Representatives from the Obama and McCain campaign faced off in last night’s presidential energy debate, co-sponsored by the MIT Energy Initiative and the MIT Energy Club. Both Jason Grumet, adviser to Obama, and James Woolsey, adviser to McCain, agreed that the US must reduce its oil dependence, but argued over financing a transition away from oil.

Moderated by Tom Ashbrook of the NPR talk show “On Point,” the debate focused on energy security, challenges related to the climate, and energy supply and demand.

Woolsey, who directed the Central Intelligence Agency under the Clinton administration, said that the McCain plan allows states to decide how to switch to alternative energy.

Obama’s plan is more detailed, and outlines a centralized plan for greening the energy supply, according to Grumet, executive Director of the National Commission on Energy Policy. Obama’s plan will invest $15 billion into renewable energy research, adding to the $2.5 billion currently being spent.

Although McCain strongly supports local decision making in regards to energy policy manifestation, Woolsey noted that McCain is opposing his own platform with his detailed proposal for the federal government to manage the construction of forty-five nuclear power plants.

While both representatives agreed that the country’s dependence on foreign oil poses security risks, Grumet said that the industry must be urged to switch to breakthrough fuels by forcing fuel economy standards to increase by about one mile per gallon a year.

Woolsey agreed that oil alternatives such as biofuels are the future, but argued that oil will still be relevant in the near future — along with all the political and economic issues attached. He promoted McCain’s domestic offshore drilling policy, which he said would help take money out of the pockets of oil dictators.

Grumet said Obama has other plans for reducing energy dependence, including the production of 60 million gallons of advanced biofuels and commitments to increasing efficiency, such as maintaining optimum tire pressures.

Other topics that dominated the debate included the various technologies that could be transitioned into. The electricity grid came up as an area requiring immediate improvement. “We have a dumb grid. We have a grid that does not tap the power of the sunny and windy cities of the country,” said Grumet. Instead of a power grid that uses new electricity technologies, the current system has numerous security vulnerabilities and lacks in protection against isolated incidents of power outages that can disable the grid over large areas, such as the August 14th, 2003 East Coast blackout.

“We have to make the grid far more resilient. We have a lot to do and the grid is a key part of that,” said Woolsey. Grumet mentioned that Obama would invest in the Smart Grid, a novel system that significantly improves the security against terrorist attacks and would facilitate the solar and wind-based production of electricity.

While the presidential candidates support the implementation of a national cap and trade program that limits pollution by forcing companies to pay for exceeding the cap and rewarding companies that stay under, Grumet also said, “We have to pull technologies forward with neutral performance standards and support regulations with significant incentives” that will encourage new energy industries to flourish.

According to Grumet, Obama believes that new technology will never triumph unless all subsidies are retracted and the resources are diverted toward backing new technology. Following a less drastic approach, Woolsey said, “McCain supports reducing subsidies for fossil-fuel based technology.”

The economic crisis became intertwined with the energy debate as well. Grumet believes that new energy technologies will “form the backbone for economic recovery.” Obama’s $15 billion investment will provide more jobs and serve as a stimulus for an economic comeback. Woolsey explained that “Drill, Baby Drill” endeavor will reduce the country’s financial dependence and has the potential to increase jobs.

Although cries for reducing energy dependence have been echoed over the years, the country’s dependence on oil hasn’t changed.

“Despite promises of energy independence, we become more dependent. A successful president will bend those curves, and at the end of the Obama presidency we will be using less oil than before and be creating less carbon than before,” said Grumet.

Despite the faltering economy, MIT’s endowment increased by $88 million, or 3.2 percent, according to figures for fiscal year 2008 released by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Investment Management Company. The endowment now stands at $10.1 billion as of June 30, 2008.

Woes in the financial sector caused the endowment to grow far more sluggishly this year than in fiscal year 2007, when it grew by 22.1 percent. Nonetheless, MIT’s endowment return outpaced the Standard and Poor’s 500 Index, which dropped by 13.1 percent in fiscal year 2008.

“Investment gains were broadly spread across MITIMCo’s diversified portfolio, with private equity, real estate, and fixed income securities performing particularly well,” according to the MIT News Office.

At the State of the Institute Forum on Sept. 29, President Susan J. Hockfield said that at MIT, the financial officers’ “watchwords are ‘vigilance’ and ‘prudence.’”

Due in part to the growth of the endowment, MIT will have a balanced budget for the fiscal year 2009. “This is the first balanced budget MIT has had in many years. A balanced budget means we can focus on the future,” said Hockfield during the State of the Institute Forum.

Most colleges have had difficulties wrangling profits from the troubled markets. According to the Boston Globe, a survey of 165 large institutions (of similar size to Harvard and Yale) found the average endowment return to be negative 3.0 percent for fiscal year 2008.

Both Harvard and Yale saw smaller increases than in previous years. Harvard University reported an 8.6 percent return on its currently $36.9 billion endowment, according to the New York Times. In the previous year, Harvard’s endowment earned a 23 percent return.

Yale University, historically a leader in endowment gains, reported only a 4.5 percent return on its investments this year, increasing its endowment from $22.53 billion to $22.9 billion. In the 2007 fiscal year, Yale received a 28.0 percent return, the largest among academic institutions.

MITIMCo, is a division of MIT that serves to oversee and manage the Institute’s investment of its endowment, the sixth largest university endowment in the nation, after Harvard, Yale, Stanford, and Princeton Universities and the University of Texas system. Over the past ten years, MITIMCo has averaged an annual return of 13.2 percent on the endowment.

MITIMCo also manages MIT’s retirement plans and operating funds. MITIMCo had a total of $14 billion under its management at the end of the 2008 fiscal year. The current president of MITIMCo, Seth Alexander, was formerly a director at the Yale Investment Office.

Karl W. Reid ’84, Director of the MIT Office of Minority Education since 2005, was recently appointed Senior Vice President of Academic Programs and Strategic Initiatives of the United Negro College Fund in Fairfax, VA. The search for his replacement is currently underway.

Noted as a “growing national presence on the issues of educating minority students within majority institutions,” by Dean for Undergraduate Education Daniel Hastings, Reid became involved with minority education at MIT in 1998 as Director of Engineering Outreach Programs, where he directed the nationally recognized Minority Introduction to Engineering and Science (MITES) Program, an academic summer program for promising high school juniors. He additionally founded the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) Program and Saturday Engineering Enrichment and Discovery (SEED) Academy, two academic and mentoring programs for local middle and high school students.

