New studying advice a surprise
Every September, millions of parents try a kind of psychological witchcraft, to transform their summer-glazed campers into fall students, their video-bugs into bookworms. Advice is cheap and all too familiar: Clear a quiet work space. Stick to a homework schedule. Set goals. Set boundaries. Do not bribe (except in emergencies).
Art programs get moved around in reorganization
Student and Artist-in-Residence Programs, a department run under the Office of the Arts, will be redistributed as entities under the Student Art Association this semester. Programs including the Arts Scholars Program, Grad Arts Forum, Art Reps, and the MIT Mural Competition will be affected by this change.
Final report is released for Fall 2011 dining plan
A final report on the 2010 House Dining Review was released on Tuesday, which summarizes the House Dining Advisory Group’s recommendation for the new dining plan that will be implemented in the four dorms with dining halls starting in Fall 2011.
Corrections
An article on August 31 stated that the MIT Mobile iPhone app was updated with the EZRide bus schedule, but the update was not just for iPhone users. The update was for MIT’s website for mobile devices, MIT Mobile Web. The iPhone app pulls all its information from MIT Mobile Web, which is a mobile-optimized MIT website that can be accessed by any browser at<i> m.mit.edu</i>.
Confusion over REX
For the second year in a row, the REX/Rush/Recruitment agreement between dorms, fraternities, sororities and living groups was not signed, leading to some confusion among rush and REX chairs.
Layoffs due to recession stopped after June
The wave of layoffs at MIT due to the recent economic downturn was over as of June, according to Vice President of Human Resources Alison Alden. Between January 2009 and June 2010, MIT laid off 174 employees in an effort to cut the 2010 and 2011 fiscal year budgets by about $125 million collectively.
Stay in stem cell case?
A federal judge may decide in the next week whether to issue an emergency stay of his own injunction against federal funding of human embryonic stem cell research. The stay would temporarily stop the injunction.
CITGO sign to be equipped with new LED lights
Notice something missing from the Boston skyline? The CITGO sign has been undergoing renovation since July 23 to upgrade its LEDs to the most “technologically advanced of their kind,” according to the CITGO website. This update comes as part of CITGO’s centennial milestone. The work on the sign is being carried out by the Federal Heath Sign Company. The new LEDs have been designed to improve the sign’s ability to withstand temperature change, extreme wind, water damage, and UV rays. CITGO expects the 45-year-old sign to turn back on “just in time for baseball playoffs,” or some time this coming October.
Fraternity, Sorority, and <br />Independent Living Group Rush 2010
Welcome to the Daily Confusion for FSILG Rush 2010! Greek and ILG life are huge on MIT’s campus, and while they may not be right for everyone, many people (including myself) cite their affiliations as a key piece of what makes their MIT experience so fun and valuable.
Among freshmen, Baker wins popularity contest
Freshmen around campus are finally able to unpack as permanent housing assignments were announced Wednesday, following the readjustment lottery.
Gov’t files for emergency stay in stem cell case
The United States Department of Justice filed an appeal and an emergency motion this afternoon for a stay in <i>Sherley v. Sibelius</i>, the stem cell case under which an injunction issued last week Monday. That injunction prevents the NIH and other federal agencies from funding or considering to fund stem cell research, and has derailed many grants that were in the pipeline for consideration.
Corrections
An article from August 4 about MIT’s connections to the military’s WikiLeaks probe gave the wrong year for Christian J. Ternus. He is a current MIT graduate student and was undergraduate class of 2010; he is not class of 2011.
Make no mistake: In China, state-run firms rule
During its decades of rapid growth, China thrived by allowing once-suppressed private entrepreneurs to prosper, often at the expense of the old, inefficient state sector of the economy.
FEATURE Kapoor’s sculpture shines in Stata Cloud Gate’ artist’s piece is MIT’s latest
What once was an empty lobby at the Vassar entrance of Stata — a large space, industrial white, washed with natural-light, but shrouded in concrete — is now filled with MIT’s newest addition to it’s public art collection. The new art piece, left untitled, is created by Anish Kapoor, a London-based artist who is most famous for his Chicago piece <i>Cloud Gate</i> (resembling a giant chrome kidney-bean). Filling the once-empty space his new oversized sculpture: a massive sheet of ultra-polish stainless steel, curved like a melted sheet of glass, diffracting light of the nearby skylight. Herds of tourists stop by each day, pausing in front of Kapoor’s piece to photograph their distorted reflections.