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MIT Media Lab Tightens Its Belt

Posted by chrisd on from the hope-they-don't-boot-minsky dept.

Forbes Magazine has this story about the MIT Media Laboratory's current "burn rate" problem. It seems that the Media Lab is feeling the same big draft at its posterior that dot-com companies felt last year after years of go-go growth and seemingly unlimited funding. The Media Lab is particularly sensitive to this downturn due to its heavy reliance on corporate sponsorship, as well as its fondness for unconventional, even eccentric, research. Items that will no longer receive funding according to a January 5th internal E-mail from the Lab's Executive Director Walter Bender: cellular telephones, first-class air travel, food at internal Lab meetings, and furniture. Other more serious cutbacks for the Lab include layoffs for 29 staff members and reduced funding for students, including salaries for "Undergraduate Research Opportunities" (UROP) positions. The Media Lab had previously paid such positions $8.75 and up in order to remain competitive with industry offers that even not-yet-graduated students were receiving.

7 of 212 comments (clear)

  1. Wow. by spatrick_123 · · Score: 4, Funny

    First class cross country airfare - $2000.

    Limo to and from the airport - $400.

    Building designed by I.M. Pei - $4,000,000.

    Inventing the "smart" potholder - priceless

  2. OH NO! by FortKnox · · Score: 4, Funny

    Does that mean no more bathroom server?

    --
    Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
  3. Lego chairs... by Chagatai · · Score: 4, Funny
    I like this combination of quotes from the article:

    Among the things Bender says won't be paid for out of the laboratory till: cell phones, limos, first-class flights and furniture.

    and...

    But why is the Lab unhealthy in the first place? Unlike other academic institutions at MIT and elsewhere, the Media Lab gets the bulk of its money from corporate donors. Among them: IBM, Intel, Gillette, ChevronTexaco and LEGO .

    Damn, so now all those MIT researchers will be forced to build their own Lego chairs and tables? Sounds like the kind of perfect ergonomic environment we all need. Don't like the height of the table? Just snap off the legs and away you go.

    --
    --Chag
  4. Re:Not to mention bad bookkeeping. by smertens · · Score: 4, Funny

    Arthur Andersen strikes again?

  5. MIT researchers experimenting with drugs! by eples · · Score: 5, Funny


    The Media Lab still has a place, but it may, during the economic downturn, see itself overshadowed by more concrete research--by tangible products like drugs.

    Pass the bowl, I need to do some "tangible research"...

    --
    I'm a 2000 man.
  6. This article came as a surprise... by CmdrSanity · · Score: 5, Funny
    ...considering the fact that the Media lab is currently (and noisily) constructing an enormous expansion wing right outside my window.

    $5M in sponsorship for the "smart potholder"? Screw that. Throw some funding at the the "silent jackhammer."

  7. To quote an AI Lab posting by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny
    This came over one of the AI Lab mailing lists shortly after the Media Lab annuncement (GSB is a social event that happens every Friday). Formatting modified from the original ASCII because slashdot code is incompetently written and didn't deal:

    Recently, it has come to our attention that certain financial difficulties have befallen our bretheren at the Media Lab. Our diligent den-mothers intelligence sources have intercepted the list of cost cutting measures which have been instituted down the street:

    1. Please use only one or two squares of toilet paper at a time. In extreme cases, use only as many additional squares as are necessary.
    2. There will no longer be free food at Media Lab seminars. Instead, seminars will be scheduled to start 15 minutes after AI Lab seminars. An advance team will be dispatched to go down the street, sneak as much food out of NE43 as they can carry, and bring it back to the Media Lab.
    3. Central heating will be shut off between the hours of 6 pm and 8 am. For those working late, a makeshift fireplace will be set up in the Cube, along with the remaining 152,400 unsold copies of ``Being Digital.''
    4. Student workstations will now be coin-operated. To use your workstation for thirty minutes, insert a quarter into the slot and turn the knob all the way to the right. Change machines will be installed in the lobby to facilitate this procedure.
    5. New students will not be given offices, but will construct free-standing ``pods'' out of corrugated cardboard. We hear this has been tried with great success in the AI Lab.

      The lesson for us all is to be very, very nice to our sponsors, or suffer a similar fate. Come discuss the fiscal realities of cutting edge AI at this week's

      girl scout benefit