Ongoing Events:

• Donations to enable MIT students to work in the Gulf can be made at the PSC in 4-104 until January 2006.

View Video Lectures:

Big Questions After Big Hurricanes: MIT-wide Symposia

What's So Natural About Natural Disasters? Panel from Nov. 15 symposium includes Professors David S. Jones, Meg Jacobs, David Mindell and Rosalind Williams.

What Does Current Scientific Research Have to Say About the Present and Future Risks Associated With Hurricanes? Oct. 31 symposium featuring Professor Kerry Emanuel, Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences

How Can We Plan for Safe and Sustainable Regions? Panel from Oct. 18 symposium includes Professors Chiang C. Mei, Michael M. J. Fischer, Anne Whiston Spirn, and Andrew Whittle.

How Can Communities, Cities and Regions Recover From Disaster? Panel from Oct. 5 symposium includes Professors Lawrence Vale, Thomas Kochan, J. Phillip Thompson and David Mindell

How Can We Improve Disaster Response? Panel from Sept. 30 symposium includes Professors Kenneth Oye, Richard Larson, Yossi Sheffi, and Daniel Hastings.

Thank you from President Hockfield

"I am gratified by the creative and generous responses of the entire MIT community to the short- and long-term needs of those affected by Hurricane Katrina. These include ongoing student and staff fundraising efforts, faculty educational and research initiatives, and alumni contributions.

Our combined endeavors are yet another example of the application of MIT ingenuity and initiative that makes us all proud to be members of this community."    - Susan Hockfield, President

Donate musical instruments

Ginny Siggia is organizing a drive for musical instruments, scores, stands, and concert clothing. She is working with a music teacher from Pass Christian, Mississippi, a town that was 90% destroyed by Hurricane Katrina; the music teacher is trying to somehow rescue his school district's music program. If you can donate instruments or other requested items in good working condition, or if you can donate funds to assist with shipping and insurance, please contact Ginny Siggia at or Sally Susnowitz at , 617-258-7344

Admission for displaced students

MIT is hosting 10 undergraduates from affected areas, and has accepted 15 graduate students. Two of the undergraduates come from the University of New Orleans, one from Xavier University, one from Loyola and six from Tulane. For the fall term, MIT will waive tuition and fees for visiting students displaced by the hurricane and is providing free housing in available rooms in undergraduate and graduate dorms, fraternities, sororities and independent living groups.

Message board

More than 70 alumni from various decades have posted their ideas and visions for the devastated region's recovery on a special online message board created after the hurricane.

Student initiatives

MIT students have initiated relief efforts including food drives, cash/TechCash collection, a fundraiser dinner on September 17 in La Sala, a benefit concert with Berklee College of Music, student service projects (in collaboration with the PSC), and more.