It’s no secret that MIT invests in cutting-edge research centers while many existing buildings and their environs fall into disrepair. Not far from the gleaming new Media Lab, Koch Institute building, and Sloan School building, rusty windows, cracked sidewalks, and leaky basements are hard to miss.

For the first week in what seems like all semester, few public words have been spoken about dining. No new petitions have been sent out, no Undergraduate Association resolutions have been passed, and no new tweaks to the plan have been made. It’s been a week since the last dining protest. Perhaps students have finally accepted the administration’s word that it is committed to moving ahead with the most recent version of the plan, perhaps they’re even mostly satisfied with it, or maybe they’re just busy studying for finals.

Undergraduate Association dining committee chair Paula C. Trepman ’13 resigned on Tuesday, criticizing the House Dining Advisory Group’s “sense of paternalism” and the “lack of general student input” into new mandatory house dining plan planned for fall 2011.

Around 64 percent of prospective freshmen chose to accept their offers of admissions to MIT, roughly the same fraction as did last year, according to Dean of Admissions Stuart Schmill ’86.

The Department of Residential Life is investigating a Campus Preview Weekend incident during which a prospective freshman was found intoxicated and unconscious outside McCormick, according to Bexley housemaster Robert M. Randolph. “[It]appears she may have gotten the alcohol … in Bexley,” Randolph wrote in an e-mail to the <i>bexley-residents</i> mailing list.

East Campus, Next House, and the Phoenix Group section of Ashdown will be the only three dorms open to undergraduate students over the sumer, Dean for Student Life Chris Colombo announced in an e-mail yesterday.

MIT plans to close most dorms to undergraduates over the summer, according to Dormitory Council President Abdulaziz M. Albahar ’10. The change from keeping all dorms open to undergraduates, as in past years, should save MIT about $500,000, Albahar said.

In Washington, D.C., “Bill knows everyone, and everyone knows Bill,” said Albert J. Swiston G, president of the MIT Science Policy Initiative student group.

<i>Prime Minister of the Federation of Saint Kitts and Nevis Denzil L. Douglas visited MIT to speak about Caribbean countries’ efforts to invigorate their region’s science and technology agenda at the MIT Caribbean Students’ Conference on Saturday. After the interview, he sat down with </i>The Tech<i> to speak about his background in politics and medicine and his economic development achievements in his country.</i>