MIT Class of 1963, Class Notes for April 2003 issue of Technology Review
Our 40th reunion begins on Friday, June 6. During the day there will be campus tours. There are a lot of important changes on the campus, perhaps more than at any time since just after WWII! You'll see the new Zesiger Fitness Center, the Simmons Hall dormitory, two new dormitories on Albany Street & Pacific Street, the construction for the Frank Gehry-designed Stata Center (interesting), new landscaping on Vassar Street, and renovations of buildings from Baker House to the Dreyfus Chemistry lab near the library. Friday evening we'll have a class dinner with MIT President Chuck Vest and his wife Becky as our guests. Saturday there's a class lunch, and the Technology Day Program in the afternoon in Kresge. From 5 to 7 PM we'll have an Institute-wide dinner under a tent on the football field in Steinbrenner Stadium; then we'll board the bus to Symphony Hall to hear the Boston Pops. Sunday morning we'll have the Reunion Row, and a class brunch at the Faculty Club. In the afternoon the Tech Challenge Games will be held on the Athletic Fields, and there will be a reunion send off event. Commencement for the class of 2003 will be Monday, June 9. MARK THE DATES ON YOUR CALENDAR AND CALL UP YOUR 3 BEST FRIENDS AT MIT. Plan to attend our 40th reunion.
*Robert Mason is still the Sprint Professor of Business at Florida State University. He is no longer department chair, and finds it a relief to be free of administration. *Lewis Shulman, retired since 2000, has been enjoying lazing around the house. But when his wife Renee has taken off from her job they are "traveling fools." In May 2002 their combined 60th birthday/35th anniversary celebration was the occasion for a trip to Hawaii and San Francisco. In October they went to Aruba, and in March to the Virgin Islands.
In December I talked to *Michael Schaffer and *Jim Tang on the telephone. Michael lives in San Diego, and works at General Atomics, doing plasma fusion energy research and enjoying it immensely. When I remarked that this sounded more like physics than the electrical engineering he majored in at MIT Michael said he "learned to be a physicist along the way." Michael has a daughter at Stanford. Jim lives in Houston and is semi-retired. He's helping with an E-commerce business that his son started in these tough times for technology companies. Jim and I spent many an evening during our MIT careers exploring the probabilities and vagaries of the game of poker. While I have mostly retired from such pursuits, Jim is still an active player, with baccarat his game of choice. He visits casinos all over the country, with the goal of perfecting a system he has honed over the last 40 years. Last year on a visit to Taiwan, Jim had dinner with *Frank Shu, who, in February 2002, became the president of National Tsinghua University in Hsinchu, one of the most prestigious universities in Taiwan. Frank's father, Shu Shien-siu was Tsinghua's president in the early 1970s and was one of the founders of the Hsinchu Science-based Industrial Park, the bastion of Taiwan's semiconductor industry. Frank and his wife Helen left their faculty jobs at Berkeley and Stanford to move to Taiwan. See our class web site at http://alumweb.mit.edu/classes/1963/ for more details. Congratulations, Frank.
The following information on Frank's appointment at Tsinghua University is adapted from a February, 2002 news article:
In a move widely seen as a major boost to scholarship in Taiwan, world-renowned scientist Frank Shu took over as the president of National Tsinghua University in Hsinchu on Feb 4, 2002, replacing retiring president Liu Chung-laung. Shu left the University of California at Berkeley for Taiwan on Jan. 26 to prepare for his new position.
"His coming to Taiwan is quite a coup for the academic community here," Science magazine quoted Fred Lo, director of Academia Sinica's Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics, in its Jan. 18 issue. Shu, 59, is a former president of the American Astronomical Society. He is a member of Academia Sinica and convener of the consultant group for its astronomy institute.
Shu was born in Kunming City in China and moved to the US with his family in his first year of elementary school. Even though he has never been a long-term resident of Taiwan, his father, Shu Shien-siu, served as Tsinghua university's president in the early 1970s and was one of the founders of the Hsinchu Science-based Industrial Park, the bastion of Taiwan's semiconductor industry. Shu's appointment at Tsinghua could lead to another influx of world-class scientists to Taiwan, like the one brought about by Lee Yuan-tseh, the 1986 Nobel laureate in chemistry who also left Berkeley, and returned to Taiwan in 1994 to head Academia Sinica.
