Maseeh Hall Executive Council (MHEC) emailed the Dormitory Council (DormCon) last night to withdraw Maseeh from DormCon, citing budget-related and representation concerns. A 4-3 vote of Maseeh Exec passed the motion Sunday night. Previously, Bexley had been for years the only dorm not in DormCon, and it stopped paying its yearly $1,200 tax to DormCon in 2008.

With MIT’s involvement in the online education sphere, it is no surprise that the role of MIT in the future of education has yet again taken the spotlight in a faculty newsletter. The March/April issue, published April 12, opens with an editorial on MITx: “One happy consequence [of MITx] is unquestionable: we discuss how we teach more now than ever before.”

This year’s Undergraduate Association Presidential/Vice Presidential election took a surprise turn late Sunday night, when UA VP candidate Johnathan Kongoletos ’14 emailed out to several dorm lists announcing his withdrawal from the UA VP candidacy at 11:21 p.m., under 10 hours before online voting opened at 9 a.m. yesterday morning. At that time and throughout the day, both of the tickets — Sidhanth P. Rao ’14/Devin T. Cornish ’14 and Cory D. Hernandez ’14/Johnathan Kongoletos ’14, for UA P/VP — still appeared on the ballot at vote.mit.edu.

In 2012, MIT raised $34,795 per student. This puts MIT as the 11th highest fundraiser when compared to other reporting U.S. colleges and universities, according to a press release last week from the Council for Aid to Education (CAE). Stanford University, which received the most total contributions with $1.03 billion in fundraising, ranked fifth with $55,745 per student. Yale University, California Institute of Technology, Princeton University, and Harvard University ranked 7th, 8th, 17th, and 18th, respectively.

MIT’s Sallie W. (Penny) Chisholm has been awarded the National Medal of Science, one of 12 recipients in 2012, the White House announced in December. The National Medal of Science is annually given to individuals “deserving of special recognition by reason of their outstanding contributions to knowledge in the physical, biological, mathematical, or engineering sciences,” according to the National Science Foundation. In a White House ceremony this Thursday, President Barack Obama will present the award to Chisholm — the Lee and Geraldine Martin Professor of Environmental Studies in the Department of Civil and Environmental engineering, and the 48th MIT scientist to win the honor — for her research in microbial oceanography.

Computer activist Aaron H. Swartz committed suicide in New York City yesterday, Jan. 11, according to his uncle, Michael Wolf, in a comment to The Tech. Swartz was 26.

Richard M. Locke PhD ’89, deputy dean of MIT Sloan School of Management and head of the Department of Political Science, will become the director of Brown University’s Thomas J. Watson Institute for International Studies in July 2013, Brown announced last Wednesday.

Now in its 16th year, MIT’s Externship Program will connect 332 undergraduate and graduate students to alumni-sponsored externships this January during Independent Activities Period (IAP). Run by the MIT Alumni Association, the program began offering short winter internships (“externships”) in 1997 for 20 to 25 students in its formative years. This year’s 332 is a new record, over last year’s 294 participants, according to numbers provided by Katie C. Maloney, Director of Parent Association and Student/Alumni Relations.

The potential “fiscal cliff” at the end of 2012 would slash the U.S. federal budget across the board, hitting the nearly $475 million MIT receives from the government each year for research. The Institute could see up to 10 percent cuts in its federal research funding, according to Vice President for Research and Associate Provost Claude R. Canizares.

Released approximately two weeks ago, the features views on edX from the faculty and highlights from the Faculty/Staff Quality of Life Survey conducted in the spring, in addition to continued coverage of MIT 2030 developments — such as the establishment of the Provost’s Task Force on Community Engagement in 2030 Planning — and graduate student housing difficulties. The Tech recently covered faculty involvement on MIT 2030 at http://tech.mit.edu/V132/N39/mit2030.html.