Last year, the controversy did not surround the seal, but rather the overall design of the ring and the composition of the Ring Committee itself. According to the 2007 Ring Committee’s publication, the alteration was made to “denote 2007’s even gender ratio and honor the first woman president of MIT. The 2004 Ring Committee originally planned to include a woman on the seal, but changed their design at the last minute. The Class of 2002 is the only class before the Class of 2007 whose ring features a woman on the seal. Below the school motto, the light of knowledge burns, surrounded by a laurel wreath of victory.įor the past several years, each Ring Committee has dealt with the issue of altering the seal to have a woman.
The seal shank departs from the official MIT seal by featuring a female worker and a male thinker with the school motto “mens et manus” written beneath them. At the bottom, an Athena owl flies with raised wings that form the words “punt” and “tool.”
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A banner hangs on the dome with the word “curse” written backwards, in honor of the Red Sox’s World Series victory and reversing the curse of the Bambino. A Wright brothers’ airplane flies above the dome in honor of when, on the 100th anniversary of flight, hackers placed a scale model of the plane on the Building 10 dome. The class shank features the numbers 2007 and 140 to commemorate MIT’s 140th graduating class. A shower head sprouts from the branches beneath the beaver, symbolizing the final year of freshman 8.01 (Physics I) showering night.
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The Stata Center and Kresge Auditorium fill out the background, with IHTFP subtly placed in the windows of Kresge and a plastic cup in a tower of Stata. The diploma floats in the air, tantalizingly close, but still out of reach. The bezel features a large, menacing beaver juggling an hourglass, a compass, and a diploma. After information leaked that the male scholar would be replaced by a woman, the class held a referendum which eventually caused the Ring Committee to return to a seal with two men. The 2002 Brass Rat was previously the only ring to include a woman, though Class of 2004’s design had originally called for a woman on the seal. The 2007 design revives debates from recent years over the alteration of the official MIT seal to include a woman. “I’m pleased with how the class took it.”
“People walked out, but we expected it,” he said. Palaniappan ’07 said that he thought the presentation went well. Yet even while Hall and others walked out, cheering in support of the seal grew louder, eventually drowning out the booing.Īfter the ceremony, Ring Committee Chair Pravin R. Hall ’07, one of those who walked out, said before the premiere began that he would walk out if there was a woman on the ring. Approximately 10 students left the premiere immediately after the Ring Committee debuted the design for the seal. The reaction to the ring’s design was mixed. The 2007 Brass Rat was unveiled last Sunday night, reviving previous years’ controversy by featuring a woman on the ring’s seal shank.
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PDF of This Issue Woman on ’07 Ring Sparks Controversy