium, the purpose of the Student Welcome was to create awareness of the extent of the Program’s research initiatives, to enable the students to develop their own network of personal and professional contacts, and to challenge them with group activities aimed at building their teamwork capacity and leadership skills. Program Directors Prof. Dan Roos and Prof. Paulo Ferrão formally welcomed the students to the program and to Porto. Then MIT Prof. Dava Newman, the coordinator of the Bioengineering Systems area, gave a keynote address in which she advised the students to make the most of their MIT Portugal experience by following her “LADI” motto: to Learn, Act, Discover and Innovate. Prof. Newman challenged the students to fulfill the promise of their already extraordinary achievements, telling them, “We are counting on you to invent a future that offers new knowledge, new techniques, and innovation to solve the complex challenges that we face in energy, medicine, design and transportation.” Following Prof. Newman’s address, the entire group went outside to the courtyards of the FEUP campus to engage in interactive group activities, such as the surprisingly difficult task of ten people lifting a wooden stick to exactly shoulder height in unison, or of “finding the tree” using touch and other forms of nonverbal communication to guide blindfolded teammates. Student then gathered in their disciplinary groups to allow senior students and faculty to share their perspectives on the key aspects and challenges of each area’s education-research programs. In the Transportation Systems discussion, Ashenafi Weldemichael, a graduate of the Master’s in Complex Transportation Infrastructure Systems who is now starting the PhD in Transportation Systems, advised new students to always bring their concerns to the faculty coordinators as he felt they had always been ready to address student needs and effect changes within the academic year. The entire group then reconvened to allow representative students from each group to share their group’s view as to the Program’s challenges, and their hopes for the year ahead. | 
