Photos: MIT's 147th Commencement
MIT’s 147th Commencement was Friday, June 7. Over 2,600 students graduated, receiving over 3,300 degrees.
Eastgate evacuated due to penthouse stove fire
Residents in MIT’s Eastgate graduate dorm were forced to evacuate their building on Saturday when a stovetop fire broke out at 1:35 p.m. in the penthouse kitchen on the 29th floor, which is open to all residents. Residents were transported by bus to Sidney-Pacific, where food, childcare, and air conditioning (the temperature was over 92 degrees Saturday afternoon) was available. Most residents were allowed back into the building at 8:30 p.m. (around seven hours after the fire), but MIT had to put up a few residents in the Hyatt overnight. Since this event occurred the week before graduation and summer classes begin on Monday, some residents had moved in just days before the fire.
Viewing Centers
A live stream of the Commencement exercises will be broadcast to the following classrooms. Each number represents a specific room on campus; the number before the hyphen is the building number, the numeral immediately after is the floor number, and the remaining numerals are the classroom number.
One year, 27 schools, 1 million enrollments
It’s been a little more than a year since edX, the nonprofit online learning enterprise founded by MIT and Harvard, first launched with much fanfare and a lot of press. Now, the enterprise encompasses 27 schools from 11 countries. In the past two weeks alone, edX has added more than half of those schools. At the same time, edX has completely overhauled its website design with the intentions of making it more colorful, sleek, and ultimately more appealing to the world. Finally, last Saturday, edX released its entire source code with the hopes of making the learning platform an open source project to which the community can contribute.
Swartz evidence to be released
The 88-day process to make evidence in the Swartz trial public has begun. The government, Aaron Swartz’s lawyers, MIT, and JSTOR submitted a plan last Friday to release certain documents, but identifying information about MIT employees will be scrubbed, among other redactions. The plan was endorsed on Monday by U.S. District Judge Nathaniel M. Gorton.
MIT president’s compensation up 19 percent from 2010 to 2011
MIT has released the salaries of its highest compensated employees for the calendar year 2011, which are required to be publicly disclosed as part of its tax returns for the fiscal year 2012 (July 1, 2011 to June 30, 2012). During her last full year as president, Susan Hockfield was MIT’s highest compensated employee, receiving $1,199,877 in total benefits. This year is only the second time that a MIT president received total compensation exceeding one million dollars, with Hockfield receiving over a million in 2010.
David Cameron stops at Media Lab on US tour British PM speaks with researchers, meets with students to discuss entrepreneurship
Last month, British Prime Minister David Cameron paid a visit to the MIT Media Lab as a part of his weeklong tour of the U.S. to promote the United Kingdom with Prince Harry. Cameron was welcomed by Media Lab director Joichi Ito and MIT president L. Rafael Reif. Policemen stood guard outside the Media Lab throughout Cameron’s visit, with at least one sniper on the roof of Senior House.
MIT visiting scientist died in traffic accident
Kanako Miura, 36, died on May 19 around 3:30 p.m. after being struck by a truck while biking through Kenmore Square. Miura was a visiting scientist in Professor Russ Tedrake’s Robot Locomotion Group in CSAIL.
Accord for a global trove of genetic data
Seventy medical, research and advocacy organizations active in 41 countries and including the National Institutes of Health announced Wednesday that they have agreed to create an organized way to share genetic and clinical information. Their aim is to put the vast and growing trove of data on genetic variations and health into databases — with the consent of the study subjects —that would be open to researchers and doctors all over the world, not just to those who created them.
Drew Houston speaks at 147th Commencement
Over 2,600 students will graduate from MIT today, receiving over 3,300 degrees. Killian Court is expected to be filled with over 13,000 guests at the Institute’s 147th Commencement.
Department Receptions
Receptions take place immediately after the ceremony unless otherwise noted.
A rainy Commencement?
A rather complicated forecast situation has set up for Friday. While we all had hoped that the high pressure (which brought us gorgeous weather on Tuesday and Wednesday) would stick around for Commencement, Mother Nature has other plans in mind. A low pressure system moving from the Ohio River Valley into our regions brings the first threat of rain today. Complicating this though, is a tropical system, which as of 6 p.m. Wednesday was classified as the first tropical storm of the 2013 Atlantic hurricane season; Tropical Storm Andrea. This system will interact with the low pressure from the Ohio River Valley as well as with an upper level trough to bring heavy rain today and tomorrow. With abundant tropical moisture, we could receive several inches of rain. As of this writing, there is still significant forecast uncertainty regarding the track of this system, the timing of its arrival in the Northeast, and the location of the heaviest precipitation. It seems that the heaviest precipitation will not be until tonight, but there is, unfortunately, a chance of rain during this mornings Commencement ceremony. As the system heads out to sea tomorrow, the rain should taper, with dry weather expected on Sunday.