“My goal was to increase access to opportunities for students who would benefit from pre-college programs,” Reid said. “First, we had to raise the [MIT] endowment for MITES, since eighty percent of the funding was external, and then we parlayed the strength of MITES to start the SEED Academy to involve the local community.”

In 2005, Reid assumed the role of Director of the OME where he focused on ensuring the academic success of minority students. “With an approach driven by data and successful experiences at other institutions, Dr. Reid started several new programs aimed at supporting and enhancing the experience of our students, especially focus[ing] on graduate school options,” said Hastings.

According to Reid, one of his main objectives was to increase graduate school matriculation of MIT minority students, whether it be Masters or PhD. programs. “We want[ed] to raise the level of expectation within MIT and show that students of color can perform at high levels,” added Reid. Reid’s other initiatives included increasing minority student grade point averages and graduation rates.

When asked what MIT could still improve upon in terms of minority education, Reid replied that MIT needs to continue working on building connections between minority students and faculty and staff. “The faculty members at MIT are excellent content experts, but they need to realize the value of diversity playing a role in interaction in the classroom,” he said. “It can have the power from influencing how professors structure class and who they hire as TAs (teaching assistants) to what examples they give in class. Like President [Susan] Hockfield has said, professors need to internalize and institutionalize the belief that diversity makes everyone better,” said Reid.

During his tenure at MIT, Reid also served as Associate Dean of Undergraduate Education, Assistant to the Chancellor for Diversity, and advisor to the MIT chapter of the National Society of Black Engineers, and to the Chocolate City Living Group. Reid also led the freshman advising seminar, “Race, Identity, and Achievement.”

“In every aspect, he will be missed. Karl … ingrained his name into the success of many of the minority student groups on campus. At the same time … the impact that he had on the minority community, more specifically the Black community, can now be shared with a greater audience,” said Jarrell Johnson ’09.

Sharon M. Bridburg, Director of Human Resources in the Office of the Dean for Undergraduate Education, says that MIT plans to launch a national search for a new Director of the OME. The search committee, led by Professor Robert P. Redwine of the Department of Physics, includes faculty and staff members, as well as student and alumni representatives, who will be aided by consultants from headhunting firm Isaacson, Miller.

Johnson, one of the student representatives on the search committee, hopes that Reid’s improvements and community impact will be maintained. “The dedication to positively establishing a connection with faculty and staff for incoming freshmen through the Interphase Program and allowing student groups to have a strong voice in the inner workings of the Office of Minority Education are two of the primary aspects of the Dean role that I would like to continue to see,” said Johnson. “I hope the new Dean will be able to continue to lead that positive projection of the OME programming,” he added.

Julie B. Norman, Director of the Office of Undergraduate Advising and Academic Programming, will serve as the interim director of the OME during the search for Reid’s replacement.

In an e-mail sent to the student body on Sept. 25, Chancellor Phillip L. Clay PhD ’75 reminded students to hack responsibly and to stop downloading copyrighted works. An almost identical e-mail was sent last October.

The letter was meant to remind potential hackers that the tradition should not be a pretext for “doing whatever you like,” Clay said. No specific incident prompted the letter, Clay said.

In the letter, Clay reminded hackers to abide by the “hacking code of ethics,” which requires hackers to take responsibility for their actions and not create public hazards. “We have to re-embrace the true hacking tradition,” Clay wrote.

On Sept. 29, protesters hacked the Stata Center cafeteria, covering the hacks on display with black tarp. Next to the water fountain, police car, and cow, large mock violation notices were hung, detailing how the displays violated Clay’s “hacking code of ethics.”

Clay’s letter also asked students to maintain their integrity both inside and outside of the classroom by avoiding plagiarism and illegal downloading. Clay said another message involving illegal downloading of music and movies is forthcoming.

Clay said the e-mail does not mark any changes in MIT policy, which is outlined in the Mind and Hand guidebook. But with the arrival of over 2,000 new students on campus, “the message has to be reinforced” continually, Clay said.

This e-mail is simply “[an] attempt to balance our traditions with excess,” Clay said.

In comparison to last year’s letter, this year’s letter sharpens some points and softens others. The first letter mentioned that hacks should not bring public notoriety to hackers or MIT. The second letter removes all mention of “notoriety” and includes language about preserving the “privacy and personal dignity of individuals.”

Whereas the previous letter said that showering “looks like” a form of hazing, the new letter says showering “constitutes” hazing. The new letter also adds language explicitly mentioning MIT’s “responsibility to limit access to certain campus locations.”

Undergraduate Association President Noah S. Jessop ’09 said the new letter was relevant, if repetitive.

“All the points were important to reiterate particularly to new members of the community, but much of the message was unfortunately obfuscated by students’ fixation on the minute differences from last year’s letter,” Jessop said.

Biogen Idec Inc., one of Massachusetts’ largest biotechnology companies, is considering moving its corporate headquarters from Cambridge to Weston, which would add it to a growing list of Cambridge biotechs that have jumped to the suburbs because of lower rents and more options for office space.

“It’s sort of the natural evolution of these things,” said Biogen Idec chief executive Jim Mullen. “The cost of running a business in Cambridge is pretty high.”

Mullen said it makes sense to move corporate jobs to the suburbs, where rents are half as much as in Cambridge and workers would have an easier commute from Worcester, southern New Hampshire, and other areas where housing costs are lower.

“It’s an employee attraction,” he said. “If you want to live in the city, you still can.”

But Mullen added that it is vital to keep Biogen Idec’s research operations in Kendall Square, near the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, to make it easier to retain and recruit scientists. It also plans to keep a small drug manufacturing plant in Cambridge.

In the past a year, more than a half dozen Cambridge biotechs have moved to the suburbs. Amag Pharmaceuticals Inc. moved to Lexington last month. Altus Pharmaceuticals Inc. plans to move to Waltham later this month. And earlier this year, Shire Human Genetic Therapies said it will build a headquarters and manufacturing plant in Lexington.

Mullen said Biogen Idec is in “reasonably well advanced” negotiations to lease a 350,000-square-foot building scheduled to be built on Boston Post Road, just west of the routes 128 and 20 interchange in Weston. The company is also considering other options, such as expanding in Cambridge or moving to an alternate site in Waltham. But for now, Mullen said, “The Weston site looks like it is the best fit for what we are doing.” The company plans to make a final decision by the end of the year.

