A record 1,740 parents, grandparents and siblings from 535 families visited MIT during the three-day Family Weekend last Friday through Sunday.
Every academic department hosted a reception, 12 faculty gave special lectures, including Professor Michael Dertouzos, director of the Laboratory for Computer Science, whose keynote address on "Doing More by Doing Less: Human=Centric Computers" received a standing ovation from an overflow crowd in Room 10-250 Saturday morning. Professor Sam Ting, the 1976 Nobel Laureate for physics, spoke at a luncheon Friday in La Sala de Puerto Rico in the Stratton Student Center.
During the weekend, six undergraduates gave research presentations and 15 tours were offered, many of them several times. Eight dormitories and 13 fraternities, sororities and independent living groups served meals and/or held open houses for their students' families.
Musical entertainment was supplied by the Wind Ensemble, the Festival Jazz Ensemble, the Concert Choir, the String Chamber Orchestra, and the a cappella groups: the Chorallaries, the MIT-Wellesley Toons, the Logarhythms, the Muses and the Cross Products.
A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on October 25, 2000.
