Thousands Gather at Boston City Hall, Protest California’s Gay Marriage Ban
Thousands of people gathered at Boston City Hall on Saturday to rally against the passage of Proposition 8, the recent ban on same-sex marriage in California.
Non-Profit Connects Low-Income Applicants With MIT
The number of early applications increased by approximately 25 percent this year, partly as a result of MIT’s new partnership with QuestBridge, a non-profit organization that connects low-income students with top colleges.
Institute To Cut Budget, Slow Hiring
MIT will cut general spending by five percent in the fiscal year beginning next July, and by 10–15 percent within the next three years, the president and provost said in a letter to the MIT community yesterday. The announcement mirrors announcements by elite universities similarly affected by the global financial crisis.
Media Companies Donate Space, Time for One Laptop Per Child Ads
After a rocky beginning, the nonprofit group One Laptop Per Child thinks an advertising campaign will give a lift to the organization’s effort to place low-cost laptops in the hands of children in developing nations.
Study Abroad Flourishes; China Attracts More American Students
Record numbers of American students are studying abroad, with especially strong growth in educational exchanges with China, the annual report by the Institute on International Education found.
Presidents’ Pay Rises Faster at Public Universities
David J. Sargent, the 77-year-old president of Suffolk University in Boston, received a $2.8 million pay package in 2006-7 — including a $436,000 longevity bonus and more than $1 million in deferred compensation — after the board of trustees, eager to delay his retirement, decided he had long been underpaid.
What Has Driven Women Out of Computer Science?
Ellen Spertus ’90, a graduate student at MIT, wondered why the computer camp she had attended as a girl had a boy-girl ratio of 6-to-1. And why were only 20 percent of computer science undergraduates at MIT female? She published a 124-page paper, “Why Are There So Few Female Computer Scientists?”, that catalogued different cultural biases that discouraged girls and women from pursuing a career in the field. The year was 1991.
Wage, Budget Freezes Possible as Harvard Looks to Spend Less
Even the world’s richest university is feeling the pinch from the economic downturn.
News Briefs
Aafia Siddiqui ’95, the MIT alumna arrested in Afghanistan in July, has been declared “not competent” to stand trial “as a result of her mental disease, which renders her unable to understand the nature and consequences of the proceedings against her or to assist properly in her defense,” according to a forensic evaluation dated Nov. 6 and quoted in a court order released yesterday. Siddiqui had been previously diagnosed with chronic depressive type psychosis in September.
Student Dies After Collapsing at Marathon
Kjell A. Tovander ’09 died on Sunday after collapsing during the Route 66 Marathon in Tulsa, Okla.
Ex-President Poses Hurdles for His Wife
Over the weekend, former President Bill Clinton enthusiastically endorsed the prospect that his wife, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, might join the Obama administration as secretary of state. “If he decided to ask her and they did it together,” the former president said, “I think she’ll be really great as a secretary of state.”
Shorts (left)
Over the last two years, some of this city’s darkest secrets have been dragged into the light — city officials with conflicts of interest and hidden pay raises, affordable housing that was not affordable, misleading crime statistics.
Shorts (right)
A last-minute Bush administration plan to grant sweeping new protections to health care providers who oppose abortion and other procedures on religious or moral grounds has provoked a torrent of objections, including a strenuous protest from the government agency that enforces job-discrimination laws.
Chief Fights for GM’s Future, and His
Rick Wagoner cannot afford to leave Washington this week without at least $10 billion in federal aid to keep General Motors in business.
Firefighters Get Edge on Wildfires as Wind Eases
Firefighters gained the upper hand against three blazes raging over a 130-mile stretch of Southern California on Monday, as scores of residents picked over the charred remains of their homes and state officials took a new look at how to prevent a recurrence of the destruction.
Al-Maliki Dismisses Fraud Monitors in Secret Moves
The government of Prime Minister Nouri Kamal al-Maliki is systematically dismissing Iraqi oversight officials, who were installed to fight corruption in Iraqi ministries by order of the American occupation administration, which had hoped to bring Western standards of accountability to the notoriously opaque and graft-ridden bureaucracy here.
Prepare for a Deep Freeze
High temperatures this week will struggle to get to 40°F, as a cold pattern dominates our weather this week. Lows will reach the mid 20s°F. While these temperatures are 10 degrees below normal, perhaps “deep freeze” is too strong a word, since in February we will look upon this month and remember how warm it was. Luckily (unluckily for snow sports enthusiasts), no snow is forecasted for this week.
A Critical Junction
Illinois produces more megawatts of nuclear power than any other state in the union, accounting for nearly 12 percent of the national total, and Barack Obama, the junior senator from the land of Lincoln, has had a very cosy relationship with the state’s nuclear industry over the years. The employees of the Exelon Corporation, the largest operator of commercial nuclear power plants in the U.S., have donated at least $300,000 to Obama since 2003, and for his part, Obama has danced with those who brung him.
St. Lawrence Edges Out MIT Men’s Soccer, 3-2, in NCAA TournamentMen’s Basketball Defeats Emmanuel, 80-62CCNY Outlasts MIT Women’s Basketball, 59-50
The MIT men’s soccer team saw its record-breaking season come to an end following a 3-2 loss to St. Lawrence University in the first round of the NCAA Division III Men’s Soccer Championship Tournament on Saturday. The Engineers closed the campaign with a record of 16-4-2.
Free Agency: MLB’s Offseason Spectacle Commences for ’09
The 2008 MLB Season has come to a close: the championship has been decided, the Philadelphia Phillies had their long-awaited parade down Broad Street, their fans satisfied their need to celebrate with random acts of vandalism, and any day now we’ll be seeing commercials on TV of Cole Hamels and company saying that they’re going to Disneyland.
Ramblings from Hell
Sometimes when I get bored, or when I feel like I’m in a slump, I re-read comics, articles, or stories that have made me smile. There is one comic in particular, from the PhD series, that I read every time someone asks me to check over an important e-mail they have written. It says “Average Time Spent Composing One E-mail …” The first square says 1.3 seconds and it shows a professor writing responses like “No.”, “Yes.”, “Sure.”, “Do it.” The second has a graduate student biting his nails, agonizing over every word of a very long, very polite e-mail for a period of 1.3 days.
Talk Nerdy to Me
The first time I had ever heard about kegels was from my Kotex panty liner.
Brouhaha Rhythm
Being a geek is what I do. Some people are bank robbers, some people are geese-jugglers — I’m a geek. As you might imagine, around here, I am but one of the many, which makes for heated, mostly-intellectual discussion about subjects that normal people would consider beneath their consideration. Those pretentious normal people. Bah.