Biogen Idec has 1,600 employees in Cambridge and another 200 in Wellesley. If the company goes forward with the Weston site, Mullen said, it would likely shift a few hundred corporate jobs from Cambridge and Wellesley to the new offices. The new site would also provide space for new employees.

But the move probably wouldn’t take place for about two years. “There’s nothing there,” Mullen said of the Weston location. Boston Properties Inc., which owns the site, declined to comment. But Susan Haber, Weston’s town planner, said the company has secured the necessary permits to build.

Another prominent Cambridge biotech, Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc., has been considering moving its corporate headquarters to a new building in Boston’s growing Fan Pier neighborhood as the company outgrows its campus in Cambridgeport. Joshua Boger, Vertex chief executive, said the company plans to make a decision about where to expand by year’s end.

While Cambridge and Boston remain desirable for companies, companies often have more options if they are willing to move farther out. Commercial real estate firm Colliers, Meredith & Grew estimated that as of the third quarter, there was a 17.8 percent vacancy rate in the suburbs, compared to 12.2 percent for Cambridge and 9.3 percent in Boston. Rents averaged around

$24 per square foot for most office space in the suburbs, compared with $43 in Cambridge and $51 in Boston.

While the debate over who America will vote into the Oval Office is in full swing, so too is the discussion about how the voting will happen. The November elections will feature unprecedented levels and varieties of electronic voting.

Electronic voting encompasses a variety of technologies, including optical-scanning, Internet, and touch-screen systems.

Despite more complex security technology and new legislation that increases security requirements, experts debate over how, if it all, electronic voting should be implemented.

MIT-affiliated experts consulted by The Tech generally agreed that electronic voting technologies have improved over the past several years.

Stephen D. Ansolabehere, professor at Harvard University’s School of Government, and former director of the Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Project said, “The systems do work, in the sense that they do operate reasonably well on Election Day and they do not produce wildly irregular results. Those who have looked at the numerical properties of vote tabulations find them to fit with the numerical properties one would expect from counting.”

Security is a concern in all forms of voting technology, he said.

“The security concerns raised with electronics are not exceptional,” said Ansolabehere. “It is easy to tamper with paper voting … by destroying ballots or substituting one set of ballots with another … Such problems on a wide scale led Brazil to adopt electronic voting,” he said.

Olivier Pereira, a Belgium-based cryptography specialist and a professor at the Université Catholique de Louvain who has worked as a visiting scientist in the Theory of Computation Group at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory several times over the past four years, “I think that e-voting offers many opportunities to have more reliable and arguably more trustworthy elections than what can typically be obtained with paper-only elections … Various levels of public and administrative verifiability are offered, which do not have counterparts in ‘standard’ paper-based voting systems.”

He cited recent systems used outside of nationwide elections that allow voters to verify that their votes were recorded correctly.

Ansolabehere said he thinks optical scan voting technologies have “shown superior reliability in tabulation and it can be recounted and reconciled,” while systems with no tangible record have “irrecoverable flaws owing to programming mistakes in formatting databases for vote tabulators.”

In a 2005 research paper, Ted Selker, former MIT professor and former directory of the VTP wrote that in the 2004 U.S. presidential election, “numerous pieces of evidence suggest that electronic voting machines outperformed all other methods used.”

According to Ansolabehere, the benefits of optical scanning also include ease of formatting ballots and accessibility for blind and non-English speakers.

Many experts agree that logistical and legal issues surrounding electronic voting are at this point more challenging than refining the voting technologies themselves.

The real flaw with electronic voting in the United States is not any specific aspect of individual machines being used today, but the business model, said Ansolabehere.

“This industry is not conducive to innovation. Equipment is sold to individual counties and towns, and it is used for two decades. The firms attracted to this industry have not been those at the forefront of computing technology, and those that have come in, such as IBM and Unisys, have quickly gotten out,” he said.

“My general sense of this problem is that the security of all voting systems rests primarily with the personnel running elections and with the legal system,” said Ansolabehere.

Political Science Department Head and Professor Charles H. Stewart III sees political roadblocks in the implementation of electronic voting in elections.

“There is an interesting contradiction among many election reformers,” he said. “On the one hand, they often favor election reforms to make elections more accessible and convenient to more people. These reforms make voting much more complicated, and automation, including electronic machines, can help manage the complexity. However, reformers are also the most skeptical of using electronic tools to manage elections.”

“There is a fair amount of skepticism, especially among Democrats and people on the left,” he added. “The more complicated the election, the more automated they want the voting machine to be,” Stewart said.

“The type of election technologies that voters tend to favor are the ones that make it easier for voters who have disabilities, who are vision impaired. They want technologies that use automation to ensure these people’s votes are counted,” he said.

Pereira said that the deployment of electronic voting systems also often involves a lot of behaviors that cannot be matched easily with those of traditional paper-based voting, which makes such systems harder to reconcile with the various voting regulations and requires an important voter education step.

“I expect that an important stage for the practical deployment of those systems is their use in elections with lower stakes and risks than governmental elections. Such elections typically offer much more possibilities to modify the voting process and to educate voters, while providing important return and records that allow improving the usability of the systems and convincing the public of their interest.”

According to Pereira, there is also an important role for systems that allow voting over public electronic networks, such as the Internet. Such solutions allow people to vote from their home at the time they want without having to wait in long lines, improving the voter’s comfort and reducing the need for setting up large voting infrastructures.

However, he said that most researchers, including himself, think that these systems should not be used in circumstances where voters could be submitted to some forms of coercion, or when vote selling can be a concern.

Benjamin Mako Hill, a PhD candidate at the Sloan School of Management and a Research Fellow at MIT’s Center for Future Civic Media is developing free software, called Selectricity, that he hopes will increase the popularity of web-based voting for non-governmental groups and organizations. The system supports anonymous and voter-verifiable balloting.

Describing what inspired Selectricity, Hill said it was almost a reaction to the VTP because, “the Caltech/MIT initiative is entirely based on technology for the election of governments and states, and government and state election technology is the least likely to be used,” he said.

“Governments are hesitant to use any technology. If it’s unusual and different, they fear that people might be confused,” he added. “Governments are incredibly conservative when it comes to e-voting technology.”

“We already have great election technology,” Hill said. “I’m interested in making technology that people will use more than once every four years, that’s relevant to the way we make decisions everyday.”

Spermicidal cola, archeological armadillos, and lap dancers were the talk of the evening at last night’s Ig Nobels, where a weird ceremony feted the weirdest science of the past year.

