More than 3,000 alumni and guests are expected to visit campus June 4-7 for Tech Reunions 2009. The reunions offer alumni an opportunity to see old friends, learn about MIT today and engage in events such as Technology Day, which this year features faculty lectures on the human mind and artificial intelligence and culminates in a luncheon celebrating class giving.
The newly formed MIT Military Alumni/ae Association will celebrate the commissioning of this year's ROTC graduates (5-7 p.m. on Friday at the USS Constitution site). The MIT Radio Society, America's oldest amateur college station, celebrates its 100th anniversary with a social hour (7:30 p.m. on Friday at the Muddy Charles Pub). Participants from the classes ending in "4" and "9" have organized their own array of social gatherings.
As ever, the red coats are coming. Alumni who are celebrating their 50th reunion will lead the academic procession into Commencement in their newly earned red jackets. Once alumni pass their 50th reunion, they are invited back to campus every year, as are alumni who earned undergraduate or graduate degrees in the past 10 years. Also following tradition, MIT Alumni Association President Toni Schuman '58 will carry the ceremonial mace into Commencement as chief marshal.
The Technology Day lectures will be webcast between 9 a.m.-12:45 p.m. on Saturday. This year's program, the Mind's Eye, will include introductory remarks by President Susan Hockfield and presentations by professors Rebecca Saxe PhD '03, on how the brain invents the mind; Pawan Sinha SM '93, PhD '95 on learning to see; and Patrick Winston '65, SM '67, PhD '70 on computers with common sense. You can see the archived program starting at 3 p.m. on June 8.
