Obama nominates Moniz
On Monday, President Obama nominated MIT’s Ernest J. Moniz as the next secretary of energy. He will replace Steven Chu, who announced last month that he would resign. Only in the past decade have scientists occupied the position. If confirmed by the Senate, Moniz, a physicist, would continue that pattern.
RingComm disappointed by alcohol discovered at 2015 Premiere
As hundreds of excited sophomores poured out of Kresge Auditorium after Ring Premiere on February 15, some left without enjoying the entire event. Instead, they had been in the bathroom vomiting.
Undergraduate tuition rises by 3.24 percent
MIT’s undergraduate tuition will increase by 3.24 percent for the upcoming academic year (2013-2014), according to an announcement made by the MIT Corporation last Friday.
DormCon budget causes grumbling
This past Thursday, MIT’s Dormitory Council approved a $23,000 budget that included about $15,000 for CPW, consisting of about $5,000 from Admissions, $5,000 from Housing, and $5,000 of its own money. The budget also included $4,000 for a 30-person DormCon retreat at Endicott House — an overnight retreat that includes chef-made meals. The space is popular with student groups and dorm governments for retreats. The retreat would be attended by the 12 executive members, 11 dorm presidents, and “plus ones” of any attendee, according to DormCon president Edward A. Mugica ’13.
Freshman GIR pass rates remain steady relative to yearly averages
Last semester, the freshman class’ passing rate for the math and science General Institute Requirements (GIRs) was 96.3 percent. According to Julie B. Norman, the Senior Associate Dean for Undergraduate Education, this pass rate is similar to previous years’ numbers. Of the 203 students who received fifth-week flags, 15 dropped the subject they were flagged in, and 39 did not end up passing.
Emphasizing effect of cuts a risky move
WASHINGTON — As the nation’s top Democrat, President Barack Obama has a clear imperative: to ratchet up pressure on Republicans for across-the-board spending cuts by using the power of his office to dramatize the impact on families, businesses and the military.
Searching for a successor to DUE Hastings
The search for the new Dean for Undergraduate Education, the successor to Dean Daniel E. Hastings ’78, is “well under way,” according to search committee chair Graham C. Walker.
Half of Longfellow Bridge to close from Summer 2013 to Fall 2016
According to the Mass. Department of Transportation, its board of directors approved a construction contract for final rehabilitation of the Longfellow Bridge. During the construction, according to the Boston Globe, the bridge will only accommodate one lane of cars traveling from Cambridge into Boston. One outbound lane will be a feature of the finished bridge, which will have wider bike paths and sidewalks. For the first phase of the project, slated to last from the start of this summer to Winter of 2014 or 2015, Cambridge-bound traffic will be redirected to the Craigie Bridge, which sits next to the Museum of Science. For the remainder of the project, the opposite side of the bridge will be closed, but vehicular traffic will still be restricted to flowing inbound. The Red Line will also be truncated at both ends of the bridge for 25 weekends once construction begins, said the Globe. Shuttle buses will be available to carry citizens across the river during these weekends, and temporary track will be put in place to allow the train to run at normal capacity on the weekdays.
MIT ranks 11th in alumni donations
In 2012, MIT raised $34,795 per student. This puts MIT as the 11th highest fundraiser when compared to other reporting U.S. colleges and universities, according to a press release last week from the Council for Aid to Education (CAE). Stanford University, which received the most total contributions with $1.03 billion in fundraising, ranked fifth with $55,745 per student. Yale University, California Institute of Technology, Princeton University, and Harvard University ranked 7th, 8th, 17th, and 18th, respectively.
Nate Silver talks to a packed MIT crowd
A large crowd packed Bartos Theater last night for a talk with Nate Silver, hosted by Seth Mnookin and the MIT Communications Forum. The auditorium quickly reached its 190-person capacity, and many wannabe audience members were left to watch the live feed outside the theater.
Linked genetic base for mental illnesses
The psychiatric illnesses seem very different — schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, autism, major depression and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Yet they share several genetic glitches that can nudge the brain along a path to mental illness, researchers report. Which disease, if any, develops is thought to depend on other genetic or environmental factors.
SpringFest: a step up from weekends past
The recent announcement of Macklemore & Ryan Lewis as the headliners for this year’s SpringFest spread like wildfire across the MIT campus. In addition to the concert, the Undergraduate Association (UA) Events Committee is working to make SpringFest, previously known as Spring Weekend, bigger and better than ever before.
Nate Silver at MIT Media Lab
A Conversation with Nate Silver: Baseball statistician turned political blogger talks about politics, statistics, and the media. Silver founded the FiveThirtyEight blog to predict political elections in 2008. His success in political forecasting led to his working with the New York Times, and in 2012 he correctly predicted the results in the U.S. presidential election for all fifty states and the District of Columbia. The talk, at the MIT Media Lab, was moderated by Seth Mnookin, a former baseball and political writer. Mnookin now co-directs MIT’s Graduate Program in Science Writing.
New Media Lab Fellows
What does the co-creator of Lost and director of the next Star Wars film have to do with an international chess grandmaster? A successful fashion designer? The author of a New York Times bestseller? All are members of the MIT Media Lab’s first group of Director’s Fellows, announced last month in a Media Lab blog post.
Cambridge releases Hubway usage statistics
The City of Cambridge released ridership statistics on the Hubway bikeshare program last week. Since its launch in late July 2012, Hubway has proven successful at attracting daily bike riders, especially in the MIT vicinity.
Saturday report of a gunman on campus a hoax
The Cambridge Police received a false report early Saturday morning of a “male with a large firearm and wearing body armor” at 77 Massachusetts Avenue. The report was declared to be false around 2.5 hours later after MIT and Cambridge police searched each building room-to-room. Students were not notified of the situation until after an hour after the initial tip.
IN SHORT
President L. Rafael Reif and former Intel CEO Craig Barrett published a column in the Financial Times yesterday urging the federal government to spare scientific research dollars from the impending sequestration. “To slash America’s R&D capability in the name of fiscal responsibility would be akin to seeking greater efficiency for an aircraft by jettisoning the engines,” they wrote.