Modi and Wyman win UA election
Vrajesh Y. Modi ’11 has been elected as UA President and Samantha G. Wyman ‘11 as UA Vice President. The pair received over 80 percent of the votes. The UA Elections results were released at 2 p.m. on Saturday March 20. A total of 1,686, or about 40 percent of students, participated in the election. To find out more information regarding the UA Election results, visit <i>http://web.mit.edu/elections/Spring10/results.shtm</i><i>l</i><i>.</i>
NW35, EC, and Next House are open for summer
East Campus, Next House, and the Phoenix Group section of Ashdown will be the only three dorms open to undergraduate students over the sumer, Dean for Student Life Chris Colombo announced in an e-mail yesterday.
Storm floods dorms
After heavy winds and unrelenting rain this past weekend, several residential and academic buildings on campus had leaks.
Institute Professor Diamond may be next Fed member
On March 12, 2010, the White House identified MIT Institute Professor Peter A. Diamond PhD ’63, as well as Janet L. Yellen and Sarah B. Raskin, as possible candidates to fill in three vacancies on the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors.
A mental checkup at Cornell after rash of student deaths
ITHACA, N.Y. — All weekend, Cornell University’s residential advisers knocked on dorm rooms to inquire how students were coping.
MasteringPhysics copiers are more likely to fail 8.01T
Males and potential business majors at MIT are more likely to cheat on MasteringPhysics, and cheaters tend to do worse on the physics final and are more likely to fail, according to a study published yesterday.
Admit rate drops below 10%
Facing a 6.2 percent increase in applications and a 9.7 percent admission rate, the MIT Class of 2014 experienced the most competitive admissions cycle yet. The biggest change to the process was a modified essay requirement, eliminating the standard 500-word essay and introducing more and shorter essays.
MIT settles with Gehry over Stata Ctr. defects
MIT has settled its 2007 lawsuit against the architects and builders of the Ray and Maria Stata Center: Frank O. Gehry & Associates, Beacon Skanska Construction, and NER Construction Management.
Student fell, lay for hours at Stata Ctr.
A freshman was found seriously injured after a long fall that left him immobilized for hours in the Stata Center on Thursday morning.
Senators investigating Gruber ask for Hockfield’s assistance
Two U.S. Senators, Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Mike Enzi (R-Wyoming), have asked MIT President Susan J. Hockfield to act as a mediator in an investigation of an MIT economics professor who failed to disclose financial support.
Questions rise as schools rely on ‘zero tolerance’ suspensions
CHOCOWINITY, N.C. — As school let out one day in January 2008, students from rival towns faced off. Two girls flailed away for several seconds and clusters of boys pummeled each other until teachers pulled them apart.
Shorts (right)
Delegates at a U.N. conference on endangered species in Doha, Qatar, soundly defeated American-supported proposals on Thursday to ban international trade in bluefin tuna and to protect polar bears.
Former rivals Obama & Clinton forge foreign-policy partnership
WASHINGTON — On a snowy Thursday shortly before her weekly meeting with President Barack Obama last month, Hillary Rodham Clinton got a distressing phone call: her husband, Bill Clinton, was in a hospital with chest pains and needed an urgent heart procedure.
Doctor says he warned Pope’s ex-archdiocese about priest
ESSEN, Germany — The German archdiocese led by the future Pope Benedict XVI ignored repeated warnings in the early 1980s by a psychiatrist treating a priest accused of sexually abusing boys that he should not be allowed to work with children, the psychiatrist said Thursday.
Shorts (left)
WASHINGTON — Is Alan Greenspan, famous for his libertarian leanings and hands-off approach to Wall Street, having some second thoughts?
Germany, in a reversal, says Greece should turn to IMF
After weeks of backing a European rescue for financially troubled Greece, Germany shifted course on Thursday, signaling that help should come from the International Monetary Fund rather than Greece’s neighbors.
In search for killers in Mexico, focus on a cross-border drug gang
MEXICO CITY — They carry both U.S. passports and high-caliber weapons, making them the perfect cross-border assassins. They confuse the authorities by using a coded language that blends English, Spanish and the Aztecs’ ancient tongue of Nahuatl. The threat of prison is no big fear for members of the Barrio Azteca street gang, because they consider the cellblock to be home.
Warmth as spring begins
The temperature again today will soar to pleasantly warm levels, thanks to the absence of any major cloud cover. A combination of sunshine and a southwesterly flow will create an even warmer day on Saturday, with the high reaching 70°F (21°C). This type of setup is often seen during the spring months in Boston, where a high pressure center off the coast of the Carolinas sets up a flow from the southwest that draws much warmer air into our region. An approaching cold front will bring cloud cover on Sunday and not allow the temperature to become as warm.
In support of Social Security
In a March 12 column in <i>The Tech</i>, Keith Yost argued for gutting the Social Security. He argues that, “Besides having a negative effect on our economic security, Social Security is destructive to our political process.” I would agree that something needs to be done for the economy but Social Security is not the problem. It may actually be part of the solution.
What if you went to school for free?
Across the nation, college students and faculty were recently protesting, sometimes violently, against tuition hikes by public universities. Faced with grim budget outlooks, state governments have reduced funding to higher education; the worst cuts are in California, where perpetual fiscal mismanagement has left legislators with few alternatives. As the cost of an MIT education (the sum of tuition, fees, books, room and board) crosses $50,000 next year, there may be a temptation among some MIT students to join in and stage the same sort of sit-ins and rallies that have appeared elsewhere.
