In April 2009, faced with over $400,000 in budget cuts, MIT’s Department of Athletics, Physical Education, and Recreation (DAPER) cut eight varsity teams — Women’s and Men’s Gymnastics, Women’s and Men’s Hockey, Golf, Alpine Skiing, Wrestling, and Pistol. The move saved DAPER nearly half a million dollars in expenditures annually, but caused outcry across campus and lost MIT its status as one of only two schools in the nation with 41 varsity sports — the other being Harvard. Within the course of a day, these teams went from established varsity programs to groups with indeterminate futures. And although the club sports moratorium was lifted to allow the seven cut teams without club analogues (a club Women’s Hockey team existed at the time of the cuts) to continue, the transition was not going to be easy — from losing athletes to competing in a new league, the new club teams had a lot of work ahead of them besides raising money and resolving management issues.

Every year, some of MIT’s most important administrators stand before the people of Cambridge. The City, which is largely defined by its universities, asks that Harvard, MIT, Lesley University, and Cambridge College give annual public Town Gown reports about what each institution has been doing for the last 365 days and what the future has in store. Because in a city of slightly over 100,000 people, it’s no small wonder that some of the nation’s largest, richest, and most influential schools have a big impact on how this town works.

Today, MIT and Harvard libraries announced a joint initiative that marks a future of greater integration between their collective resources. Goals of the new plan include enabling reciprocal book requests, increasing access to digitized information, and sharing of physical resources between the two universities.

Ian A. Waitz, head of the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics (Course XVI) was named the new Dean of Engineering on Tuesday. Waitz succeeds Subra Suresh ScD ’81 as Dean, who left MIT to direct the National Science Foundation last September, and current Interim Dean of Engineering Cynthia Barnhart PhD ’88. He will assume his duties as Dean this Monday, February 7.