Editors’s Note
The end of a year is a notoriously arbitrary occasion for reflection, and the end of a volume of The Tech is perhaps an even weirder time for contemplation. But my yearlong term as editor in chief tied me to the news at MIT — stories that were by turns surprising, bizarre, and heartbreaking — so this seems to me an apt opportunity to look back.
MIT being sued for 2009 suicide
A wrongful death lawsuit filed against MIT by the family of the late Sloan doctoral student, Han Duy Nguyen, advanced toward a possible trial last month when a Middlesex Superior Court judge denied MIT’s request to dismiss the suit on the basis of a technicality. The claim, filed in 2011, alleged that Institute officials were negligent with regard to his mental health before his suicide in 2009.
Winter weather continues
It sure has been a snowy week — yesterday ended Boston’s snowiest seven-day period since records began in 1891! By 1 p.m. yesterday, Boston had received 34.2 inches of snow since Jan. 27, beating the old record of 34.1 inches set in the week leading up to January 8, 1996. Most of this snow came from last Tuesday’s powerful blizzard, which dropped 24.6 inches of snow at Boston Logan Airport. Yesterday’s storm also contributed 9.9 inches toward the record as of 1 p.m., with snow still falling into the evening hours.
MIT affiliates named AIAA Fellows
MIT Aeronautics and Astronautics Professor David Miller ScD ’88 and Lincoln Laboratory Director Eric D. Evans have been appointed Fellows of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA). The AIAA, as stated on its website, is “the world’s largest technical society dedicated to the global aerospace profession.”
8,000 take climate initiative survey
The MIT Climate Change Conversation Committee is seeking community engagement in the Conversation on Climate Change, an Institute initiative to discuss what committee chair Roman Stocker said has the potential to be the “biggest problem [MIT] has ever contributed to solving.”
A note to our readers
The Tech is heading in an exciting new direction in 2015. We’ve published a paper twice a week for over 50 years, and for 20 years our website has just been the online face of the print edition. Starting this year, we’re doing something different.
Tsarnaev trial jury selection staggers
Day 2. Seated at one end of the long wooden table, potential juror 40 recalls the events of April 2013 in a weary voice. Facing nine attorneys, the judge, and alleged Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, she remarks:
Robust nor’easter will challenge snowfall records
Bitter cold temperatures, rampant snowfall, and near-hurricane-force winds will accompany what is likely to be a record-setting winter storm. Originating from Alberta, Canada, the system is now tracking up the eastern coast of New England and wreaking havoc for millions. On Tuesday morning the low will undergo rapid intensification in a process called “bombogenesis,” with central pressure dropping more than 24 millibars in 24 hours. Tuesday’s weather will consist of heavy snowfall and whiteout conditions as the system slowly pivots around the southeastern coast of Cape Cod. With persistent northerly winds gusting to 50 mph, expect blizzard conditions and subzero windchill values.
Snowstorm threatens Northeast
Amongst impending snowfalls and ominous storm warnings, MIT cancelled classes for Tuesday, Jan. 27 and left Wednesday’s opening time pending at 7 a.m. due to the passage of a potentially “historic” storm.
Lewin complainant tells of harassment
A 32-year-old woman living in France has provided Inside Higher Ed with records of sexually explicit messages from former professor Walter Lewin — the same materials that she had sent to MIT and which had served as the basis for a sexual harassment investigation that led to the revocation of Lewin’s emeritus title and the removal of his popular online physics lecture videos.
GSC expands REFS program for peer-support and stress relief
Beginning in February, the Resources for Easing Friction and Stress (REFS) initiatives will expand to include a program whose services will be available to the general graduate-student community.