"I realized I can make a bigger difference in Taiwan than by remaining in the US," Shu told Science magazine when asked about his reasons for crossing the Pacific. The new university president hoped more people would "come home and help," Shu said in an interview with the local Chinese-language media. To elevate the international standing of the nation's higher education, Taiwan needs universities with a strong research focus, Shu said. The new Tsinghua president added that the school he heads has the potential to become one of the world's top universities. He feels Tsinghua should focus on materials, and biological and theoretical sciences, the foundations for the semiconductor and biotechnology industries. Shu also stressed the importance of humanities and social sciences, saying he would work to strengthen research in those areas.
Shu is best known for his theoretical work on the structure of spiral galaxies and star formation. In 1964, he and another scientist, C.C. Lin, jointly proposed the spiral density wave theory, which became the first model for understanding the formation of spiral galaxies, according to Nature magazine.
Speaking to the local Chinese-language media, the university president said he plans to change Taiwan's academic culture from one in which financial resources are shared equally to one in which resources are handed out based on academic potential. "There is a growing understanding [among government officials] that science at the forefront is an elitist affair," Shu told the Science magazine. Shu also said he hopes to make Tsinghua bilingual, offering courses in both English and Chinese. He added that his Chinese is not good and said he would ask the university's students to teach him the language.
In October *Larry Beckreck and his wife Fiona made the journey from Nottingham, England to New England. Margie and *Larry Krakauer hosted a dinner for the Beckrecks, attended by *Martin Schrage and his wife Karen Mathiasen (MS '71, Course 15), and *Peter Van Aken and Candace Margles, reuniting four former residents of Baker House. Larry drove as far as Woodstock, Vermont, to show Fiona the New England Fall foliage (successfully keeping to the right side of the road for most of the trip). He also dropped in on the MIT Sailing Pavilion, and found to his surprise that they were able to pull out his old sailing card from our undergraduate days. Based on the Helmsman rating on that card, they stuck him in a boat and allowed him to sail around the Charles. Larry and Fiona were last seen heading off in the direction of New York City. (By car, not by Tech dinghy!)
Last November I mentioned the passing of *John Pirkle. Norton Starr, PhD '64, Course 18, who signed himself "still teaching math" (Amherst), was a grad student instructor when John was in his 18.02 section. Norton recalls that John was the oldest MIT undergrad up to that time and his story was featured in "The Tech." Michael Drooker, '64, Course 13, had fond remembrances of John. He wrote " … juniors and seniors in the Department of Naval Architecture spent a lot of time working in the drawing room on the fourth floor of Building 5. This was before computer-aided-drawing. To the undergrads in the Class of 1964, John was a source of assistance and encouragement, an example of professional conduct. … We thought of him as 'the old guy', though I don't think he was 40 (that looks pretty young now.) John was an accomplished draftsman at Newport News Shipbuilding in Virginia who received a scholarship to MIT from his employer. He brought with him a wealth of knowledge about ship design and construction, and I'm sure he had more experience in a shipyard than some of the faculty in our department. For those of us lacking in such practical experience, John was a gold mine of information, and he was always willing to share it. John stood out in the drawing room. At a time when the undergraduate "uniform" was a turtleneck jersey, blue jeans, and sneakers, John was dressed in his normal working duds: slacks, shirt, tie, street shoes. His drafting work was without equal. We learned from watching his technique and examining his drawings, but could never match his work. Once when he had finished an assignment that included a set of ship's lines and he was going to throw the drawing away, I stopped him. I couldn't see the result of his work crumpled up and discarded. He let me keep the drawing. John wasn't all business, though, and there were many laughs up in that big room full of tall legged drawing tables underneath the skylights. It was John who taught us the "Norfolk Military Institute cheer": "Rooty toot toot, rooty toot toot. We are the boys from the Institute. We don't drink, and we don't smoke, Norfolk, Norfolk, Norfolk!" Thanks for the nice stories about our classmate.
I have two more deaths to report this month. *Jeremy Klainer died on April 17, 2002. Jeremy was president of Professional Planning Associates in Rochester, NY. *Lee McGuire died on December 31, 1999. I have no other details. Our condolences to the families of Jeremy and Lee. If any of you have remembrances you'd like to share, forward them to me, and I'll include them in a future column.
I'm looking forward to seeing many of you at our 40th reunion in June. Mike Bertin, 22 Gillman St, Irvine, CA 92612. E-mail: MCB1@aol.com. Telephone: (949) 786-9450.