Like real Nobel Prizes, the Ig Nobels award the most novel discoveries in the field of science and humanities. But the Ig Nobels are, well, decidedly less noble.

Redundancy was the theme of this year’s event, held at Sanders Theater at Harvard University to a sold out, screaming crowd. Cheers erupted whenever the word “redundancy” was mentioned — which was often.

The pre-ceremony program began with a concert by Paul and Storm, followed by remarks by Master of Ceremonies Marc Abrahams, editor of the Annals of Improbable Research. Next was a parade of the “Indignitaries,” individuals who came as a group dressed in their themed attire. The last group to parade through were members of the Boston Museum of Bad Art with art in hand.

Anna Lysyanskaya, Dany Adams, and William Lipscomb spoke in the “24/7” lecture series: spending 24 seconds giving a technical explanation of their work, followed by a seven word summary in layman’s term (for the sake of redundancy). Lysyanskaya, Professor of Computer Science at Brown University spoke about Cryptography, Adams, biologist at the Forsyth Center for Regenerative and Developmental Biology, spoke about armadillo reproduction and finally Lipscomb, 1976 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, spoke about redundancy.

The award show was also interleaved with a three act opera about (what else!) redundancy.

Winners of the dubious Nobel received of a paper certificate and a wooden board with a generic label. Whenever acceptance speeches went over their allotted time, a little girl named “Miss Sweetie Poo,” would run to the microphone and proclaim “Please Stop, I’m Bored.”

By the end of the ceremony, the theatre was filled with paper airplanes that were thrown during two designated times as well as intermittent periods throughout. The ceremony ended with the final act of the Opera and a photo-op of all the winners. The winners of the awards also got to shake the hands of Lipscomb, an actual Nobel Laureate.

With the closing remarks, Abrahams stated, as in tradition, “If you didn’t win a prize — and especially if you did — better luck next year!”

Kees Moeliker, Dan Meyer, Francis Fesmire, and Don Featherstone, all former Ig Nobel Prize recipients were present.

This year’s winners of the award include:

Massimiliano Zampini (University of Trento, Italy) and Charles Spence (Oxford University) for their research titled “The Role of Auditory Cues in Modulating the Perceived Crispness and Staleness of Potato Chips.” This allowed them to change the crunching sound to make it seem like the chip was crisper than it really was.

The Peace Prize went to The Swiss Federal Ethics Committee on Non-Human Biotechnology for their recognition of dignity for plants. The award was accepted by Urs Thurnherr, a committee member.

Astolfo G. Mello Araujo and José Carlos Marcelino (Universidade de São Paulo, Brazil) were given the Archeology Prize for their study of how Armadillos can “scramble” up an archeological dig site.

The Biology Prize went to Marie-Christine Cadiergues, Christel Joubert, and Michel Franc (Ecole Nationale Veterinaire de Toulouse) for discovering that “fleas on dogs jump higher than fleas on cats.”

Dan Ariely (Duke) took the award in Medicine for showing that “high-priced fake medicine is more effective than low-priced fake medicine.”

Toshiyuki Nakagaki, Ryo Kobayashi, Atsushi Tero travelled from Japan to receive the prize in Cognitive Science for showing that “slime molds can solve puzzles.”

Geoffrey Miller and Brent Jordan took the prize in Economics for showing that “lap dancer’s ovulatory cycle affects tip earnings.”

Dorian Raymer, physics, proving mathematically that heaps of string or hair or almost anything else will inevitably tangle themselves up in knots.

Deborah Anderson, Joseph Hill, C.Y. Hong’s daughter Wan Hong (chemistry) Conflicting studies on Coca-Cola being a spermicide.

David Sims, Literature, “You Bastard: A Narrative Exploration of the Experience of Indignation within Organizations.”

The Ig Nobel awards were first given out in 1991 and originally held at MIT. The purpose of the award is to celebrate the “unusual, honor the imaginative, and spur people’s interest in science,” according to the nomination form.

At the Ig Informal lectures tomorrow the new laureates will give 5-minute presentations of their award-winning work. The event will take place in 10-250 at 1:00 p,m., and is free and open to the public.

MIT graduate students packed into Walker Memorial on Wednesday night to celebrate the unveiling of the first new Grad Rat ring design since 2003.

The ring features a beaver holding both a diploma, symbolizing graduation, and pizza, symbolizing free food, on the bezel.

The official MIT seal is featured prominently on one shank, while the other shank contains an icon personalized based on the student’s department.

The ring may also be personalized to include students’ class years and degrees being received. These options are unique to the Grad Rat, as the undergraduate Brass Rat has a uniform design.

EECS graduate student Shahriar R. Khushrushahi, outgoing chair of the Graduate Ring Committee, which designed the ring, said that he wanted to incorporate more symbolism into the Grad Rat so that the design would relate better to the next five graduate classes. Unlike the past ring which included absolute objects like the Stata Center, Khushrushahi and the GRC focused more on abstract concepts that he believed all MIT graduate students would understand.

“One of the symbols we worked on a lot,” Khushrushahi explained, “was the ‘72’ which is found on the left side of the bezel. It represents the 72 Nobel laureates that have passed through MIT.” Khushrushahi also said that the 72 symbol is represented as a helix, in reference to MIT’s extensive efforts in studying DNA. The 72 symbol also brings to light MIT’s contributions to sustainability by incorporating the recycling-symbol-styled arrows at the ends of the numbers. The icon below the 72 symbol represents a greater-than sign in order to acknowledge the fact that many more Nobel laureates will pass through MIT in the future. Lastly, the flames between the numbers symbolize MIT’s ongoing research in energy efficiency.

Other symbols on the bezel include the moon, symbolizing late nights spent at MIT, a crane, a reference to MIT’s numerous ongoing construction projects, and the acronym IHTFP (which most commonly refers to the phrase ‘I hate this fucking place’).

Khushrushahi said that the GRC wanted the Grad Rat to reveal the journey to graduation. They accomplished this by including in the design a path that crosses the bezel which encounters all the symbols on it, including book piles and empty coffee cups. And to continue tradition, the bezel shows the MIT beaver clutching a diploma in its right hand while wearing a Grad Rat on its left. Like the Brass Rat given to undergraduates, the Grad Rat shows the Boston skylines on the sides of the ring as well as an engraving of the MIT campus map on the inner-band.

