Community

MIT celebrated the Classes of 2020 and 2021 during a special ceremony on May 28 that featured an address by Kealoha Wong ’99, Hawaii’s first poet laureate, reports Laura Crimaldi for The Boston Globe. “We may make some esoteric discovery or some small contribution to our industries, but most likely, our most significant impact will be in our communities and in our families,” Kealoha said. “Our impact will be felt in the way that we treat others and the way that we treat ourselves.”

Graduate student and violinist Lily Tsai recently performed in a benefit concert for the Newton Food Pantry and Community Freedge, raising over $1,000, reports Charlotte Howard for The Boston Globe. “Everywhere you go there are going to be people who love to play and give back to the community and bring joy through music,” Tsai said.

Susy Jones, a sustainability project manager for MIT’s Office of Sustainability advises WBUR reporter Andrea Shea through her decision to eat 100% local foods for one week. “Making decision when you’re stressed is really difficult and that’s why I think it’s hard for anyone to eat healthy or local,” says Jones. “That’s why people at the end of the day end up getting fast food. So, we have to reduce the barriers for purchasing healthy local food.” 

MIT students gathered to take part in the annual Baker House Piano Drop, a 50-year tradition where a nonworking, donated, and irreparable piano is pushed off the roof of the Baker House on campus to mark the last day MIT students can drop classes for the spring semester, reports Heather Alterisio for Boston.com.

Boston Globe reporter Steve Annear spotlights the MIT Banana Lounge, an on-campus space that provides students with free bananas and a space to relax and unwind. “In 2015, the students batted around the idea of creating a welcoming, playful space for their peers to hang out, rest, or form relationships. Providing a quick snack would be a big draw, they realized, and helpful for students who didn’t have time for a meal between classes or to pick up fresh food,” writes Annear.

MIT students gathered to take part in the Baker House Piano Drop, during which students drop a donated, nonworking, and irreparable piano off the roof of Baker House to mark “Drop Day”, reports Sabrina Silva for WHDH. “This year’s piano drop was made all the more special for students now that they’re back face-to-face enjoying their life on campus once again,” reports Silva.

Lecturer Susan Murcott and graduate student Imane Ait Mbiriq speak with Paris Alston and Jeremy Siegel of GBH’s Morning Edition about the MIT Climate Clock, a creation from the D-Lab that will be projected on the Green Building through May 27. “Our overall vision is that we have climate clocks in every K-12 school, in every university campus in the United States and even in the world, so that people can wake up to the reality of this new age and take action,” says Murcott.

MIT President L. Rafael Reif and Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry discussed the urgency of addressing climate change during the Climate Grand Challenges Showcase event, reports Chris Lisinski for the State House News Service. “Climate change has been called a ‘super wicked’ problem. In Boston, that might sound like a local way of saying ‘really hard,’ but this phrase is actually a technical term,” Reif said. “It describes any enormously complex societal problem that has no single right answer and no clear finish line as well as multiple stakeholders with conflicting priorities and no central authority empowered to solve it.”

Bloomberg News reporter Janet Wu speaks with President L. Rafael Reif and Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry during the Institute’s Climate Grand Challenges showcase event. “If you can capture the emissions -- literally, genuinely -- then you’re reducing the problem,” said Kerry of the importance of eliminating greenhouse gas emissions.

Boston Magazine’s Spencer Buell highlights the MIT Banana Lounge, a student-run operation that provides free bananas and also serves as a multi-functional meeting space for the community. “Of course, this being MIT, the students have totally optimized their free-tropical-fruit operation to get it down to (what else?) a science,” writes Buell. “Their commitment to smart banana storage and analysis of supply chains, not to mention documenting the merits of bananas over, say, apples, is truly something to behold. More data is involved than you would think.”

MIT announced five projects "targeting the world's toughest climate riddles" that were selected following a rigorous two-year competition, reports Benjamin Kail for Boston Business Journal. “Climate Grand Challenges represents a whole-of-MIT drive to develop game-changing advances to confront the escalating climate crisis, in time to make a difference,” says President L. Rafael Reif.

Chiamaka Agbasi-Porter, the K-12 STEM outreach coordinator for Lincoln Lab, speaks with CBS Boston about her mission to help inspire young people to pursue STEM interests through the Lincoln Laboratory Radar Introduction for Student Engineers (LLRISE) program. “I think of it as a community,” said Agbasi-Porter, “we are a village that is helping our kids advance and move forward in their careers.”

Provost Cynthia Barnhart PhD ’88 reflects on her time as chancellor and her new role at MIT with Jennifer Ai of The Tech. “I really do want to help members of our community thrive here at MIT, because if they thrive, MIT thrives,” says Barnhart. “That very much motivates how I think things must be.”

Sasha Horokh and Vlada Petrusenko, undergraduate students from Ukraine, shared their fears with Jim Braude on Greater Boston, and asked Americans for support. “They’re staying in Ukraine, trying to stay calm and just do what they can to protect Ukraine,” Horokh said of their family and friends. “They definitely are scared for their futures, for their loved ones’ futures, for the future of their country and their home. However, being scared isn’t going to help much.”

Undergraduate Vlada Petrusenko speaks with Peter Eliopoulos of WCVB-TV about her worries for her parents and friends during the Russian invasion of Ukraine. "It’s not just war of Russia against Ukraine, it’s war of Russia against the whole other world," said Petrusenko.