= Add activity session to your calendar (exports in iCalendar format)
Advocacy 101: How to Influence Your Government
Katie Shulenberger, Chair of GSC External Affairs Board
Enrollment: Unlimited: No advance sign-up
Attendance: Participants welcome at individual sessions
Prereq: none
Title IX… Net-neutrality... Travel Bans…
Does the current political climate leave you feeling powerless? Learn how to make change through the GSC’s External Affairs Board (EAB) advocacy workshop!
The External Affairs Board has extensive experience advocating on behalf of graduate students on both state and federal levels. The Board also organized the GSC’s response to the recent tax reform bill and worked with the administration and local Cambridge government on graduate housing.
This three-workshop course will give you the basic skills to effectively advocate for your opinions at the federal, state, and local levels.
Workshop 1 on Jan 17, 6-8pm: Overview of legislative structure and procedure. You will be supplied with resources to contact your representatives and track issues and policies that impact you. We will review approaches the MIT GSC has taken to advocacy.
Workshop 2 on Jan 24, 6-8pm: Preparing materials for meetings or calls with political offices, and what to expect during a meeting.
Workshop 3 on Jan 31, 6-8pm: Advice from a panel of policy-makers and staff.
Participants of all three course will have the chance to apply what they’ve learned with the EAB at a Massachusetts Statehouse or Washington DC visit later this semester.
If you’re interested, please indicate which workshops you’ll be coming to by filling out this RSVP Form: https://goo.gl/forms/gjvJHsPlfcc55ZT12
Contact: Skylar Deckoff-Jones, 13-4153, (505) 795-4382, sdeckoff@mit.edu
|
Jan/17 | Thu | 06:00PM-08:00PM | 50-220 |
|
Jan/24 | Thu | 06:00PM-08:00PM | 50-220 |
|
Jan/31 | Thu | 06:00PM-08:00PM | 50-220 |
Computational Approaches for Political Redistricting
Daryl DeFord, Postdoctoral Associate
|
Jan/08 | Tue | 08:00AM-09:00AM | 34-301 |
|
Jan/10 | Thu | 08:00AM-09:00AM | 34-301 |
|
Jan/22 | Tue | 08:00AM-09:00AM | 34-301 |
|
Jan/29 | Tue | 08:00AM-09:00AM | 34-301 |
Enrollment: Unlimited: Advance sign-up required
Sign-up by 01/05
Attendance: Repeating event, participants welcome at any session
Prereq: Basic Python experience, Linear Algebra
In the last 3 years, computational methods have become increasingly important for analyzing legislative districting plans. The MIT based MGGG group has developed the first open source software for Markov chain analysis of districting plans (github.com/mggg/GerryChain) and is preparing to provide data (github.com/mggg-states) and software tools (github.com/gerrymandr) to the public in advance of the redistricting based on the upcoming 2020 census.
Attendees will get experience with geospatial software and data as well as cutting-edge methods for computational redistricting. Each student will select a state to take responsibility for, specifically collecting the relevant data and generating an ensemble of comparison plans. Students will also have the opportunity to develop their own methods for generating districting plans and engage with related mathematical problems. Successful approaches will have the opportunity to be integrated with the MGGG codebase.
Please email <ddeford@mit.edu> to register.
Sponsor(s): Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab
Contact: Daryl DeFord, 32-D475A, ddeford@mit.edu
Contemporary Military Topics (series)
Joli Saraf
Enrollment: Unlimited: No advance sign-up
Attendance: Participants welcome at individual sessions
Contemporary Military Topics (series of four sessions)
Full descriptions are available at:
Sponsor(s): Center for International Studies, MIT Security Studies Program
Contact: Elina Hamilton, elinah@mit.edu
|
Jan/17 | Thu | 01:00PM-03:00PM | E40-496, Lucian Pye Conference Room |
In designing military aircraft weapons systems, engineering tradeoffs are made for optimal overall performance. Many design decisions are situated politically which also may affect final system design. The effects of engineering tradeoffs and influence of political decisions will persist for years, potentially altering how countries train/equip for combat. Decisions/tradeoffs in 1970s F-15 & F-16s will be discussed.
