A re-re-reflection on HackMIT
It’s a small world: a heartfelt letter in response to an article from the previous issue.
Doug Lauffenburger reflects on time as inaugural biological engineering department head
The goal of the program was "different than had ever been done before, and that is to ground bioengineering in modern molecular and cell biology."
Senior House ranks high for underrepresented minorities, similar to New House in family income, new data show
The Provost’s office recently released data detailing student demographics by residence hall including race, ethnicity, gender (data from the registrar); family income (data from student financial services), and sexual orientation (data from a question in the enrolled students survey which had a 58 percent response rate).
Sheryl Sandberg on the importance of social solutions and the responsibility of technologists
Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg is MIT’s 2018 commencement speaker. In a short phone interview, she highlighted the message she wants to convey in her speech and discussed how MIT students contribute to the hope she has for the world.
“Legolas is my favorite character”
My optimism has drawn others to me, even if they occasionally grumble "How can you be so darn happy all the time?"
Freshmen in Senior House: Pilot 2021
The Pilot 2021 program will include cooking kits for $2,500 a year, in-house exercise classes, and “career exploration” programming.
Papers disappear, Tech Exec responds
No one joins The Tech because they are bored and looking for a way to kill time; no one at MIT adds an activity to their busy schedules under those conditions. We do it because we have a profound desire to serve the community, present and future, with and accurate, fair, and holistic records of the days we spend at the Institute. This week, nearly half our distribution was taken Friday, and this undermines The Tech’s mission of making timely news easily accessible to the MIT community.
MIT Medical vaccinates more than 7000 at flu clinic
At least 7455 MIT community members received a flu vaccination at Tuesday’s day-long clinic run by MIT Medical.
Remembering Henoch Argaw (1998-2017)
Henoch Argaw ’20 died on campus Sept. 29. He was a sophomore in Course 6-14 and a resident of East Campus.
Nobel laureate Rainer Weiss on the important things in life
Weiss accidentally flunked out of MIT as an undergraduate after missing a month of lectures in order to be with a musician at Northwestern he had fallen in love with.
Behind bars at ICE, MIT custodian awaits court ruling on unlawful detainment
Despite public outcry and accusations of unlawful detainment, ICE is keeping MIT custodian Francisco Rodriguez behind bars as he awaits court ruling that will decide whether he will be deported back to El Salvador, from where he fled in 2006 due to gang violence.
School of engineering to pilot interdisciplinary course roads
Dubbed “threads,” this new course structure aims to provide an alternative to the existing format of majors, minors, and concentrations. Central themes of the two threads to be introduced this fall include "real world robots" and "gut on a chip," respectively.
Healthy Minds Study survey data informed 2016 Senior House decisions
The Healthy Minds Study (HMS) survey, administered to students in 2015, linked each participant’s responses to their dorm. The survey included questions about illegal drug use and mental health. However, survey participants were not informed that their residence information would be linked to their responses.
Plans of repopulation abandoned: Senior House to become graduate housing
Students accuse administration of collective punishment — but numbers don't matter, Barnhart says, if “the end result is that students living in Senior House wouldn't have a good experience.”
Senior House no more: community reacts with disappointment, fear, and anger
The decision to turn Senior House into a graduate dormitory, announced last Friday by Chancellor Cynthia Barnhart PhD ’88 to the Senior House community, has been met with condemnation from vocal MIT community members.
Union hosts rally for MIT janitor under threat of deportation
Approximately 40 people checked in at the rally in support of Francisco Rodriguez, who has worked at MIT for the past five years.
Relocated New House students debate opportunity to reside in Senior House next year
Several New House houses were offered the chance to move into Senior House last week – including iHouse, Desmond, and La Casa.
Administration decides to resettle Senior House residents, citing “unhealthy behavior” during last year’s turnaround period
Senior House will be mostly depopulated, and will instead house students in Pilot 2021, a new program for freshmen focused on “academics, personal development, and wellbeing.” Current residents will need to go through a “selective” application process in order to live in the dorm next year.
