Boston celebrates July 4th
Despite the hot and humid weather, masses from around the world crowded into Boston for one of the most anticipated Fourth of July celebrations in America. Everyone was full of national spirit; children and adults alike wore red and blue foam Lady Liberty crowns and played games on blankets spread out along the banks of the Charles River. Those seeking the best seats for the spectacle arrived early in the morning, stretching clusters of lawn chairs from the Harvard Bridge all the way to the Hatch Shell, where the 38th Annual Boston Pops Fireworks Spectacular would take place later in the day. Other spectators took to the seas, docking their boats around the barge from which the firework show would ignite and release its potential energy into the skies.
Here today, gone tomorrow, those cameras.
Surveillance cameras come and go in Lobby 10, with some frequency, it would seem.
Agarwal officially CSAIL’s director
Anant Agarwal, a professor in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, assumed his role as director of CSAIL (Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory) last Friday on July 1. Agarwal will succeed Professor Victor W. Zue ’76, who held the directorship for four years. CSAIL is MIT’s largest interdisciplinary lab and is home to over 900 undergraduates, graduate students, and researchers.
Borges to manage Maseeh Hall
As of July 1, Rui Borges is officially the new house manager of Maseeh Hall, MIT’s newest undergraduate dorm. For the past 10 years, Borges has served as the house manager of Simmons Hall. In an email to Simmons residents, he said that he will miss everyone at Simmons and is looking forward to the new challenges he will face as manager of Maseeh Hall. Over the next few weeks, he will be working closely with Nika L. Hollingsworth, who was named as his successor as house manager of Simmons Hall. Hollingsworth has spent the past two and a half years as assistant manager of the Warehouse, one of MIT’s graduate dormitories. Rounding out the house team at Maseeh will be Suzanne Flynn and Jack Carroll, formerly of the Phoenix Group, who will now be the Housemasters of Maseeh Hall.
Disney lab resurfaces
Disney Research opened a new lab near MIT in East Cambridge this month, 11 years after closing the doors to its old Cambridge lab. Disney Research works in a number of areas — including robotics, computer graphics, and video processing — that benefit many facets of The Walt Disney Company. The new lab plans to work in the social sciences and forge ties with researchers at MIT.
IN SHORT
Boston Pride Week events this Saturday will include a parade and festival. The parade will traverse South End, Back Bay, Beacon Hill, and City Hall Plaza and will last from noon to 4 p.m. The festival will run from noon to 6 p.m. at City Hall Plaza. For more events, visit http://www.bostonpride.org/prideweek/.
Faculty want flexibility
Better use of technology will enhance undergraduate education, a collaborative living community for MIT faculty will soon become a reality, and interdisciplinary research is an increasingly popular focus, said the May/June 2011 Faculty Newsletter. The newsletter reported on issues ranging from the experimental First-Year Focus program to broad goals of the faculty. Innovation and collaboration in teaching, learning, and research was a recurring theme.
Peter Diamond withdraws 3rd Fed nomination
On June 5 Peter A. Diamond PhD ’63 announced that he would withdraw his nomination to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. Senate Republicans had repeatedly blocked President Barack Obama’s nomination of Diamond, an MIT professor of economics and the 2010 Nobel Prize winner. Diamond explained his decision and delivered an indictment to partisan politics in his June 6 New York Times opinion column “When a Nobel Prize Isn’t Enough.” Obama first named Diamond as a candidate to fill one of three long-standing vacancies on the Federal Reserve Board in April 2010.
MIT150: Explosive success
The MIT150 celebrations ended with a literal bang at Toast to Tech last Saturday. The event, open to the entire MIT community and guests, included champagne, ice sculptures, dancing, an impressively large cake modeled after the MIT campus, and a 12-minute fireworks show over the Charles River.
Bomb squad called
The Cambridge Police Bomb Unit and MIT police responded early Tuesday morning to a report of “suspicious materials” — which looked similar to pipe bombs — in New House. Police evacuated New House and Next House, and cordoned off Amherst Alley near MacGregor. Six and a half hours later, MIT announced that the materials posed no threat to campus safety, and that the area was safe to re-enter.
Water main break left MIT dry
Last Saturday night, much of the MIT Campus was without running water due to a water main break which occurred near Harvard Square between Broadway and Trowbridge Street. The break caused a reduction in water pressure all across Cambridge, enough to leave most MIT buildings without water.
Israel Ruiz nominated for EVP and MIT Treasurer
MIT Vice President for Finance Israel Ruiz SM ’01 has been selected to succeed Theresa M. Stone SM ’76 as executive vice president and treasurer of MIT. The nomination, made by President Susan J. Hockfield and the Executive Committee of the MIT Corporation, will be confirmed by a vote of the full MIT Corporation at an annual meeting on Oct. 14.
Bomb squad called to New House
Cambridge Police Bomb Unit and MIT police responded early this morning to a report of “suspicious materials” in New House. Police evacuated New House and Next House, and cordoned off Amherst Alley near MacGregor. At around 2 p.m., MIT announced that the materials posed no threat to campus safety, and that the area was safe to re-enter.
Building the future campus
MIT has begun laying out the future of our campus. By coalescing several of the Institute’s ongoing and future campus development projects under a broad planning initiative dubbed “MIT 2030,” Institute administrators and faculty hope to realistically envision where the campus will be in 20 years. MIT recently sold $750 million in 100-year bonds to help finance development projects in the MIT 2030 framework.
Burns to give Commencement address
Today, at the end of MIT’s 150th anniversary celebrations, the Institute holds its 145th commencement ceremony. MIT will be awarding degrees to 983 undergraduates and 1,471 graduate students. Collectively, 1,161 bachelor’s degrees, 1,547 master’s degrees, and 609 doctoral degrees were awarded by MIT, according to Registrar Mary Callahan.