New in 2008 is a second limited-edition alternative ring. Saeed Arida G, an architecture graduate student and member of the GRC, said she helped design this new ring to appeal to those graduate students who do not like the bulkiness of the traditional Grad Rat. Unlike the large, square frame of the Grad Rat, the new ring is circular and consists of four small bands. The first band is engraved with “MIT,” and other three denote the student’s graduation year, school, and degree received. “What makes this ring unique,” said Arida, “is the fact that each ring is specially constructed for each student.”

Graduate students can order their Grad Rats through next week either online at the Graduate Student Council’s website (http://gsc.mit.edu/ring/) or in Lobby 10. Rings come in stainless steel, silver, gold, and a silver-gold-palladium blend. Prices range from $150 to $950, depending on style and bezel size. According to Khushrushahi, approximately one-third of graduate students order the Grad Rat.

This year is the second in which a committee has redesigned the Grad Rat since a plan to redesign the ring every five years began in 2003. Throughout the past year, the GRC worked directly with Balfour, the jewelry company that is manufacturing the Grad Rat.

Initial financial and marketing plans began at the end of summer 2007, while design of the ring itself began in December 2007.

At the unveiling event on Wednesday, rows of buffet tables lined the floors. The rhythmic drumming of the Afro-Brazil band’s drums rocked the air before the ring presentation began.

Five rings were lotteried off to the students in Walker, but before names were drawn, an honorary ring was given to Tim the Beaver. After the presentation of the new ring design, a video of Tim the Beaver living the day of the average MIT graduate student was presented.

The idea of presenting rings to MIT graduates was first established in under Class of 1929 President C. Brigham Allen, who formed a committee to design the Brass Rat. The initial design of the Grad Rat remained unchanged for 73 years until when it was first updated in 2003.

A new ’08–’09 Graduate Ring Committee has already been formed and will be headed by Alessondra Springmann G.

The newly-unveiled design of the Grad Rat will be offered to the next five graduate classes. The ring will not be redesigned until 2013.

After decades of cheering pedestrians during the long trek across the Harvard Bridge, the Smoot marks turn fifty tomorrow, and MIT students and alumni are gearing up to celebrate a tradition that spans generations with a shoreline cleanup, a concert by famed oldies group “The Platters,” and a 1950s-themed party.

Oliver Smoot ’62, the man who many years ago gave his name (and height) to the measurements that span the bridge, will speak at the beginning of the celebration at a lunch at the Kresge barbecue pits. The class of 1962 will present a new plaque commemorating the Smoot, which was designed and created in the Hobby Shop by Ilan Moyer ’08 and Melissa Rothstein. It will be installed on the Cambridge side of the bridge and will replace a plaque added during the Smoot marks’ 25th anniversary which has since disappeared, Associate Director of Student and Alumni Relations Katie C. Maloney said.

Following the barbecue, MIT community members will work to pick up trash, repaint the railing, and perform maintenance along the Charles River shoreline, as Cambridge officials would not allow the Smoot marks themselves to be repainted. Casey said a number of fraternities and sororities would be participating as groups and that other students can sign up as individuals or groups on the event’s website at http://web.mit.edu/smoot/.

At 5 p.m., community members will be able to attend a concert by “Herb Reed and the Platters,” a popular rock group from the 50’s and 60’s. “They were huge,” Director of FSILG Alumni Relations Bob Ferrara, who is heading up the planning for the day’s celebrations, said. “The alumni from the 50’s and 60’s are all really excited about it.”

After the concert, the day’s sponsors, which include the MIT Club of Boston, the Class of 1962, and Lambda Chi Alpha, will host the “Big 50’s Party” at the MIT Museum. The event will feature music, food, and memories from the 1950s, including a performance from alumni of the MIT Logarhythms and the dedication of the official “Smoot Stick,” a 5’7” stick — the official length of a Smoot — which will be presented to Oliver Smoot. Students who participated in the community service event that morning will be given free tickets to the event.

The inspiration for the event came last year, when author Robert Tavernor published the book “Smoot’s Ear: The Measure of Humanity,” Ferrara said. Although the book drew on the Smoot story mostly in the title, Tavernor came to MIT to promote the book and his author’s talk became a joint Club of Boston and LCA event where Smoot himself made an appearance. The interest in the event and the story convinced Ferrara and Casey that, with the 50th anniversary approaching, it would be appropriate to turn it into a large-scale celebration.

But the real inspiration came fifty years ago when the new pledges of LCA were commanded to measure the Harvard Bridge using the body of the shortest pledge — Smoot. As the story goes, LCA pledgemaster Tom O’Connor ’60 had come up with the idea; he was tired of crossing the bridge on his way to and from Boston without any idea of how far he had to go.

So on a Thursday night in October, the pledges set out with a bucket of light-colored paint — probably white wall paint gathered from the supplies closet, Smoot recalled — and began to measure the bridge using chalk to mark each body length. Every tenth Smoot was marked with a line of paint, and every fiftieth Smoot was marked with the current distance in Smoots. The group’s original intention was to measure the majority of the bridge with string after some calibration, but an LCA brother who was walking by decided to stay and watch, and so the plans to cut corners were dropped.

It was a tiring night for Smoot, who had to sit up and down over three hundred times, and who, by the end of the bridge, had to be carried from one spot to the next.

“It took seven of us to do it,” Smoot emphasized. “I don’t know if seven is the optimal number… but we actually probably could have used more people to lift and put me back down because after a while my arms pretty much gave out. It took a bunch of us to do this, and that was one of the purposes of this pledge task: to teach us that we needed to work with each other and get along and cooperate.”

Around the 300-Smoot mark, a policeman drove by, prompting a mad dash from the scene of the crime. But after that close shave, there was surprisingly little reaction to the prank, either from the police or from students. Smoot noted that since there was “nothing that identified Lambda Chi or MIT” there was no reason to expect police at the fraternity’s doorstep. But students outside of the fraternity didn’t ask Smoot about the marks either, even though his name was painted on the bridge at various points.

In fact, it was several years before Smoot perceived that the Smoot marks had become more than just “marks on the sidewalk” to MIT students. “I graduated and started my life,” he said. “I enrolled in law school, got a job, got married; there were a lot of things going on, and I didn’t really give it much thought,” he said.

“I think it was in the 70’s that people began to ask me if I was involved with this. At first it was embarrassing; at this point it’s delightful. It’s very nice to be part of something that has turned out to be quite positive for the fraternity and for MIT.”

Indeed, the prank soon became an MIT tradition, in part because of its clear functionality; for weary pedestrians, the Smoot marks shortened a trek longer than twice the length of the Infinite.

