[Editors] MIT Editors' Club Minutes, 11/10/2004

[Elizabeth Thomson]

MIT EDITORS' CLUB

*Meeting Notes from November 10, 2004*

President Vest's departure from the presidency and Dr. Hockfield's 
arrival in early December were the focus of much of this 
meeting.....people were wondering if Dr. Hockfield will be bringing 
her own staff, where the Vests are living, whether President Vest 
will retain his professorial title (yes), and more. Since no one at 
the meeting was sure of the answers (except for question 3), I'll 
jump to other subjects brought up at the meeting.

*Asteroid Boy*

A few days ago I received an e-mail from a ninth-grader who had read 
one of our stories about near-earth asteroids and had some questions 
for the Lincoln Lab researcher. I forwarded his questions to the 
researcher--among them,  "how old were you when you first started 
studying asteroids"--and, voila, within the hour the researcher had 
sent back answers.

And wonderful answers they were. So: cross your fingers, but the News 
Office is asking the researcher--and then the student--if we can run 
their correspondence as a a Q&A in Tech Talk. Stay tuned.....

And in the meantime, Denise Heintze of Brain and Cognitive Sciences 
suggests checking out the following site for kids: It's sponsored by 
the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and allows kids to send their 
science questions to real live scientists 
http://www.askascientist.org/.

*Signage*

Figures that MIT communicators would  notice--and question--the following:

Why does the MIT campus map outside the Student Center still include 
Building 20? Debbie Levey of Civil and Environmental Engineering 
passes the sign daily, and reports seeing perplexed tourists looking 
back and forth from their up-to-date maps to the Student Center 
map....

Why is the large map showing MIT entryways for the 
disabled......situated halfway down the infinite corridor?

That's it for now....Many thanks to all who responded to my query for 
"MIT mavericks" (young Bob Langer types) that Fortune magazine might 
want to feature in their new column.....send me a note if you'd like 
to receive the final list.

Cheers!

Elizabeth
-- 
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Elizabeth A. Thomson
Assistant Director, Science & Engineering News
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
News Office, Room 11-400
77 Massachusetts Ave.
Cambridge, MA  02139-4307
617-258-5402 (ph); 617-258-8762 (fax)
<thomson at mit.edu>

<http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/www>
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