Chris Keithley - Lieutenant Colonel, US Air Force
|
Jan/23 | Wed | 10:00AM-12:00PM | E40-496, Lucian Pye Conference Room |
Through campaigns of incremental advances that stay below a threshold of escalation, revisionist nations create opportunities to challenge the status quo while limiting risk & cost. This Gray Zone Conflict strategy has the attention of the US Govt & the strategic studies world. Have the recent successes by revisionist states signaled that something has changed? Will Gray Zone Conflict define war in the 21st Century?
David Emmel - Lieutenant Colonel, US Marine Corps, Josh Wenker - Commander, US Navy
|
Jan/30 | Wed | 10:00AM-12:00PM | E40-496, Lucian Pye Conference Room |
Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief: A Pacific Engagement
The U.S. Joint Strategic Plan: FY 2018-2022 sets a goal of American leadership through balanced engagement to transition nations from assistance recipients to enduring diplomatic, economic, and security partners. This seminar will explore whether continued use of military instruments of national power are furthering this goal.
Sean Coakley - Lieutenant Colonel, US Army
|
Jan/31 | Thu | 01:00PM-03:00PM | E40-496, Lucian Pye Conference Room |
Over 2 million US military personnel have deployed to military operations in Iraq & Afghanistanat least 1 in 5 have PTSD. We examine a broader set of risk and protective factors regarding psychological well-being:sleep problems, depression, self-regulation, autonomy, environmental mastery, personal growth, purpose in life, self-acceptance, relationships with others, marital satisfaction, and meaningfulness of service.
Jeff Bergmann - Colonel, US Army
Design & Build the 2019 Martin Luther King, Jr. Installation
Tobie Weiner, Student Administrator
Enrollment: Unlimited: No advance sign-up
Attendance: Participants should attend all sessions but there is flexibility
Discussions about race, politics, human rights leading up to conceptualizing, designing and developing the 2019 Martin Luther King, Jr. Installation
Let's have fun and indepth conversations about the serious issues of race, politics, human and civil rights, then conceptualize and devlelop our plan for the 2019 MLK Jr. installation.
Since 1999 MIT and Wellesley students have worked together to create artistic and political installations that are built in Memorial Lobby to coincide with MIT’s celebration of Dr. King.
This year students have the option of enrolling in the MLK Design seminar (17.922, 6 units p/d/f) or joining a non credit discussion group to facilitate the design and construction of an installation, which will be placed in Memorial Lobby the dates of February 4 – February 14.
In designing the installation or project, participants in the seminar may address aspects of the theme of the honored speaker and the celebration in addition to their thoughts on civil and human rights, justice, equality, race, racism and the principles of Dr. King. The installation will serve as a model for connecting academics and education with real life problems and struggle. It is hoped that the seminar and the projects will encourage interaction and foster communication among members of the MIT community with diverse backgrounds.
If you are interested please contact me, Tobie (iguanatw@mit.edu) so I know how many people want to join the project.
Sponsor(s): Political Science, Institute Community and Equity Office
Contact: Tobie Weiner, E53-483, 617 253-3649, IGUANATW@MIT.EDU
|
Jan/16 | Wed | 03:00PM-04:00PM | E51-385 |
|
Jan/23 | Wed | 03:00PM-04:00PM | E51-385 |
|
Jan/28 | Mon | 03:00PM-04:00PM | E51-385 |
|
Jan/30 | Wed | 03:00PM-04:00PM | E51-385 |
We'll begin by getting to know one another and through our discussions about race, gender, human and civil rights and justice formulate our ideas for the 2019 Martin Luther King, Jr. Installation. The installation is built in Memorial Lobby the evening of February 4 and will be on display until February 14 when we take it down.
How it Really Works: Planning, Funding, and Implementing Transportation Projects in the Real World -- a Facilitated Dialogue
Eric Plosky, Kate Fichter, Matt Ciborowski
|
Jan/31 | Thu | 11:30AM-02:30PM | 9-255 |
Enrollment: Unlimited: Advance sign-up required
Sign-up by 01/24
As a vital and complex element of any urban or regional environment, transportation infrastructure both affects and is affected by land use patterns, economic development policies, political power-brokering and environmental resources, and so offers a lens through which to study many of the choices and constraints available to today's planners. This facilitated dialogue will offer a practice-oriented overview of the issues, players, and trends most relevant to contemporary transportation planning, featuring two MIT/DUSP alumni currently working in the field.
