Police Log
<i>The following incidents were reported to the MIT Police between Feb. 16 and Mar. 7, 2007. This summary does not include incidents such as false alarms, general service calls, larcenies, or medical shuttles.</i>
Broad Institute Receives Large Gift For Psychiatric Research
The Broad Institute, the genomics powerhouse in Cambridge, Mass., announced Wednesday that it will receive what it believes is the biggest gift ever for psychiatric research to a single US institution: $100 million to decipher the genetics of severe mental illnesses.
E-mail Service Interrupted For 4,000 Users
Over 4,000 community members lost e-mail access early Wednesday morning in an outage that still affects some users.
Faculty Debate Jewish Delicacies
Students and members of the MIT community filled 10-250 Monday night to watch six MIT faculty lecturers and professors argue the superiority of one of two Jewish delicacies the latke, a fried potato pancake, and the hamentash, a triangular fruit-filled cookie.
B-C Kitchen Rumors Spark Dorm Concern
Rumors have cropped up regarding plans to replace Burton-Conner’s kitchens with undergraduate rooms, though administrators claim there are no plans to do so. The rumors surfaced in the week before President Susan Hockfield’s Feb. 13 visit to Burton-Conner, prompting a petition, two bills by the Undergraduate Association, and a small flutter of e-mails across the bc-talk mailing list.
Presbrey Makes Millions With Startup
What with some successful startups making hundreds of millions of dollars these days, $6 million may not seem like a lot. But it is still enough to impress most college students, and Joseph W. Presbrey ’08 earned that very amount back in March 2006 by selling a social networking site for high school students to Alloy, a media and marketing company targeting young consumers.
CME Being Funded Another Year
The Cambridge-MIT Institute is providing funding for the Cambridge-MIT Exchange program in what will be the last year of the CMI. Funding from CMI for the exchange program was originally supposed to last until 2006, and it was uncertain where funding for CME would come from. CMI is expected to fold up in 2008, and other funding sources will need to be found for CME.
In Short
MacGregor House is running another dining pilot program similar to the one held last semester to continue gauging student interest in bringing back MacGregor Dining. Dinners will be held Monday nights for at least four weeks from 6 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. The all-you-can-eat dinners will cost $7 without preferred dining and $3.50 with preferred dining. The first dinner was last night.
MacVicar Day Celebrates Learning, MIT Professors
Five professors were honored on Friday, March 2, MacVicar Day, as the 2007 Margaret MacVicar Faculty Fellows for demonstrating excellence in teaching. The award includes $10,000 per year for 10 years to be spent on improving teaching methods and course curriculum.
Ronald H. Stowell
Ronald H. Stowell, a postdoctoral research associate in the MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center, passed away shortly after 3:30 a.m. on Sunday, March 4, as confirmed by the Somerville Police. He was 36.
CEOs, Faculty Join in Search For MIT Sloan Dean
MIT’s Sloan School of Management is opening a search for a new dean to succeed Richard L. Schmalensee ’65, who is scheduled to step down in June after nine years at the helm of the business school.
News Briefs
Come early April, the Advisory Committee on Shareholder Responsibility will hand off their recommendations on whether MIT should divest from corporations doing business in Sudan to the MIT Corporation’s Executive Committee. In a letter to <i>The Tech</i>, Alan Spoon, the chair of the ACSR, wrote, “We expect to deliver our recommendation on possible courses of action to the Executive Committee for its consideration in early April.”
Letter From Advisory Committee Chair
Knowing that many in the community are deeply concerned about the tragic events on the ground in Sudan, I write to offer an update on the work of the Advisory Committee on Shareholder Responsibility, which has been asked to make a recommendation to the Executive Committee of the MIT Corporation about whether any action should be taken with regard to MIT’s investments in multinational companies that may be doing business in Sudan, and if so, what that action should be.
Charges Against MIT Students Eliminated
Felony charges against three MIT students who set off a burglar alarm in the E52 Faculty Club last October were dropped Wednesday by the Middlesex County district attorney's office. The students contend that they were hacking when found by the police. The case will now be handled within the Institute by the Committee on Discipline.
Kastner Appointed Science Dean
Marc A. Kastner, head of the Department of Physics, will soon be the new dean of science. During his nine years in office, Kastner inititated the new flexible physics degree option, formerly known as Course VIII-B, led the construction of the new physics and spectroscopy lab, and hired about one-third of the current Physics Department faculty.
Ethics Panels Found to Curtail Academic Freedom
Ever since the gross mistreatment of poor black men in the Tuskegee Syphilis Study came to light three decades ago, the federal government has required ethics panels to protect people from being used as human lab rats in biomedical studies. Yet now, faculty and graduate students across the country increasingly complain that these panels have spun out of control, curtailing academic freedom and interfering with research in history, English and other subjects that poses virtually no danger to anyone.
Douglas Ross SM '54
Douglas Ross SM '54 passed away on Jan. 31 after a fall at the Brookhaven at Lexington care community, according to <i>The Boston Globe</i>. He was 77.
Forum Features Controversial Speakers
Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss and Imam Mohammed al-Asi, who both hold anti-Zionistic views concerning the formation of an Islamic state, were asked to speak at the Forum on American Progress last Thursday night, a choice which was viewed as controversial by both the Jewish and Muslim communities at MIT. The forum, titled “Foreign Policy and Social Justice: A Jewish View, A Muslim View,” began with prepared lectures from the two speakers followed by a question and answer session.