Undergraduate students showcased research projects in science and engineering at the annual Wetterhahn Undergraduate Science Symposium, held on Thursday in Fairchild Tower. The symposium included a two-hour poster session with informal presentations by 80 to 100 student researchers, including Presidential Scholars, Beckman Scholars and participants in the Women in Science Project. Ginny Eckert '90, a professor of marine biology at the University of Alaska, delivered the keynote address, in which she advised students to follow their passions. Alice Pang '12, a WISP participant who gave a presentation, said the symposium allows students to begin independent research projects early in their undergraduate education. "We don't have to wait until grad school," Pang said.
Harvard University President Drew Gilpin Faust expressed "strong support" for the federal DREAM Act in a letter to Massachusetts' congressional representatives this week, according The Boston Globe. The act, if passed into law, would allow some illegal immigrant students who have resided in the United States for at least five years to apply for legal residency. Harvard admits students with "immigration status issues," Faust said in the letter, adding that "it is in [Harvard's] best interest to educate all students to their full potential."
Google agreed on Wednesday to digitize the approximately eight million works in the library of the University of Michigan, according to Bloomberg News. Michigan is the first institution to close such a deal with Google since the company settled a $125 million copyright lawsuit last October. The deal amends an older agreement in which books covered by copyright law would only have a limited number of pages available online, Bloomberg reported. Google began digitizing the university's books in 2004 and has partially digitized three million texts to date.