What you missed over the summer:
Campus life certainly slows down during the summer, but the Institute still keeps running. While you were soaking up the sun in California, working an internship in Manhattan, or exploring Europe, MIT saw its fair share of action in Summer 2011.
Two FDA panels to review safety of popular bone drugs
Two advisory panels of the Food and Drug Administration will consider on Friday whether to recommend requiring women who use popular bone drugs like Fosamax to take “drug holidays” because of rising concerns about rare side effects with long-term use, according to people involved in the review.
CORRECTIONS
Last Friday’s opinion column about South Sudan incorrectly cited 1983 as the year that President Omar Hassan al-Bashir came to power in Sudan. Al-Bashir assumed office in 1989.
EC sophomore found dead Sunday
Nicolas E. Del Castillo ’14 was found dead on Sunday in his East Campus (floor 4th West) dormitory room.
Closed in error on Google Places, merchants seek fixes
In mid-August, Jason Rule learned some surprising news about the coffee shop that he owns in Hays, Kansas: The place had closed for good.
Pi Beta Phi earns residence
Last Tuesday, MIT sorority Pi Beta Phi (Pi Phi) received a bid from the MIT Housing Office to lease 405 Memorial Drive, the house previously occupied by the Alpha Tau Omega fraternity. After occupancy terms are discussed between MIT and Pi Phi and a formal agreement is signed, the sorority will be able to move into the new house starting in Fall 2012.
Baker, Maseeh top summer lottery
MIT has finally finished the most complex housing cycle in recent memory. The 460-bed Maseeh Hall opened alongside a substantial overhaul of the Institute’s undergraduate dining system. Both Maseeh and the dining system were predicted to influence the choices freshmen make about where they want to live.
Resignations shake faith in Columbia Pres. Bollinger
NEW YORK — Several Columbia University professors said this week that the recent resignations of two high-ranking black administrators have shaken their confidence in the institution’s president, Lee C. Bollinger, and reignited concerns among their colleagues about other aspects of his leadership.
MIT welcomes Pfizer to the neighborhood
Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer announced yesterday that it signed a 10-year lease with MIT for 180,000 square feet of space in a building to be constructed at 610 Main St. The site is just north of MIT’s main campus in the Technology Square area, several blocks up Main St. from the Kendall Square T-stop. Pfizer predicts they will move into the new building when it is completed by the end of 2013.
News Briefs
Class registration is stepping into the 21st century. This year, students majoring in courses 4, 14, 15, 16, 18, 21W, and 24 will take part in an online registration pilot program, which will eventually replace the current paper mechanism for class registration. This program is one of the first steps of MIT’s three-year “Education Systems Roadmap,” which aims to digitize, streamline, and centralize operations at MIT.
Irene slams East Coast, but MIT mostly spared
Last Friday, Governor Deval L. Patrick declared a state of emergency in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and called 500 National Guard troops in preparation for the landfall of Hurricane Irene, to be joined by 2000 more on Saturday. The City of Cambridge activated Code Red phone alerts — which sent pre-recorded messages warning of the threat to all landlines and to opted-in cellular phone lines — and email and text messaging alerts were sent out to the MIT community announcing the Sunday closure of MIT and encouraging the community to stay indoors.
Saturday Morning Breakfast at the ’Tute
Applause erupted in the standing-room-only 6-120 yesterday at 3:58 p.m. as Zachary A. Weiner, creator of popular webcomic Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal (SMBC), entered the room for a Q&A session packed with questions touching on topics from fellow web comic artists to the merits of Star Wars vs. Star Trek (for the record, Weiner prefers Star Wars). The free event, sponsored by the MIT Lecture Series Committee, concluded with a signing session of the new SMBC compilation, Save Yourself, Mammal!: A Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal Collection, and went an hour over its anticipated 4–6 p.m. runtime.
News Briefs
The start of 2011 Freshman Orientation and Residential Exploration (REX) marks the third year in a row that a REX/Rush/Recruitment agreement between the Dormitory Council (DormCon), the Interfraternity Council (IFC), the Panhellenic Council (Panhel), and the Living Group Council (LGC) has not been signed.