Stephanie Lin ’12 was recognized this week as MIT’s newest Rhode Scholar. She will be studying at Oxford next year along with 32 other American recipients who received the honor. Lin is the 45th MIT undergraduate to receive the Rhodes Scholarship.

Monday morning, MIT and pharmaceutical giant Pfizer celebrated the official groundbreaking of a new research center right next to campus. MIT President Susan J. Hockfield opened the ceremony, whose speakers included Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick and Pfizer President of Worldwide Research and Development Mikael Dolsten. With a mighty heave — literally — they and other participants shoveled dirt and took the first step toward what Hockfield described as “the best way to support innovation in Cambridge.”

This past Monday, the Review Committee on Orientation, which was formed in March to examine and re-evaluate MIT’s orientation, held its second forum this semester to “put its ears to the ground” and gather community feedback on the pros and cons of various components of orientation. All the efforts of this committee would go into modifying the orientation two years from now, which would likely be “tweaked” rather than “overhauled,” said committee chair Merritt R. Smith, with next year’s orientation remaining unchanged. The meeting included a presentation and a public forum, where students and staff spoke about FPOPs, REX, greek rush, and CityDays.

LOS ANGELES — It has become something of an annual tradition on California college campuses, in what is perhaps the most prestigious state university system in the country: the state makes large cuts in public universities, they in turn raise tuition, and students respond with angry protests.