Entire UT System to join edX
The University of Texas system — nine universities, six health centers, 212,000 students and 19,000 faculty — announced yesterday it would join edX, the MIT-pioneered online learning platform and university consortium. The move sextuples the number of institutions involved with edX, from three to eighteen, and bolsters MIT’s efforts to make online technology a staple of university education.
Boston-area economics Nobel
Two Americans, Alvin E. Roth and Lloyd Shapley, were awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science on Monday for their work on market design and matching theory, which relate to how people and companies find and select one another in everything from marriage to school choice to jobs to organ donations.
Fisher v. UT affirmative action case oral arguments heard
Last Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court heard the oral arguments from both sides of Fisher v. University of Texas, the affirmative action case for which MIT and 13 other universities, including the eight Ivy League schools, filed an amicus curiae brief defending the right of a university to consider the race of an applicant, among other factors, in its admissions process.
Demolition begins at 219 Vassar
The demolition of the building at 219 Vassar St. began yesterday and is set to conclude by Nov. 15. The site will house the new TCC (Technology Children’s Center) Vassar daycare, which is slated to open by next August.
Upcoming Dalai Lama visit thrills City of Medford
MEDFORD — It is an ordinary working-class neighborhood: clapboard houses, chain-link fences. There is a statue of the Virgin Mary in one front yard; in another, a Halloween ghost waves in the wind.
REPORTER’S NOTEBOOK: Higgs Boson, explained
Last spring, news of the discovery of proof of the Higgs Boson particle swept MIT’s campus, prompting discussion in classrooms, on social networks and email lists, and in casual conversations among students. During this news blitz, the recurring question on my mind was, what exactly is the Higgs Boson? Since I have no theoretical physics knowledge, I didn’t understand the significance of it at all.
Endowment at $10 bil
In the past few months, several of the richest universities in the U.S. have announced their endowment performances for the 12 months ending on June 30. MIT’s endowment grew to $10.1 billion, the highest value achieved in its history. MIT’s primary investment pool, produced a return of 8 percent, topping returns at other schools, including Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Stanford, the four private universities with deeper pockets than MIT.
Two dead bodies found in the Charles
Two dead bodies were found in the Charles River this week. On Monday, the unidentified body of a 62-year-old man was found near the Boston University Boathouse. On Tuesday, police identified through dental records the body of 23-year-old Jonathan Dailey, a second-year graduate student at Boston Architectural College. He was discovered at the bottom of the river, chained to a cinder block. Dailey had been missing since Oct. 2 and was taking a semester off from graduate school.
Do students care about the election?
With just a month to go before the presidential election on November 6, MIT students are all talking politics. Or are they? In light of the first presidential debate, how do students feel about voting, elections, and politics in general this year?
Junot Diaz, MacArthur Grant winner
Often overshadowed by its engineering and science counterparts, the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences (SHASS) at MIT has been called the “hidden jewel” of the Institute. Now, the SHASS has one more award to add to its list of accolades. On Oct. 2, the MacArthur Foundation announced that it had selected MIT professor Junot Diaz to receive a MacArthur Fellowship for his outstanding talent in fiction writing. The foundation awards about 20 so-called “Genius Grants” each year, which each come with $500,000 of no-strings-attached prize money in installments over five years.
The faculty newsletter on edX
Released approximately two weeks ago, the features views on edX from the faculty and highlights from the Faculty/Staff Quality of Life Survey conducted in the spring, in addition to continued coverage of MIT 2030 developments — such as the establishment of the Provost’s Task Force on Community Engagement in 2030 Planning — and graduate student housing difficulties. The Tech recently covered faculty involvement on MIT 2030 at http://tech.mit.edu/V132/N39/mit2030.html.
Police Log
Sept. 25 Bldg. E52 (50 Memorial Dr.) 4:00 p.m. Person left his wallet and cell phone in men’s room at the faculty club and when he realized it he went back and they were gone.
MongoDB courses to be offered via edX
Software company 10gen, developer of the popular MongoDB database platform, announced last week that it will be offering two free online courses on MongoDB, using the edX platform.
MIT & Cambridge statistics on crime
How has crime at MIT changed in the past two years? In 2011, the MIT Police received six reports of rape and 22 reports of liquor law violations referred for disciplinary action on MIT’s campus, according to the 2012 MIT Annual Security and Fire Safety Report, released on Friday by the MIT Police. These are the highest numbers since 2007. In 2010, there were three reports of rape and 38 reports of liquor law violations on campus at MIT.
A conversation with provost Chris Kaiser
After the festivities of L. Rafael Reif’s presidential inauguration subsided, Chris A. Kaiser PhD ’87, who succeeded Reif as provost, had a chance to sit down with The Tech and share his thoughts on his new position. The provost is MIT’s senior academic and budget officer who holds overall responsibility for the school’s education programs; he also oversees recruitment and promotion of faculty. Kaiser has been a member of the faculty since 1991, and the department head of Biology (Course 7) since 2004. Although offered a job as the director of National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) last fall, Kaiser decided to stay with the MIT community instead. He officially became provost on July 2.