From the Editor
As spring semester begins, take a moment to reflect on everything that has happened at MIT and in the world over the past year. In the pages of this Year in Review issue, you’ll find an overview of what made news at the Institute. We highlight some of the year’s best editorials and opinion submissions. Remember last year’s movies? We’ve summarized them with haiku.
The past year was a challenging one, both for the nation and for MIT. The global economic crisis forced the Institute to make wide-ranging budget cuts. As a result, eight varsity sports were slashed, two libraries were closed, and the dining system was reevaluated with a focus on reducing its yearly deficit, among other changes.
As MIT starts to dig deeper for opportunities to cut costs and individual departments begin to implement the increasingly involved recommendations presented in the Institute-wide Planning Task Force’s final report, it will become more important than ever to learn from the mistakes of the botched cuts to Student Support Services made earlier this year. Those cuts were made without soliciting enough feedback and surprised prominent faculty members who felt a critical service for students was being changed for the worse.
Nick Bushak
Editor in Chief
The Tech, Volume 129
Feb. 2, 2010