Dean Hastings steps down
Yesterday evening, Chancellor Eric Grimson PhD ’80 announced that Dean Daniel E. Hastings PhD ’80 would be stepping down as dean of undergraduate education effective July 1, 2013. According to Grimson’s email to the entire MIT community, Hastings will be returning to his faculty position in Aero/Astro (Course 16) and Engineering Systems Division (ESD) after taking a year off for a sabbatical. Since being appointed dean of undergraduate education in 2006, Hastings has focused on giving students more international opportunities and helped modernize several aspects of students’ education.
REPORTER’S NOTEBOOK: 2.009 Product Engineering final projects
On Monday, students in 2.009, Product Engineering Processes, presented their final projects related to the theme “outdoors.” The students, all seniors in Mechanical Engineering, worked for three months in eight color-coded teams of 15-19 students each to research markets, choose a focus, design a product, and produce a working prototype with a $6500 budget.
Central Square properties for sale
Several parcels of land spanning a wide area of Central Square, including several prominent locations along Massachusetts Avenue, were recently listed for sale. Speculation surrounds MIT’s potential interest in purchasing the properties, which include several parking lots and the Quest Diagnostics building.
Two more partners for edX in the past week
As many of edX’s first courses come to a close, the online learning initiative continues to grow. EdX spokesman Dan O’Connell told The Tech last week that edX had reached half a million unique registrants. Yesterday edX announced its newest partner, Georgetown University, which joins just on the heels of Wellesley College, whose own addition to the list of “X Universities” was announced last week. Wellesley is the first liberal arts college to join edX.
Why have printed annual reports not been issued since 2005?
Like any major company, every year MIT produces a detailed annual report summarizing the past year’s work, accomplishments, and aspirations, with a detailed section from every department, lab, center, school, or other unit — or at least that’s the way it’s supposed to work.
MIT revises bylaws: Corp. chair to lead Executive Committee
At the quarterly meeting of MIT’s board of trustees — the MIT Corporation — on Friday, hundreds of changes to MIT’s bylaws were enacted, both big and small.
Barker renovation is the beginning
If you think the Barker Reading Room is the last you’ll see of changes in the MIT Libraries, think again. The renovation of the Barker Reading Room is the first step of a longer process to better serve students’ study needs.
Three anonymous reports of sexual assault at Lambda Chi Alpha
On December 5, MIT police released a police bulletin stating that they had received three anonymous reports of sexual assaults that occurred on November 2012 at 99 Bay State Road, the Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity house. The bulletin stated that there is no ongoing criminal investigation as a result of the reports. When contacted, MIT Chief of Police John DiFava confirmed that there was no ongoing investigation and declined to comment further.
New exec board takes IFC reins
A month after they were elected, the Interfraternity Council (IFC) is being run by a completely new group. Headed by Andrew L. Dorne ’14 from Phi Sigma Kappa as president, the new executive board of MIT’s IFC was inaugurated on Dec. 5.
Corp. Executive Committee oversight responsibilities
Corp. Executive Committee oversight responsibilities
Letters to the Editor
Editor’s note: This letter from Siegel came in correspondence with the writer who interviewed him. See opposite page for that interview.
K2C2 moves forward to zoning stage
The Central Square Advisory Committee to the Kendall-to-Central Square Planning Process (K2C2) held its final meeting last week on Wednesday, Nov. 28, and presented its work to the Cambridge Planning Board on Tuesday, Dec. 4. Near-final drafts of its work are available at .
Schmill urges students to work through self-doubt
When you’re living on three hours of sleep, your self-esteem is lower than your GPA, and you’re just starting to slog through the p-set for the class that you haven’t been to in a month, it’s easy to feel like you don’t belong.
Peer Ears to support students within dormitories
Need an ear? Next fall, students will be able to try Peer Ears, a peer support service within students’ residences which will act as a safeguard against an environment of overwhelming stress. The support staff will be comprised of students, called “peer ears,” who work with the existing support services in the dorms (such as GRTs, Housemasters) in order to promote mental well-being. Co-founders Emad Taliep ’14 and Divya Srinivasan ’13 have moved the launch of their pilot program from this coming spring to fall of 2013 in order to keep recruiting volunteers. Before launching, they want to ensure that there are enough residences of sufficient diversity in order to make reliable observations about what is the optimal support system for MIT.
Student group attempts to ‘save’ the Institute
Founded in response to the 1997 alcohol-related death of Phi Gamma Delta pledge Scott Krueger, SaveTFP is a fourteen-member MIT student group devoted to reducing stress among students. It was originally closely tied to the MIT administration, and according to current SaveTFP member Lia Bogoev ’14, was meant “to teach people about alcohol safety and show people that you can have fun without alcohol.”
Online support group hopes to connect students
Sometimes, it is easier to discuss personal feelings with someone online than in person. Peer2Peer hopes to use that fact. It will be MIT’s first student support service to be conducted completely online. Cofounders of the program Tzipora R. Wagner ’12 and Isabella S. Lubin ’13 designed Peer2Peer as an anonymous, message-based system in order to make reaching out for help more accessible to stressed-out students. Originally intended to launch this year, the program has hit several roadblocks in its development and will not start until at least next year.
MIT Professors weigh in on what stresses them
Throughout most of my career I gave big lectures every semester, practically — 18.01, 18.02, 18.03. And there, the stress is pretty constant, because it’s like putting on an opera, where the opera goes on for three hours, but there’s an enormous army that has to be supervised. Typically, there would be 10 or 15 TAs for the course, which would have to have instructions given to them, and you have to make up problem sets each week. It was a big operation.
Kendall proposal incorporates K2C2
Executives of MIT and the MIT Investment Management Company executives presented a revised version of MIT’s vision for the future of the east campus to the Cambridge Planning Board on Tuesday night. Their recommendations incorporated many of the zoning changes proposed by the City’s Kendall-to-Central planning study (K2C2) earlier this year.