Students, alums respond to Senior House depopulation and Pilot 2021
Current students and community members respond
Senior Gift participation lags behind precedent
As of May 23, approximately 62 percent of the class of 2017 has donated to this year’s Senior Gift Campaign. This is a significant drop from last year’s 88 percent participation rate and a deviation from the steady increase the campaign has experienced since 2005.
MIT graduate and ‘brilliant programmer’ dies on campus
Nicholas Paggi '15 was a software engineer at Ab Initio at the time of his death. While at MIT, he was a resident of Bexley Hall and Senior House, and a member of the MIT sailing team.
Gomez & Cox will not be disqualified for late submission of candidate registration
In an email shared with The Tech, the UA Judicial Review Board determined that the former Election Commission chair, Scott Perry ’19, acted with “gross negligence” in fulfilling the duties required of him by the Election Code.
Error in voting system disrupts UA elections
Voting for class council and UA president and vice president was supposed to begin yesterday morning, but an error in the online voting system has thus far prevented voters from casting their ballots.
New leave & return policies to be fully implemented by next year
Randall and Hughes provide leave and return data and address the issue of miscommunication; student faces poverty while on medical leave.
Sanders criticizes Trump, Kochs, media in fiery Kresge speech
Sanders told a receptive audience that “the future of this country is a progressive, not conservative vision” and asserted that “despair is not an option” in the face of the Trump presidency.
New dorm on Vassar to open summer 2020 with dining hall and 450-bed capacity
The residence hall will house students relocated due to future renovations, and will have to balance, among other issues, sustainability goals with students’ need for kitchens.
CRISPR patent ruling has little impact in laboratory setting, MIT researchers say
Researchers maintained that the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s Feb. 15 decision giving the Broad Institute the go-ahead on editing eukaryotic genomes with CRISPR had little impact on their research.
Hearing postponed for student arrested for unlicensed firearm possession
The second hearing for Angel De La Cruz, an MIT senior arrested last month for unlicensed possession of firearms in his dorm room, has been rescheduled to Mar. 13, according to his lawyer, Kristin Weberg. The hearing was originally to take place Feb. 13. De La Cruz is currently being held in custody without bail.
News editor’s note
It’s been an event-filled year at the Institute, and it promises to be no less so in the coming year as we gaze ahead toward changes in dorms new and old, continuing talk on various aspects of student life and health, and more MIT-led initiatives as the Institute swells its influence across Cambridge and the rest of the world.
Barnhart announces new location for dorm
Chancellor Barnhart named the West Garage parking facility (W45) as the most favorable location for the construction of a new undergraduate dormitory.
Letter from the Editor
To begin, I would like to thank you for helping us carry out a mission that was laid out so long ago: to serve the MIT community.
New House construction schedule accelerated by one year
New House renovations are expected to be complete in time for full occupancy for fall 2018, according Jennifer Hapgood-White, associate director of housing assignments, in an email sent to New House residents and residence hall house teams Jan. 5.
MIT will continue to ban marijuana despite passage of question 4
MIT will continue to ban the use of marijuana on campus or at institute-sponsored events, despite the passage of the Massachusetts Marijuana Legalization Initiative last week.
Nazi quote in Baker under investigation by MIT Police
MIT Campus Police and the Title IX Office are investigating an incident in which a phrase invoking the Holocaust was found written on a whiteboard in Baker House.
Over 300 faculty sign statement opposing Trump’s cabinet picks
More than 340 MIT faculty members, as of yesterday afternoon, have signed a statement opposing President-elect Donald Trump’s cabinet appointments and reaffirming their dedication to “principles at the core of MIT’s mission.”
“Solidarity Rally” calls for MIT community to reaffirm values and support vulnerable populations
Around 300 students gathered Nov. 21 on Killian Court for a rally to demonstrate solidarity with MIT’s values and with marginalized groups on campus.
Lobby 7 gathering highlights hope, provides outlet for fears after election
U.S. presidents may come and go, but MIT will always be a place where people “work together to make a better world,” President L. Rafael Reif wrote in an email to the MIT community yesterday night.