“That’s why it became an instant hit, because it serviced a real need, knowing where you are on the bridge,” Ferrara said. “Even the police use it now.”

“It was a very practical thing, but the part that nobody could foresee was what could become of [Smoot’s professional] trajectory,” Ferrara added, referring to the fact that Smoot went on to serve on the board of, and eventually head, both the American National Standards Institute and the International Organization for Standardization.

The weekend promises to be an exciting time for alumni to reunite. For the members of Lambda Chi Alpha, it has special significance.

“We’re just really excited; [painting the Smoots] is an awesome tradition, and it’s something we take a lot of pride in,” LCA president Brandon Suarez ’09 said.

Forty-one of the 74 women who registered for recruitment pledged the new MIT chapter of Pi Beta Phi. New members were greeted by sisters of other national Pi Phi chapters at a bid day celebration on Sunday.

Pi Phi recruitment organizer Luisa Badaracco noted, “the new pledge class will provide a very strong base for the future of Pi Phi at MIT.” She said that strong representation from all four classes adds to the depth of the class. On November 14, the new pledges will be officially initiated into the sorority as sisters of the sorority.

Since the MIT chapter did not meet its maximum membership capacity of 80 sisters, they will hosting another recruitment in the spring.

—Robert McQueen

A first-come-first-serve system will replace the current lottery system for physical education class registration. The Department of Athletics, Physical Education, and Recreation said they expect to switch over during the 2009 Independent Activities Period and plans to release more details about the change in November.

Director of Physical Education Carrie Moore said the change will create “a more responsive registration system.” She added that “the new system will allow students to have immediate feedback and gain better control of the P.E. class registration.”

—Mengjie Ding

It’s an age-old predicament: Caffeine-fueled college students cramming for exams and writing papers until the crack of dawn, then skipping or snoozing through classes. Sleep deprivation has long been considered a rite of passage, a point of pride, even.

But now, alarmed by recent studies tying lack of sleep to poor academic performance, college officials are urging students just to go to bed. More than a dozen Massachusetts schools have begun waging campaigns touting the benefits of sleep through dorm seminars, posters, and catchy slogans like, “Want A’s? Get Z’s.”

Wellesley College spreads the message by throwing dorm pajama parties with tea and popcorn. Tufts University passes out sleep masks, ear plugs, and a CD of relaxation tracks. Bentley College holds a weeklong contest called the Biggest Snoozer, and gives away memory foam pillows and white noise machines to students who log the most hours of shut-eye. And Massachusetts Institute of Technology has enlisted the help of far-flung parents, alerting them to watch for warning signs such as e-mails sent at 4 a.m.

“For college students, sleep is the most dispensable thing,” said Dr. Vanessa Britto, director of health services at Wellesley. “Most people feel it’s a badge of honor. ‘I didn’t sleep. Parentheses, aren’t I great?’ Until you point out to them that pulling an all-nighter is the equivalent of driving drunk and is detrimental to their reaction time and memory.”

Universities, though, have their work cut out for them to change such a culturally ingrained habit on campus.

With 24 hours of online entertainment available, students today are tempted by myriad diversions other than school books. They’re gambling, catching up on their favorite television shows, playing video games, or chatting with virtual friends — then trying to study into the wee hours of the morning.

“It’s like, well, I could do my calculus homework or it sounds like the girls next door are doing something fun so I’ll just walk over there,” said Kelsey Barton, a freshman at Tufts, who said she has been averaging about three hours of sleep a night since starting college this month. “I don’t want to miss out.”

With so many distractions, Barton often doesn’t start on schoolwork until midnight, when she’s so tired that it takes her even longer to finish. She downs coffee and Mountain Dew to make it through classes and cross-country practice.

“It’s a cycle that I’m now kind of stuck in, and I get more and more tired,” she lamented.

College officials say more students seem to be getting stuck on the sleep-deficit treadmill. Skimping on shut-eye has become such a concern that the American College Health Association revamped its annual health survey this fall to include six questions focused on sleep instead of one, said Mary Hoban, director of the Baltimore-based National College Health Assessment.

Nearly 40 percent of students said they had felt rested on no more than two days in the previous week, according to the latest data from fall 2007.

“It’s not like I choose to sleep as little as I do,” said Colleen Huysman, a Boston University junior who says she gets five hours of sleep a night and chews gum to stay awake in class. “There’s just so much going on that sleep is at the bottom of the priority list. There aren’t enough hours in the day for that to happen.”

Huysman’s attitude, pervasive among her peers, speaks to the fear of BU officials, who launched the university’s sleep campaign two years ago after more students started coming to campus clinics complaining of headaches and fatigue, symptoms often related to lack of sleep. BU’s initiative includes seminars, a new website of sleep facts, and a special Facebook site depicting students engaged in healthy habits such as exercise and sleep.

College health directors say they struggle to make students aware of the serious health and academic consequences of sleep deprivation without nagging or lecturing - especially when more students are venturing beyond old methods of using energy drinks and caffeine pills to stay awake. The truly desperate have resorted to prescription drugs like Adderall, which is used to treat attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder and boost concentration.

“Sleep is one of those issues we see as much more of a problem than our students do, so it’s a little tough getting our message across,” said Dr. David McBride, director of student health services at BU.

Many BU students said they had never heard of the school’s campaign. Some simply stay up late as a matter of course.

BU junior Solange Garcia said she goes to bed around 3 a.m. on most nights when she doesn’t have a lot of homework. Two or three times a week, she pulls an all-nighter for papers due the following day.

“I used to leave a lot to the last minute because I felt like I produced my best work under pressure,” said Garcia, echoing a common refrain. “In turn, I would stay up all night, or as late as my body would allow, and just grasp as much information as I possibly could.”

In a move suggesting how the credit crisis could disrupt American higher education, Wachovia Bank has limited the access of nearly 1,000 colleges to $9.3 billion the bank has held for them in a short-term investment fund, raising worries on some campuses about meeting payrolls and other obligations.

Wachovia, the North Carolina bank that agreed this week to sell its banking operations to Citigroup, has held the money in its role as trustee for a fund used by colleges and universities and managed by a Connecticut nonprofit, Commonfund.

On Monday, Wachovia announced that it would resign its role as trustee of the fund, and would limit access to the fund to 10 percent of each college’s account value. On Tuesday, Commonfund said that by selling some government bonds and other assets held in the fund, it had succeeded in raising its liquidity to 26 percent.

