Jaden Smith not a member of Class of 2022
The 19-year-old son of actor and rapper Will Smith is not a member of MIT’s Class of 2022, despite an anonymous post by the Facebook page “MIT Confessions” claiming he is.
Subject evaluations, pre-registration, airport shuttles
Subject evaluations are open now until Monday, Dec. 18 at 9 a.m.
MIT hosts climate policy summit, Bloomberg speaks
On Dec. 7 and 8, MIT hosted the Northeastern North America Policy Summit, which brought together climate researchers, policymakers, and business and civic leaders from the northeastern U.S. and eastern Canada to share climate leadership strategies.
Corrections
Last Thursday’s print edition of The Tech unintentionally featured an inaccurate headline for the article detailing MIT’s 2018 commencement speaker, Sheryl Sandberg. This headline served as a placeholder while a proper one was written to fit the size available in the paper. The placeholder headline was mistakenly printed. The Tech deeply regrets this production error and means no offense to Ms. Sandberg.
Asu Ozdaglar appointed head of EECS
Prof. Asu Ozdaglar PhD ’03 was appointed head of the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, effective Jan. 1, 2018. Ozdaglar has been the interim department head since July 1 and will become the first woman to head the EECS department in MIT’s history.
Have you seen these newspapers?
Friday evening, Tech staffers noticed that approximately 3,050 copies of the paper were missing from many of the most popular distribution locations on campus, including the Infinite Corridor and the student center. We do not know where the papers went or who took them. This incident has been reported to the MIT Police. If you have any information about this incident or the whereabouts of these newspapers, please contact general@tech.mit.edu.
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.
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.
SIPB: net neutrality matters
A week from now, on December 14, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will vote to dismantle net neutrality rules. Unless you are an Internet Service Provider, the end of net neutrality rules is bad news.
Senior House students respond: the chancellor’s allegations are unfounded
The punishment being implemented by the MIT Chancellor and President goes far beyond individual accountability, or the desire to eliminate drug use in the dorm. Allegations of widely tolerated drug use were made by the chancellor, but prior to the investigation, very few students were aware of the events that have now been punished by the COD.
Pilot 2021 threatens the LGBTQ community at MIT
As the presidents of MIT’s three undergraduate LGBTQ organizations, we feel compelled to advocate against the dispersion of one of MIT’s largest LGBTQ communities and the destruction of one of its vibrant queer-affirming spaces that has existed for decades in Senior House.
Pilot 2021 will be a fatal experiment
The MIT Administration has announced its inauguration of an experiment on human subjects called "Pilot 2021." They have not yet published the hypothesis they are attempting to test with this experiment. I offer my own hypothesis in the sincere hope that it will be disproved:
Pilot 2021 is is a move in favor of student freedom, not against it
My name is Mike Short (’05, PhD ’10), and I'm an assistant professor in the Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering. I'm one of relatively few to have both lived at Senior House and joined the faculty or staff at MIT, and I'm the faculty member serving on the Academic and Well-Being subcommittee of the Senior House Turnaround Team. I therefore would like to offer a unique perspective on the Senior House Turnaround Team and the recently announced Pilot 2021 program.
Student leaders respond to Pilot 2021
Last week, Chancellor Barnhart told The Tech that “MIT students” would be housed in Senior House this Fall, but could make no guarantees beyond this vague statement. Below this article on The Tech homepage was a story about the large decline in senior gift donations this academic year, fueled by student frustrations over a lack of transparency and student input in recent student life decisions at the Institute. With the revelation of this newest closed-door decision, it seems clear that MIT has yet to abandon this trend of limited student engagement that may further exacerbate the course of declining donation rates.
Senior Haus needs to change
I can’t sit back and continue to let East Side students and alumni speak on our behalf. While still respecting the privacy of Senior Haus, I will speak only for myself, a current Class of 2019 Senior Haus resident.
Why Pilot 2021 is everyone’s problem
When I visited MIT during CPW, I was confused by the students’ usage of the word “culture,” especially with respect to dorms. To me, a dorm was nothing more than a residence, a space where there were twin size beds your feet would hang off the end of, where you wore slippers in the showers. I especially did not understand places like East Campus and Senior House, where there were murals and dyed hair and loud music blaring in the courtyard. These people all seemed to be trying too hard to be scary and weird (and it worked, I was pretty scared), and I had simply wanted to live somewhere clean and mildly friendly. Whatever this “culture” thing entailed, I did not want to be a part of it. I ended up living in Next for all four years of MIT; I lived there because it seemed clean and mildly friendly.
Who will be your ideal Toon date?
The MIT/Wellesley Toons invited attendees to experience Dream Toons: A Toon Dating Simulator this past weekend. The show started with a special feature of Out Of Toons, a humble group featuring Toons alumni.
Good week for MIT basketball
Men’s basketball (8-1) defeated Rhode Island College 76 to 63 Thursday, Dec. 7. Cameron Korb ’19 scored a career-high 32 points and was 8-for-13 for three-point shots. This victory was the Engineer’s fifth in a winning streak.
A guide for course evaluations
You’ve probably gotten a deluge of emails asking you to fill out course evaluations. You’ve got a lot on your plate right now with finals and such, so here are a few things to ponder so you can optimize your subject evaluations. You’ve gotta make sure instructors and departments hear your feedback.