Shorts (left)
WASHINGTON — The International Monetary Fund released an internal report Wednesday that sharply criticizes its first bailout program for Greece, the latest in a series of partial mea culpas as the fund reassesses the austerity that it has insisted on for ailing, debt-plagued economies.
In Syrian victory, Hezbollah risks a broader fight
BEIRUT — In the final days the outgunned Syrian rebels, deprived of reinforcements, ammunition and sleep, were surviving on olives and canned beans. They were hiding in the concrete shells of destroyed houses and underground tunnels near the besieged rebel stronghold of Qusair, unable to help their trapped colleagues and civilians dying of treatable wounds, as Syrian government forces and their Hezbollah allies from Lebanon assaulted the town by land and air.
US and Venezuelan diplomats agree to work toward talks
CARACAS, Venezuela — After months of tensions between the United States and Venezuela, Secretary of State John Kerry met on Wednesday with the Venezuelan foreign minister, Elías Jaua, in Antigua, Guatemala, and announced the start of talks aimed at improving relations between the two countries.
Drunk off the firehose: A review of MIT
For the last four years, MIT has been my world. The Institute is a cruel and jealous master, demanding nothing less than complete devotion. It consumes you, and you become consumed by it.
Fool me please
Now You See Me is the story of four small-caliber magicians that pop out of nowhere to form a magic troupe called “The Four Horsemen” and pull off a jaw-dropping magic trick: robbing millions of euros from the vault of a Parisian bank without ever leaving their stage in Las Vegas. The heist gets them the attention of the media, the public, and — since they promises even bigger acts in the near future — even the FBI and Interpol.
Speed and fury at its finest
They’re back! The star-studded cast of the venerable 12-year-old franchise, with its explosive combination of fast cars and furious drivers, returns to deliver another high-octane action thriller. Justin Lin is once again at the helm of the movie, continuing his stellar directing performance on the franchise. Lin was in fact instrumental in resurrecting and rebooting the series after the first few mediocre sequels.
Movie or game?
A couple weeks ago, Nintendo declared that it was going to enforce its copyright over third-party made “Let’s Play” videos, and began demanding ad revenue from the YouTube videos of gamers playing Nintendo games.
More of the same
The latest big-screen installment of the Star Trek franchise is great news for all Star Wars fans (“Wait, wait... what?” In a minute.) Although as an action movie it may appeal to a broader audience, Into Darkness is designed to delight Trekkies, the more hardcore they are the better. It is the perfect Star Trek movie, with all the familiar trimmings of the old-school classics we have come to love.
Something new, something blue
I grew up surrounded by blue and white dishes — Spode Blue Italian, Churchill Blue Willow, Chinese rice pattern teacups. They are comforting objects, objects of beauty, but not things that I often think about.
Evoking the Arab Spring through music
The MIT Wind Ensemble (MITWE) scored a coup last Friday when PBS aired the television world premiere of MIT-produced documentary Awakening: Evoking the Arab Spring Through Music. The documentary featured MITWE’s performance of Awakening, composed by MIT alumnus Jamsheid Sharifi ’83. The piece is intended to encourage listeners to contemplate the movement that swept Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, and other Arab countries. MITWE director Dr. Frederick Harris commissioned the piece from Sharifi, a renowned New York-based composer, who felt personally connected to the Arab Spring because of his Middle Eastern heritage.
Exclusive Feature: Fandom at MIT
It’s difficult to separate the concept of nerdiness from MIT. The Coop sells stickers that say Nerd Pride, our mascot is the beaver (nature’s engineer), and Conan O’Brien pokes fun at MIT’s nerdiness on his Twitter. But is the Institute truly a nerdy place? The Tech surveyed the undergraduate population of MIT to settle this question. 1402 students — 31 percent of the undergraduate body — responded.
NBA finals: San Antonio Spurs vs. Miami Heat
Who will take this year’s NBA finals? The Tech’s Austin Osborne evaluates the positional matchups between the Miami Heat and the San Antonio Spurs.
MIT, in a box
I arrived at the Institute in August of 2009 with two suitcases, a backpack, and a lot of enthusiasm. I was eager to begin my college life — to stay up absurdly late, make friends while psetting, have a swank dorm room, be independent etc. — and I had arrived at school early to participate in my Freshman Pre-Orientation Program (FPOP), the Freshman Arts Program.
Creating your own opportunities
Visit the Museum of Science, Boston this week. Proceed to the Blue wing up the escalators and to the left of the butterfly exhibit. There you will find Ocean Stories, an exhibit housed in the Art Science Gallery, a 2000-square-foot gallery twenty feet tall. By exploring Ocean Stories, you will discover oceanography translated through the prism of artwork.