Still, Wachovia’s announcement sent shock waves through higher education, sending hundreds of college presidents rushing to check their financial vulnerability on every front.

Some smaller colleges that had not previously arranged lines of credit were feverishly seeking to negotiate those on Wednesday. And some large institutions said they were facing, at the least, a major financial inconvenience as a result of Wachovia’s action.

The University of Vermont, for instance, said that about half of its liquid operating assets — $79 million — were invested in the fund.

“It appears that the asset is secure,” said Richard H. Cate, vice president for finance and administration at the University of Vermont, because, he said, much of the $9.3 billion is held in securities that will become available when they mature. “But we’re not real thrilled with the fact that we can’t access all of our money when we want it.”

Wachovia’s action was perhaps the most tangible signal yet that the credit crisis could have a powerful impact on higher education. Another sign came on Tuesday as Boston University, saying it needed to respond to the financial crisis with cautionary steps, announced an immediate hiring freeze and a moratorium on new construction projects. That decision was unrelated to the action by Wachovia, where Boston University was not an investor.

On Tuesday, officers of Commonfund held a lengthy conference call to provide details of Wachovia’s action to representatives of more than 900 colleges and universities, many of whom were upset, said W. Judson Koss, a spokesman for Commonfund.

“The whole issue is liquidity,” Mr. Koss said. “This is a fund that has been in operation for over 35 years, and is invested in nothing but Triple-A government and corporate paper, all top-notch equities.

“We’ve been going along just fine, but Wachovia had a liquidity concern. They asked, ‘What if there’s a run on the bank and we can’t redeem these securities?’ So they were the ones who pulled the pin on the grenade.”

Colleges have used the fund, formally called the Commonfund Short Term Fund, almost like a checking account, depositing revenues including tuition payments and withdrawing funds daily to finance payrolls, maintenance expenses, small construction projects and other short-term needs, college officials said.

Nearly 60 percent of the securities in the fund are scheduled to mature by Dec. 31, and thereafter would be available to investors, Commonfund said in a statement. When the remaining funds would become available was unclear. The fund said it was seeking a trustee to succeed Wachovia.

To date, none of the securities have defaulted, and all were continuing to pay timely principal and interest, the statement said.

But for the time being, some institutions that have relied on the fund were scrambling to secure money for operating expenses.

Augsburg College in Minneapolis is one of more than a dozen Minnesota colleges with investments in the fund. Augsburg was fortunate, its president, Paul C. Pribbenow, said, because its holdings were just $13,392.

“But this certainly raises the specter that we can no longer take anything for granted,” Dr. Pribbenow said. “It shows just how vigilant we need to become about every financial relation we have.”

The University of Akron had $800,000 invested in the fund, a small part of the university’s total portfolio of operating funds, which typically range from $100 million to $150 million in a semester, said John Case, the university’s chief financial officer. Shortly before Wachovia’s announcement, the university withdrew $80,000, but has since been unable to withdraw any of its remaining money, Mr. Case said.

Matthew Hamill, senior vice president of the National Association of College and University Business Officers, said, “This is a pretty significant event, in the short run, because it’s going to cause dislocation and uncertainty.” Mr. Hamill added: “My estimate is that in the long run, investors will wind up with their money back. But they don’t have access to cash in the short run, so it’s going to cause significant financial and operational changes.”

Molly Broad, president of the American Council on Education, which represents 1,600 colleges and universities, said: “A widespread credit crisis will affect a large number of our institutions very quickly. Those folks who’ve been saying that the economy could be seized by a liquidity crisis, well, it’s unfolding before our eyes, and it’s having an impact on colleges and nonprofits.”

At Boston University, President Robert A. Brown sent an e-mail message to faculty and staff members on Tuesday saying that the university would temporarily freeze hiring, with the exception of public safety employees and professors whose hiring process was under way, and that it would postpone all capital projects that had not begun.

Joseph Mercurio, the university’s executive vice president who oversees its budget, called the steps pre-emptive.

“We have a lot of economic uncertainties that have to do with the national economy,” Mr. Mercurio said, “and in light of those conditions we’re going to take some prudent steps right now.”

For the 5,500 college admissions officials and high school guidance counselors who gathered here over the weekend, there were discussions, debates and analyses of things like the ethics of tracking student applicants on Facebook and “Why Good Students Write Bad College Essays — and How to Stop It.”

But for this crowd, at the Seattle convention center for the annual conference of the National Association for College Admission Counseling, the main event was William R. Fitzsimmons’s first public presentation of the findings of the Study of the Use of Standardized Tests in Undergraduate Admission.

Mr. Fitzsimmons, the dean of admissions at Harvard, led a commission of college admissions officials who drafted the study, which challenges colleges and universities to examine their use of the SAT and ACT and to consider whether the benefits outweigh the disadvantages or whether they can make the tests optional for admissions.

The line formed early for Mr. Fitzsimmons’s panel, and with more than 1,000 people jockeying for a limited number of seats — a scene that brought to mind the college admissions process — the event was moved to the ballroom.

“It’s electrifying to both sides of the desk,” said Louis L. Hirsh, admissions director at the University of Delaware, “to counselors who are worried about the stresses that the SAT places on the kids, and from the college end, the people whom all of us respect are looking at a test that all of us use and asking all of us to be more thoughtful about how they use it and what role it plays in our admissions.”

Mr. Fitzsimmons, who took center stage along with the other members of the commission, tried to ease the fears of the ardent supporters of the standardized admissions tests, taking pains to say that the SAT had many advantages.

But he also affirmed what many of those present had been saying for years: that the SAT and other standardized admissions tests are “incredibly imprecise” when it comes to measuring academic ability and how well students will perform in college. He said colleges and universities needed to do much more research into how well the tests predict success at their individual institutions.

Test prep can work, Mr. Fitzsimmons said, but he noted — and the audience applauded — that there was a difference between test prep that consists of studying on your own and $400-an-hour one-on-one tutoring that starts in the seventh grade.

“There is no evidence on what the latter test prep does,” he said. “We know it’s an advantage, but we don’t have enough information.”

There has been longstanding debate and concern about the impact of standardized testing on socioeconomically disadvantaged students, and the ballroom erupted in applause when Mr. Fitzsimmons called for an end to the use of “cut scores” to determine who qualifies for National Merit and other scholarships. The practice means that one student is rewarded while excluding another whose SAT score may be only a single point lower, Mr. Fitzsimmons said.