Sign up via email (eglenn@mit.edu) by 5:00PM Jan 24.
Sponsor(s): Urban Studies and Planning
Contact: Ezra Glenn, 7-337, x3-2024, eglenn@mit.edu
Modern Irish History & Culture: From Molly Malone to Nobel Laureates
Christopher LaRoche, User Experience Consultant
|
Jan/25 | Fri | 12:00PM-01:30PM | 1-150 |
Enrollment: Unlimited: No advance sign-up
Prereq: None
Discusses and investigates aspects of modern Irish history. Specifically, a discussion of how the images and concepts of Ireland and the Irish have evolved over the last several hundred years in the eyes of the greater world.
In this talk, we will discuss and investigate the history and culture of Ireland from the eighteenth century to the present. We'll pay particular attention to issues and topics such as Saint Patrick, the repression of Catholicism, the Famine of the 1840s, the 1916 Easter Uprising, the Anglo-Irish War of 1920-1921, the Irish Civil War, and Ireland since the declaration of an Irish republic in 1948.
Finally the lecture will focus on and discuss the idea of mythology and stereotype used in lieu of history and how that has shaped many opinions about Ireland: and how that has recently evolved from Ireland as a caricature to respectability within the wider world view.
Sponsor(s): ATIC Lab
Contact: Christopher Laroche, 7-143, 617 324-9016, LAROCHE@MIT.EDU
Starr Forum: NATO, the Balkans, and Ukraine: The Geopolitical Implications of the European Periphery
Elizabeth Wood, Una Hajdari
|
Jan/16 | Wed | 12:00PM-01:30PM | E51-345, 70 Memorial Drive (NOTE this is updated location) |
Enrollment: Unlimited: No advance sign-up
As EU countries struggle to define their security strategy following the Trump administration's "transatlantic chill", the future of NATO and EU membership in its key areas of expansion in Ukraine and the Balkans has become increasingly uncertain. The increasing influence of authoritarian neighbors such as Turkey and Russia coupled with rising anti-establishment and far-right sentiments do not bode well for stability in this part of the world.
Speaker:
Una Hajdari, a freelance print and broadcast journalist from Prishtina, Kosovo, who is currently in residence at the MIT Center for International Studies as the International Women’s Media Foundation's Elizabeth Neuffer Fellow.
Discussant:
Elizabeth Wood, professor of history at MIT, is the author of three books, Roots of Russia’s War in Ukraine; Performing Justice: Agitation Trials in Early Soviet Russia; and The Baba and the Comrade: Gender and Politics in Revolutionary Russia.
Sponsor(s): Center for International Studies
Contact: Laura Kerwin, starrforum@mit.edu
Swarm leadership, deep learning, and social quantum physics
Peter Gloor
Enrollment: Limited: Advance sign-up required
Sign-up by 01/16
Limited to 30 participants
Attendance: apply at first session for 2nd
Prereq: none
Do you want to change the world and create your own social movement? – This course empowers you to build your own swarm interacting on social media and face-to-face, by analyzing e-mail, online social media, and by tracking emotions with smartwatches using machine learning and AI.
In this course you will learn
- How to create Collaborative Innovation Networks (COINs), intrinsically motivated groups of people working towards a shared vision by collaborating over the Web
- How to identify virtual tribes, groups of people sharing similar profiles and preferences on online social media such as Twitter through deep learning
- How to measure emotions such as happiness, stress, or anger through a smartwatch-based body sensing system, the happimeter
- How to forecast and predict trends by finding the trendsetters in online social media, in corporate e-mail archives, and personal sensor networks.
- How social quantum physics triggers change through two feedback looks: “empathy-entanglement”, and “reflect-reboot”.
- How to use our tools Condor and Galaxyscope for dynamic semantic social network analysis and machine learning
- How to measure collective consciousness and induce group flow (positive stress)
This course is organized in two parts: session 1 gives an overview of the basic principles, at the end of day 1 (advance notification recommended) you can apply for the second part, where we will work with up to 5 individuals or small groups to develop their project or initiative.
