A snowy campus welcomes the spring semester!
Campus is alive and bustling with students heading to their classes once again. There is still snow around campus from last weekend’s blizzard. On Briggs Field and Killian you can see where students have gone out to enjoy the snow. Make sure to wear your jacket when heading to class!
Cynthia Breazeal named next dean for digital learning, effective Feb. 1
Breazeal succeeds Professor Krishna Rajagopal who was dean for digital learning from 2017 to July 2021, when he began serving as acting vice president of open learning while Sarma was on sabbatical.
Agustín Rayo named new Dean of SHASS, effective Feb. 1
Effective Feb. 1, Agustín Rayo PhD ’01, professor of philosophy, will be the next Kenan Sahin Dean of the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences (SHASS) according to a Jan. 25 email from Provost Martin Schmidt PhD ’88. Rayo served as interim dean of SHASS beginning June 2021 after the previous dean, Melissa Nobles, became Chancellor of MIT. Nobles was dean from 2015 to 2021. Prior to being interim dean, Rayo served as associate dean of SHASS from 2016 to 2019, during which he was chair of the Digital Humanities Steering Committee, the SHASS Faculty Diversity Committee, and the SHASS Educational Advisory Committee. Rayo told MIT News that he hopes to “continue the work of past SHASS deans, to make sure that the fields we study remain at the heart of the MIT experience.” Rayo also serves on the Computing Council of the Stephen A. Schwarzman College of Computing and as co-chair of MIT’s Committee on Departmental Life. Additionally, Rayo was Senior House housemaster from 2010 to 2014 and in the 2013–14 academic year, Rayo was on the Task Force on the Future of MIT Education. President L. Rafael Reif also told MIT News that Rayo “brings to the deanship a wonderful record of leadership to SHASS and of service to all of MIT, from faculty governance to student life.” According to Schmidt’s email, Rayo grew up in Mexico City and earned his undergraduate degree from the National Autonomous University of Mexico in 1996 and his doctorate in philosophy from MIT in 2001. Rayo completed postdoctoral research at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland and was assistant professor of philosophy at the University of California at San Diego before becoming a professor at MIT in 2005. Rayo’s research interests include metaphysics, philosophy of mathematics, language, and logic. Rayo has also taught 24.118 (Paradox and Infinity) almost every Spring term since 2012. Rayo is a member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, and his textbook On the Brink of Paradox: Highlights from the Intersection of Philosophy and Mathematics earned the 2020 Association of American Publishers Awards for Professional and Scholarly Excellence (PROSE) Award for the best textbook in humanities. The Advisory Committee on the Selection of the Dean of SHASS, chaired by philosophy professor Caspar Hare, advised Schmidt on the selection of Rayo as dean.
IAP ends, PE, first day of classes
Jan. 31 is the first day of classes for the spring term.
Explosive Nor’easter to deliver foot of snow, gusty winds
Get ready for the storm everyone’s been waiting for — an explosive snowstorm is preparing to dump around a foot of snow as it moves over Boston this Saturday!
MIT plans for return to full in-person learning and work arrangements in Spring
The email writes that when the semester starts Jan. 31, MIT expects to return to “operations resembling those of the fall semester,” including the return of all classes to in-person learning and of “most employees to the schedules and work arrangements” in place prior to December 2021, when the Omicron variant began its spread in the Boston area.
MIT announces in-person Commencement celebrations will take place May 26–28
MIT announced dates and format changes for the two Commencement celebrations taking place this year — a OneMIT ceremony for Class of 2022 graduates and a celebration for the Classes of 2020 and 2021 — in a Dec. 23 email from Chancellor Melissa Nobles.
Reg week, last week of IAP, spring term
Registration week for the spring term is Jan. 24–28.
Icy IAP is not icky
Looking ahead to next week, get excited for some precipitation! Rain and snow are projected in the forecast, so get ready to see water fall from the sky in multiple forms!
640 positive tests reported by MIT Medical in past seven days
MIT’s positivity rate is lower than the Cambridge 14-day average of 6.37% and the Massachusetts 7-day average of 21.61%, but the rate of positive cases has increased significantly from the fall semester, where the highest 7-day positivity rate was 0.28%.
Pre-registration, boosters, MLK Jr. Day
Jan. 13 at 5 p.m. is the final deadline for continuing students to pre-register for the spring and the deadline for continuing students to select preferences for spring CI-H/CI-HW subjects.
MIT charged, along with other universities, in federal lawsuit for illegally limiting student financial aid awards
The suit, filed Jan. 9, claims that the defendant universities used a shared methodology to calculate applicants’ financial aid, which resulted in price-fixing and unfairly limited financial aid.
Cold wave sweeps over the southeast
The weather this weekend will be crisp but sunny – perfect for a walk outside to clear the winter blues. Just make sure you bundle up, and maybe keep your mask up to protect your cheeks from the biting cold.
Majority of MIT graduates sign union authorization cards, GSU authors letter to Reif
The MIT Graduate Student Union (GSU) submitted a letter to President L. Rafael Reif, “announcing that an overwhelming majority of MIT’s 5,000 graduate employees” “signed union authorization cards” on Dec. 13.
MIT requires boosters, updates isolation policies and IAP plans in response to rise in positive cases and Omicron variant
In response to a local and global rise in COVID-19 cases and the spread of the Omicron variant, MIT is requiring all eligible community members to receive a COVID-19 vaccine booster by Jan. 14 to access MIT buildings. MIT has also updated its isolation and quarantine practices, event policies, and Independent Activities Period (IAP) plans.
MIT Class of 2026’s early admissions rate at record low 4.7%
MIT offered early admission to 697 students to the Class of 2026 out of 14,781 applicants, for an acceptance rate of 4.7%. MIT Admissions Assistant Director Chris Peterson SM ’13 announced the statistics in an MIT Admissions blog post on Dec. 18.
Pre-registration, January ASEs, boosters
The Spring pre-registration deadline is 5 p.m. on Jan. 6.
Celebrate the return of IAP with a snowstorm
A winter storm watch is placed for Rhode Island and parts of eastern Massachusetts later tonight, leading into early Friday.
56 positive COVID-19 tests reported by MIT Medical in past week
The month of November saw the most positive COVID-19 tests at MIT (184 out of 132,743 tests) this semester, compared to 77 (out of 140,111) in October and 118 (out of 142,267) in September.
Provost Martin Schmidt to become President of RPI next summer
Schmidt graduated from RPI with a bachelor’s in electrical engineering in 1981 before receiving a master’s and a doctorate from MIT in electrical engineering and computer science (EECS) in 1983 and 1988, respectively.