Stowell Death Ruled a Suicide; Memorial Service to Be Held Today
The cause of death for Ronald H. Stowell, who passed away on March 4, was suicide by hanging, said a representative of the Executive Office of Public Safety for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. He was found dead at his residence by the Somerville Fire Department shortly after 3:30 a.m. on March 4.
The Tech Interviews the UA President and VP Candidates
Elections for Undergraduate Association President and Vice-President will begin this week. Electronic voting begins at <i>http://vote.mit.edu/</i> on Thursday, March 15 and ends Tuesday, March 20. Paper balloting will start Wednesday, March 21 in Lobby 10. Read on for <i>The Tech</i>’s<i> </i>interviews with the UA candidates for President and Vice President: Martin F. Holmes ’08 and Ali S. Wyne ’08; Manisha Manmohan ’08 and Fernando Funakoshi ’09; Lauren E. Oldja ’08 and Steven M. Kelch ’08.
Downed Mail Server Up Saturday, Then Another Fails, Webmail Too
The mail server outage that began last week Wednesday drew to a close on Saturday morning, but then was followed by an unrelated outage of another of the five post office servers on Monday afternoon. In a third outage, early Tuesday, two of the six Webmail servers were down for about half an hour.
Manmohan and Funakoshi
Manmohan and Funakoshi said that they believe they can bring a fresh perspective to the UA because neither has been directly involved in the UA administration.
Holmes and Wyne
“I feel that there are a lot of inefficiencies and problems with the UA and I’d like to reform them,” Holmes said. Wyne pointed out that “some people don’t even know the UA exists. … we really want to make this the student body’s association. It’s about pushing the agenda of the students.” Both emphasized the need for change within the UA.
Oldja and Kelch
“I feel at home in the UA,” said Oldja. “I think … what’s very important for the role of a president is to have the proper experience … That way, you can hit the ground running.”
News Briefs
The commencement speaker for the Class of 2007 will be former MIT president Charles M. Vest, according to Kirk D. Kolenbrander, vice president for institute affairs and secretary of the Corporation.
Iran’s Nuclear Vision Initially Glimpsed at Institute
The young Iranians arrived in Cambridge in the summer of 1975, part of a historic venture between their government and Massachusetts Institute of Technology to train the first generation of Iranian nuclear scientists. The program began as a symbol of friendship but quickly became a lesson in unintended consequences.
UA Election Candidates Discuss UA, ASA, Textbooks
The Undergraduate Association Presidential/Vice Presidential debate drew a small crowd, as three pairs of candidates lobbied for community votes. During the debate, the candidates did not stray far from their platform statements.
Student's Race Complaint Undecided For Princeton
Nearly four months after Jian Li, an Asian student at Yale University, filed a complaint against Princeton University for racial discrimination in the admissions process, a decision remains to be reached by the US Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights regarding Princeton's actions.
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.