Survey to assess declining 6-1 enrollment goes undergrad-wide
A survey created to assess declining enrollment in Course 6-1 (Electrical Engineering) has been repurposed into an undergraduate-wide survey regarding students’ perceptions of academic majors.
New Media Lab algorithm brings Halloween scares to the world of AI
A team from the Media Lab recently debuted an artificial intelligence project called The Nightmare Machine in time for Halloween. The project involves training a deep learning algorithm to generate scary depictions of buildings and human visages.
An Engine for innovation
A panel of entrepreneurs and business leaders joined MIT administrators Wednesday night in kickstarting a new initiative created to invest in research with strong long-term potential but less promising short-term profitability.
Adam Littlefield, PKT resident assistant, dies
Adam Littlefield, a student at the New England School of Law and graduate resident assisstant of MIT’s Phi Kappa Theta fraternity, died Sunday morning.
Powerful, but at times heavy-handed, the Birth of a Nation succumbs to its flaws
The Birth of a Nation depicts the story of Nat Turner (Nate Parker), a Bible-educated slave who comes to believe that he is a messenger of God, destined to lead his fellow slaves in a rebellion for freedom.
Advisory committee, ethics forum, carbon neutrality among enacted elements of Climate Action Plan
Spearheading efforts to combat climate change on MIT’s campus and worldwide, the Office of the Vice President for Research and other departments are enacting components of the Plan for Action on Climate Change released last October and revised in March.
Confused, DSL hits pause on dining menu change
The new and apparently unpopular pilot dining program rolled out throughout dining hall dorms last week will be put on pause, Suzy Nelson, Vice President of Student Life, wrote in a communique to The Tech late last night.
Making change in Paris
The morning after Bastille Day, the French national holiday, found me walking down the Rue Rambuteau in Paris. I was on the way to a boulangerie that boasted of having the best baguette in the city.
CME ends after BP cuts corporate sponsorship
The Cambridge-MIT Exchange (CME) will come to an end after the 2016-2017 school year. Cambridge University chose to withdraw from CME after the corporate sponsor, BP, terminated their financial support for the program on the Cambridge end.
Harry Potter, Book Seven and Three-Quarters
The Cursed Child is well worth the trip to your local Muggle Flourish and Blott’s, but don’t be surprised if you don’t get what you expect. The new play is not quite a stand-alone sequel, but it's not truly the eighth book of the series either, despite being advertised as such.
Seeking the culture in agriculture
Last semester, the freshmen in 12.000 (Solving Complex Problems) embarked on a mission to feed the entire world. Well, we didn’t quite accomplish that, but we did learn a lot about food security in the face of a changing climate.
Fossil Free MIT ends sit-in after agreement
An agreement with Vice President for Research Maria T. Zuber officially ended Fossil Free MIT’s 116-day sit-in outside President Reif’s office 1 p.m. Tuesday.
DSLx initiative to offer online mini-courses that teach ‘soft skills’
The Division of Student Life (DSL) is in the process of launching its DSLx Life Learning initiative, which aims to teach MIT students “soft skills,” according to the website.
Puzzlers contend for top spot at Huntception
Team Setec Astronomy won this year’s Mystery Hunt at 6:53 p.m. Sunday when they found the coin in The Alchemist statue.
Walk and vigil commemorate victims of Paris terror attacks
The French community at MIT led a silent walk for remembrance and solidarity on Wednesday night following the Paris terrorist attacks last week.
MIT.nano, new Bldg. 12, projected to complete on schedule in 2018
By the time the class of 2022 arrives on campus, MIT.nano will be open to both the MIT community and the public at large, according to the latest construction updates.
So how exactly do I make an app?
It might be exaggeration on my part to say that I’m wholly illiterate, but compared to the ever-expanding language of computers, my programming experience pretty much equates to knowing the alphabet. Two Saturdays ago, equipped with a somewhat functioning knowledge of command prompt and for loops, I entered the cavernous hub of ingenuity that is HackMIT.