What that single point differential fails to take into account, he said, is the context: The two students may have “lived entirely different lives, had entirely different educational opportunities and entirely different access to test prep.”

The audience also applauded Mr. Fitzsimmons’s call for U.S. News & World Report to stop using SAT scores as part of its college rankings.

The following incidents were reported to the MIT Police between Sept. 4 and Sept. 30, 2008. This summary does not include incidents such as false alarms, general service calls, or medical shuttles.

Sept. 4: M46 (46 Vassar St. #5261), 9:06 a.m., Larceny of iPod from office on Sept. 3.

Sept. 6: Amherst Alley and Endicott St., 2:45 a.m., Steven Perry of 16 Romsey St., Dorchester, Mass. arrested on outstanding warrant, transported to Cambridge Police Department.

M14 (160 Memorial Dr.), 7:17 p.m., Attempted larceny of library material.

Sept. 7: M7 (77 Mass. Ave.), 3:43 p.m., Report taken for breaking and entering at the library on Sept. 5.

Sept. 8: W89 (291 Vassar St.), 9:23 a.m., Report taken for credit card fraud on Sept. 2.

M7 (77 Mass. Ave.), 5:19 p.m., Report taken from larceny of bicycle from rack at Walker on Sept. 6.

SK (480 Commonwealth Ave.), 9:45 p.m., Report taken for Sept. 1 assault and battery between two housemates.

Sept. 9: W53, 7:42 a.m., Report of stolen construction material on Sept. 5.

526 Commonwealth Ave., 2:40 p.m., Breaking and entering, report of laptop stolen on Sept. 8.

Cambridge District Court, 4:31 p.m., Arrest of Joy I. Willis, 379 Poplar Street, Roslindale, Mass.; taken into custody for numerous warrants.

W89 (291 Vassar St.), 7:52 p.m., Reporting person in station to report larceny of pocketbook.

526 Beacon St., 9:06 p.m., Reporting person in station to report laptop stolen from residence.

Sept. 10: E51 (70 Memorial Dr.), 12:41 p.m., Larceny of bicycle.

NW86 (70 Pacific St.), 3:02 p.m., Larceny of mail.

Sept. 11: W92, 9:50 a.m., Report of larceny of chair on Aug. 21.

Unknown location, 5:24 p.m., Open investigation of a possible sexual assault.

M1 (33 Mass. Ave.), 5:12 p.m., Report of stolen mountain bike.

E2 (70 Amherst St.), 8:05 p.m., Larceny of bicycle.

Sept. 12: 351 Mass. Ave., 4:32 p.m., Larceny of laptop computer.

Sept. 13: W5 (350 Memorial Dr.), 1:31 a.m., Larceny of laptop computer.

471 Memorial Dr., 5:15 p.m., Larceny of debit card.

Sept. 14: W31 (120 Mass. Ave.), 6:48 p.m., Larceny of cell phone from unlocked locker.

Sept. 15: DKE (403 Memorial Dr.), 3:08 a.m., Larceny of laptop computer.

Sept. 16: M46 (46 Vassar St.), 7:18 p.m., Reporting person following robbery suspect from the Kendall T stop. Suspect was arrested by transit police.

Sept. 17: 2:26 p.m., M4 (182 Rear Memorial Dr.), Larceny of bag containing swimming equipment.

Sept. 18: M3 (125 Mass. Ave.), 6:50 p.m., Reporting person in station to report larceny of laptop from office area on Sept. 1.

Sept. 19: M7 (77 Mass. Ave.), 1:19 p.m., Larceny of credit card.

E51 (70 Memorial Dr.), Larceny of bicycle from rack on Sept. 18.

Sept. 22: W84 (550 Memorial Dr.), 1:42 p.m., Larceny of paperwork on Spet. 17.

DKE (403 Memorial Dr.), 6:20 p.m., Breaking and entering, laptop stolen.

Sept. 23: NW86 (70 Pacific St.), 11:41 a.m., Credit card fraud on Sept. 13.

407 Memorial Dr., 12:19 p.m., Breaking and entering, laptop and backpack stolen.

407 Memorial Dr., 12:57 p.m., Larceny of backpack.

W4 (320 Memorial Dr.), 9:25 p.m., Report of fraud on eBay on Sept. 12; scammed out of $1,600 and a computer.

Sept. 24: M16 (21 Rear Ames St.), 12:23 p.m., Larceny of laptop computer left in a coatroom at an off-campus location on Sept. 22.

M33 (125 Mass. Ave.), 3:55 p.m., Larceny of wireless keyboard from office.

Sept. 25: NW62 (310 Mass. Ave.), 7:26 a.m., Breaking and entering, larceny of uniforms.

Sept. 26: M35 (127 Mass. Ave.), 2:23 p.m., Larceny of bicycle from room on Sept. 19.

Sept. 27: PBE (400 Memorial Dr.), 12:07 p.m., Breaking and entering, larceny of laptop.

TXI (64 Baystate Road), 7:12 p.m., Breaking and entering, iPod and walkie-talkies stolen on Sept. 25.

W32 (291 Vassar St.), 12:34 p.m., Larceny of backpack from Z-Center cubby hole on Sept. 27.

Sept. 29: W89 (301 Vassar St.), 7:42 a.m., Larceny of voltage amp meter on Aug. 18, 2004.

M6 (182 Rear Memorial Dr.), 9:27 a.m., Breaking and entering, larceny of several electronic items on Sept. 28.

Kappa Sigma (407 Memorial Dr.), 12:07 p.m., Larceny of bicycle on Sept. 26.

W89 (301 Vassar St.), 3:48 p.m., Larceny of iPod that was left behind in a SafeRide van on Sept. 7.

Sept. 30: M50 (142 Memorial Dr.), 10:42 a.m., Larceny of bicycle on Sept. 29.

E40 (1 Amherst St.), 11:25 a.m., Paper shredder stolen over the weekend.

W31 (120 Mass. Ave.), 11:46 a.m., Larceny of wallet on Sept. 29.

407 Memorial Dr., 12:41 p.m., Breaking and entering, report of suspicious person in a student’s room on Sept. 25.

407 Memorial Dr., 1:37 p.m., Breaking and entering, report of stolen laptop.

Kendall Square, 2:27 p.m., MIT Coop in Kendall Square on Sept. 27, found property stolen.

W85 (540 Memorial Dr.), 5:07 a.m., Reporting person reports possible domestic disturbance in the area of the 11th floor. Report taken, numerous floors searched; negative findings.