A New Year Led with Determination and Decisiveness
Letter from the Director
A new year is underway, and with it the spring semester at MISI. After a brief pause, our faculty, staff, and students are back to work with focus and urgency. The fall set the foundation: in September we welcomed our inaugural cohort of fellows, and in November we marked our public launch with the Communicating Climate Summit. Those moments weren’t ceremonial—they were the start of sustained work.
This semester, we’re moving decisively. We are launching a multi-year research project examining how local geographies across New England shape trust in information. We’re expanding our team with a new postdoctoral fellow. We’re introducing a seminar series, Media and Public Trust, to convene scholars and practitioners around one of the defining challenges of our time. And in May, we’ll host a storytelling event that highlights the depth and ambition of work emerging from MISI’s fellows and directors.
There’s no shortage of work to do—and no shortage of pressure. The contemporary information environment invites constant reaction; trying to make sense of it can quickly become a game of Whack-a-Mole. Someone has to whack the moles, and we deeply value the journalists, scientists, civil servants, health care workers, and activists who do that work every day. MISI’s role is different. Our value—as a university-based research center devoted to trustworthy communication—is the ability to step back, look for patterns, test new modes of communication, and offer guidance to those working on the front lines of civil discourse.
