Eight MIT graduate students with student visas were denied a key credential by the Department of Homeland Security. After their department appealed the decisions on their behalf, the DHS declared at least two of the students “security threats.”

On July 1, Mary C. Boyce PhD ’87 will become chair of the Mechanical Engineering department. She will be the first female department head within the School of Engineering.

Massachusetts lawmakers desperate for additional revenue are eyeing the endowments of deep-pocketed private colleges to bolster the state’s coffers by more than $1 billion a year, asserting that the schools’ rising fortunes undercut their nonprofit status.

Professor of Physics Emeritus Robert I. Hulsizer Jr. PhD ’48, a former chairman of the faculty and expert on elementary particle physics whose zeal for teaching science made him a student favorite at MIT, died on April 30 of complications from Alzheimer’s. He was 88.