Now that the new dining plan has been in place for almost four semesters, how could it improve? Although the House Dining Program is unlikely to change in the short term, the system will be evaluated after next year in an assessment driven by student opinion and data that Residential Life & Dining can gather about usage of the plan, feedback about the quality of food, and other metrics, says Henry J. Humphreys, senior associate dean of Residential Life and Dining (RL&D).

“One overarching message emerged from student and faculty feedback: ‘If it’s not broken, don’t fix it,’” the report reads. The IAP Subcommittee of the Faculty Policy Committee has released its final report following a “thorough review of IAP and its evolution in the last 40 years,” as stated in its charge. The report contains 10 recommendations in response to seven questions the committee was asked to consider, as well as an additional recommendation regarding campus community during IAP.

This year saw the implementation of Residential Life Area Directors (RLADs) into most west campus dormitories. The RLADs — an extension of the previous Residential Life Associates (RLA) position — are meant to provide support for students, housemasters, and Graduate Resident Tutors (GRTs). They joined the communities of Maseeh, McCormick, MacGregor, Burton-Connor, New House, Next House, and Simmons at the start of the Fall term.

In 2012, the MIT community was saddened by the deaths of three members: Brian G. Anderson ’13, Heng “Nikita” Guo G, and Allison Tovo-Dwyer G. Guo’s death was ruled a suicide, Anderson’s was due to an opiate overdose, and Tovo-Dwyer passed away after a year-long battle with cancer.

When the Residential Life Area Director (RLAD) position was announced via a leak from one “Tim Beaver” this summer, students and GRTs alike were up in arms about the impending addition of an administrator to the dorms without prior notification. The RLAD of each dorm is meant to work as both an administrative assistant to the housemaster as well as a source of support for students and GRT. The seven RLADs, two of whom were previously Residential Life Associates (RLAs), started their new jobs in August and moved into the spaces created for them in their respective west campus dorms.

At 2 p.m. Friday afternoon. Mystery Hunt team Sleipnir’s Wranglers was prepared for the long haul. Their classroom in Building 12 was outfitted with snacks, caffeine, a chalkboard, and even a webcam so their remote solvers could join the atmosphere of the live hunt. As they excitedly opened the first puzzle, little did they know they would be a part of the longest hunt in history.

Over the winter break, 650 students received MIT admissions tubes filled with confetti in the mail. These new students, accepted into MIT’s undergraduate Class of 2017, were selected from a total of 6,541 early action applicants. Another 4,397 applicants were deferred to regular action while the remaining 1,494 were denied. (MIT does not admit international students in early action.) Decisions were released online on Dec. 15.

Admissions blogger Lydia A. Krasilnikova ’14 is no stranger to life as a hosed MIT student. Her Oct. 29 admissions blog post “Meltdown” quickly went viral, with over 4000 likes on Facebook and coverage by WBUR (Boston’s NPR branch). The Tech sat down with Lydia to ask her what she thought about stress and her additional reflections after writing the piece.

EdX now has now broken into the community college sphere. President of edX, Anant Agarwal, and Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick announced yesterday at a press conference that students at Bunker Hill and Massachusetts Bay Community Colleges would be able to take an adapted version of 6.00x for credit starting in Spring 2013. This is the first partnership of edX with a community college and one of the first times a private institution (such as MIT or Harvard) has collaborated with a public institution to improve the quality of class content, according to Paul Reville, Massachusetts secretary of education.

The inauguration of President L. Rafael Reif didn’t stop the students from scrambling to talk to companies at this year’s Career Fair on Friday. Johnson Ice Rink and the 3rd floor track were still packed with students hoping to network with the 370+ companies that attended this year’s fair.