What if you went to school for free?
Next year, MIT says, the all-inclusive cost of tuition, room, and board will top $50,000. What would happen if MIT made an executive decision that, by 2020, tuition would be free?
Vote in Lobby 10 today
Paper ballots for the UA elections for President/Vice President and Class Councils members are available today from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. in Lobby 10.
MOVIE REVIEW ‘Bourne’ meets politics
Despite what its trailers will lead you to believe, <i>Green Zone </i>has far less action and far more substance than the Bourne movies that have made Matt Damon so famous. <i>Green Zone</i> focuses just as much on conveying its controversial message as it does on delivering thrills. The film offers a fictionalized and biting critique of the American military’s efforts to locate Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction in 2003.
CONCERT REVIEW The hidden life of strings
The string section is a staple of any orchestra: The largest of the instrumental sections, the strings are the most prominently displayed. Strings are usually the most constant factor in any orchestral score, while woodwinds, brass, percussion are the variables. Perhaps it is ironic that the fate of the string section is to play some of the least sonically interesting parts. Strings are often consigned to betraying their vast range of timbre and tone color to complement and support more strident colors of other sections of the orchestra.
THEATER REVIEW Capturing the English crown, and our attention
The MIT Shakespeare Ensemble is putting on <i>Richard III </i>by — you guessed it — William Shakespeare. <i>Richard III</i> is classified among Shakespeare’s history plays, which many of you might remember as the ones that are not taught in the average high school curriculum. Regardless, it is still performed with regularity, and its success is often contingent on the strength of the actor portraying the eponymous lead. In this particular production, the increasingly ubiquitous Ensemble member Christopher D. Smith ’12 delivered impressively.
CONCERT REVIEW An American classical music fest
Last weekend was truly delightful for classical music fans. A substantial portion of the music-making community came together to deliver two entertaining concerts, which included world premieres, surprises, awards, experiments and of course, great music. Last Friday, MIT Symphony Orchestra conducted by Adam Boyles, premiered the Symphony No. 2 by MIT music lecturer Charles Shadle and then joined forces with Aardvark Jazz Ensemble for an exquisite tour of the jazz world. A day later, the MIT Wind Ensemble led by Frederick Harris, featured the chamber chorus to premier the vocal suite <i>Spring Rituals</i> by MIT music lecturer William Cutter, after which it explored the unusual music of Charles Ives. Both conductors went to great lengths to dispel the traditional stuffiness of classical music concerts, by introducing funny anecdotes with the music to be played and demonstrating how the music works. Given these educational elements, the concerts were particularly engaging for the audience, constituting the perfect antidote to the gloomy, incessant rain that plagued the whole weekend.
ALBUM REVIEW Gorillaz comes back with Plastic Beach
More than a decade has passed since Blur’s lead singer Damon Albarn and artist Jamie Hewlitt spun Gorillaz out of nothing more than a growing appreciation for electronic music and four punk-ass cartoon characters. Since 1998, the band has fused dance, African, gospel, electronic, rap, and rock music into three hypnotically good albums, long since eclipsing the popularity of Blur here in the United States. Albarn has collaborated with a huge number of varied artists over the last ten years, but is the sole music visionary behind Gorillaz, composing all the lyrics, setting all the orchestration, and writing all the music. Like <i>Gorillaz</i> (2001) and <i>Demon Days</i> (2005), his newest effort <i>Plastic Beach</i> (2010) features a range of musical guests that spans both decades and genres. These cameos, far from obscuring Albarn’s artistic voice, serve only to highlight his distinctive musical voice that eludes categorization but is easily identifiable.
Taekwondo wins honors
The MIT Sport Taekwondo Club, coached by Dan Chuang and led by captains Jason J. Uh ’10 and ZheChen “Mary” Hong ’10, took home first place honors on Sunday, March 7 in the first Eastern Collegiate Taekwondo Conference tournament since November, held at the United States Military Academy at West Point. The tournament had originally been scheduled for February 27, but was postponed due to inclement weather. Despite this, MIT fielded a strong team of 48 competitors and came out on top.
Scoreboard
Baseball Thursday, March 18 at Eastern Nazarene CollegeL 3-2 Men’s Lacrosse Tuesday, March 16 vs. Husson UniversityW 11-3 Women’s Lacrosse Thursday, March 18 at Gordon CollegeW 18-13 Softball Thursday, March 18 Simmons collegeL 7-3 Men’s Volleyball Tuesday, March 16 at Rivier CollegeW 3-0 Thursday, March 18 vs. Johnson & Wales UniversityW 3-0
Sports Shorts
Five unanswered goals in the third quarter, including three in a span of two minutes, helped lift the MIT men’s lacrosse team to an 11-3 victory over Husson University in a non-conference game on Tuesday. Corey Garvey ’10 amassed a game-high seven points for the Engineers (2-1), finishing with three goals and four assists. His four assists resulted in four out of the five goals scored by Daniel G. Piemont ’10.
Women’s tennis falls 2-7 to Bates in close matches
This past Saturday, women’s tennis played against Bates in the second match of the season, falling 7-2. They had a smoky, fiery welcome, when a small fire started in the facility that caused a delay in the match. Luckily, it was put out and play was allowed to continue.
