Peer2Peer joins other campus mental health initiatives
Peer2Peer, an anonymous web-based peer support platform, launched late last month. The site allows users to chat with fellow students; the Institute launched the site as part of an ongoing effort to lower the barrier for seeking help with mental health issues. Peer2Peer was spearheaded by Berj Chilingirian ’16 and two professionals at MIT Mental Health, Evan Waldheter and Rheinila Fernandes.
Protesters seek release of Aafia Siddiqui
A small crowd of protesters gathered at the bottom of the steps of Lobby 7 Tuesday afternoon. They called on the U.S. government to release and repatriate Aafia Siddiqui ’95, a Pakistani neuroscientist who is currently serving an 86-year sentence in a prison in Fort Worth, Texas.
IMF Managing Director, Christine Lagarde, talks demographic change, energy, and MIT culture
Christine Lagarde, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, spoke at MIT last Friday, saying “we need to reframe the debate about demographics” and the global challenges that come with demographic changes. Her plan to counter shrinking and ageing populations in advanced economies includes both policy-driven approaches, such as entitlement reform, as well as calls for technological innovation in healthcare and energy.
Siegel: MIT students have become more outspoken
Alan Siegel, chief of Mental Health and Counseling since 2002, is retiring at the end of this year. His tenure is marked by an increased focus on serving undergraduates, with the percentage of students visiting mental health rising from 12 percent to 24 percent, according to Siegel. Today, students make up 90 percent of all visitors to MH&C — up from 20 percent in 2002.
Fossil Free MIT ends sit-in after agreement
An agreement with Vice President for Research Maria T. Zuber officially ended Fossil Free MIT’s 116-day sit-in outside President Reif’s office 1 p.m. Tuesday.
Community reflection meant to help students pause, connect
A community reflection held in Lobby 13 Wednesday afternoon featured drinks, cookies, therapy dogs, and an art project.
Women feel less prepared for Course 6, report finds
A report based on results from the EECS Undergraduate Experience Survey revealed that women feel less prepared and are less confident than men in their ability to succeed in Course 6.
Suzy Nelson, dean of Colgate College, will be vice president of student life
Nelson currently serves as vice president and dean of the college at Colgate University. She has held positions at Syracuse and Cornell, and was dean of student life at Harvard until 2012.
Women are as successful but are less confident than men, report finds
Though undergraduate women at MIT are as successful as their male classmates, they still feel less confident and believe that they are given less credit, according to a report released today by Caroline Chin ’16 and Kamilla Tekiela ’16.
Insured belongings may be stored in dorms over the summer
Students who can show proof that they have renters’ insurance will be allowed to store items in their dorms this summer, in spaces designated by the Division of Student Life, under a plan first unveiled at last week’s DormCon meeting.
Suzy Nelson, Dean of Colgate College, will be vice president of student life
Suzy M. Nelson has been named vice president of student life and will step into the position on July 1, 2016. Nelson succeeds Chris Colombo who announced his retirement last July.
SHAC, Chancellor clarify the committee’s role after students worry about its transparency
Refuting concerns that a decision on freshman housing is being reached in secret, which came along with concerns of general lack of transparency, Chancellor Cynthia Barnhart PhD ’88 unequivocally said that “any suggestions that decisions have been made are false.”
A return to relative warmth
The Boston area is experiencing a return to climatologically normal temperatures after record cold enveloped the region over President’s Day Weekend. The most severe part of the cold outbreak came on Sunday, when both the high (12°F) and low (-9°F) temperatures were the coldest ever observed in Boston on February 14. An extraordinarily cold polar air mass was to blame for the frigid outbreak, which spread throughout the northeastern United States. The unique extremity of the cold air mass was captured by a weather balloon measurement in Albany, New York, on Saturday night, which measured -23.4 °F at the 850 millibar level (a height of about 1.4 kilometers) — the coldest temperature ever observed at that height in Albany.
Gravitational waves from collision of black holes detected
“Ladies and gentlemen, we have detected gravitational waves. We did it,” David Reitze, Executive Director of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration, announced Feb. 11.
Gravitational waves, in the words of MIT researchers
MIT physicists gathered in the Bush Room under MIT’s dome on Feb. 11 to share some important news. The world knows what came next: in parallel with an event at the National Science Foundation, the scientists announced their breakthrough in making the first direct observation of gravitational waves. The cause of the waves was equally spectacular: a billion years ago, two black holes collided and outputted 50 times more power than all the suns in the universe.
Metropolitan Warehouse will not become dorm
The Metropolitan Moving & Storage Warehouse will not become a dorm. Instead, a new undergraduate residence will be constructed “from the ground up,” most likely in West Campus.
Physicists detect gravitational waves, proving Einstein right
A team of physicists who can now count themselves as astronomers announced Thursday that they had heard and recorded the sound of two black holes colliding 1 billion light-years away, a fleeting chirp that fulfilled the last prophecy of Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity.
As Apple resists, encryption fray erupts in battle
WASHINGTON — Last month, some of President Barack Obama’s top intelligence advisers met in Silicon Valley with Apple’s Timothy D. Cook and other technology leaders in what seemed to be a public rapprochement in their long-running dispute over the encryption safeguards built into their devices.
Reif announces education initiatives
President Reif announced four new education initiatives last Tuesday in response to the report from the Institute-wide Task Force on the Future of MIT Education.
Discovering the Zika virus
HONG KONG — Yap Island, a tiny island in the Western Pacific best known for using huge stone discs as currency, was facing a medical mystery.