Sponsor(s): Sloan School of Management
Contact: Peter Gloor, E94-1504D, 617 253-7018, PGLOOR@MIT.EDU
|
Jan/17 | Thu | 03:00PM-05:00PM | E94-1531, bring your laptop |
Introduces Collaborative Innovation Networks (COINs), coolhunting with Condor and Galaxyscope (finding trends/virtual tribes by finding influencers), and coolfarming (supporting these trendsetters) by measuring E-mail and Twitter networks by social network analysis, and the Happimeter, a smartwatch based system to measure emotions to track collective consciousness and group flow.
Peter Gloor, Oliver Posegga - Visiting Scholar
|
Jan/18 | Fri | 03:00PM-05:00PM | E94-1531, bring your laptop |
If you have your own cause or scientific project where would you like to create your own swarm or virtual tribe, apply before the course for a slot on the second day (limited to 5 projects). the instructors will work with you to leverage the tools from the first day (coolhunting, coolfarming, Happimeter, dynamic semantic social network analysis, deep learning, Condor, GalaxyScope) for your own cause or project.
Peter Gloor, Oliver Posegga - Visiting Scholar
The 1917 Russian Revolution and its lessons.
Felix Kreisel
Enrollment: Unlimited: No advance sign-up
Attendance: Participants welcome at individual sessions
Prereq: Read the WSWS.ORG
2017 marked the 100th anniversary of the Russian revolution. We shall examine its roots, context, the course of its unfolding, and its impact both on Russia and the rest of the world. What were its consequences, both immediate and long-term?
We suggest these readings: wsws.org, the Marxist daily newspaper; Leon Trotsky's books: "History of the Russian revolution" and "Revolution Betrayed".
Contact: Felix Kreisel, NW21-109, 617 253-8625, FJK@MIT.EDU
|
Jan/08 | Tue | 02:00PM-04:00PM | 8-119 |
Russia of the Romanovs the largest empire in the world, stretching across half of Europe and all of northern Asia, yet mired in backwardness and decay. The factors that led up to the 1917 explosion.
Felix Kreisel
|
Jan/15 | Tue | 02:00PM-04:00PM | 8-119 |
We shall watch a unique documentary film by an anti-Stalin socialist about the Russian revolution.
Felix Kreisel
|
Jan/16 | Wed | 02:00PM-04:00PM | 8-119 |
Ten days that shook the world: the unfolding of the October socialist revolution. The Russian revolution showed the rest of the world a path out of the dead end of world war and imperialism.
Felix Kreisel
|
Jan/22 | Tue | 02:00PM-04:00PM | 8-119 |
Agonies and contradictions of the Soviet regime. Consolidation of a privileged bureaucracy required that it exterminate all genuine Marxists and socialists. Police state to defend the acute social inequality. Permanent conflict between imperialism and the USSR. Attempts at self-sufficient autarchy ultimately unsuccessfull and the ruling Soviet bureacracy dissolves the workers' state.
Felix Kreisel
|
Jan/29 | Tue | 02:00PM-04:00PM | 8-119 |
Russia after 27 years of capitalism, a balance sheet. Who lives well, who is desperate in this country? Despite Putin's popularity most Russians think that the country is on the wrong path. Why?
Vladimir Volkov
Why Can't We All Just Get Along?
Henry Lieberman, Research Scientist, CSAIL, Christopher Fry
|
Jan/10 | Thu | 03:00PM-05:00PM | 24-615 |
Enrollment: Limited: First come, first served (no advance sign-up)
Prereq: none
Indeed, why can't we? Why do we have war? Poverty? What can we do
about it? Will technological progress result in robots destroying
humanity? Will automation take all our jobs? Will there be ecological
disaster? What's the future of government, industry, education,
transportation, justice?
We'll show you a simple mathematical, psychological, and evolutionary
model that explains why people get sometimes sucked into doing bad
stuff, even if they're not bad people. We'll also explain how new
technology, especially AI and 3D printing, can enable a more just,
prosperous, and more cooperative society. Young people now have an
opportunity to rethink government, the economy, education, and all of
our institutions. Let's do it!
Feeling frustrated about your new President and the process that got
him there? Can technology help? Yes.
Sponsor(s): Experimental Study Group
Contact: Henry Lieberman, 32G-475, (617) 500-5267, lieber@MEDIA.MIT.EDU
Contact Information
COPYRIGHT 2018