Presented by the MIT Office of Religious, Spiritual, and Ethical Life (ORSEL), What is Your Light? transforms the MIT Chapel into a living canvas of light, sound, and reflection. Voices from across the MIT community merge into a one-hour audio track, accompanied by live musicians and interactive projections. Visitors are invited to strike a tam-tam, illuminating lanterns of light and sending ripples of sound across the Kresge Oval, or light their own lantern to float upon the Chapel’s waters. Together, we celebrate the values, stories, and visions that guide our community.Inside the MIT Chapel, we invite you to reflect on the question: “What is your light?”:Record your thoughts for the realtalk@mit archivesWrite your reflections on a lanternFloat your lantern in the moat, adding your response to others from the MIT communityCreated by MF Dynamics in partership with ORSEL and realtalk@MIT.Free and open to the public. Funded in part by the Council for the Arts at MIT. This project has been approved by the Office of the Vice Provost and the Open Space Working Group.This event is part of ORSEL's Refresh Days, a series honoring new year's celebrations and festivals of light from the world's major religions-from Diwali (October 20) to Nowruz, Lunar New Year, and more.*****Register to add your voice—the realtalk@MIT team invites the MIT community to reflect on difficult times and ultimately find an answer to: What is your light?Take a pause from your busy life and connect with strangers in a facilitated, meditative experience.The MIT Chapel is a non-denominational space located next to Kresge Auditorium and the Kresge Oval. We welcome MIT folks from all religious and spiritual backgrounds, including those outside of typical traditions.Attendees may be photographed; at the end of this conversation, there will be an opportunity to contribute your voice to a multi-sensory installation featuring live music, interactive video projection, and an original audio track built from community responses.Photo by Ellie Montmayor from Fall 2024 Refresh Days event, Light the Moat.

Writing Together Online offers the structured writing time to help you stay focused and productive during the busy fall months. Join our daily 90-minute writing sessions and become part of a community of scholars who connect online, set realistic goals, and write together in the spirit of accountability and camaraderie. We offer writing sessions every workday, Monday through Friday. The program is open to all MIT students, postdocs, faculty, staff, and affiliates who are working on papers, proposals, thesis/dissertation chapters, application materials, and other writing projects.Please register for any number of sessions:Monday, Wednesday, and Friday 9:00–10:30am (EST) Tuesday and Thursday, 8:00–9:30am and 9:30-11:00am (EST)For more information and to register, go to this link or check the WCC website. Please spread the word and join with colleagues and friends. MIT Students and postdocs who attend at least 5 sessions per challenge will be entered into a gift-card raffle.

Writing Together Online offers the structured writing time to help you stay focused and productive during the busy fall months. Join our daily 90-minute writing sessions and become part of a community of scholars who connect online, set realistic goals, and write together in the spirit of accountability and camaraderie. We offer writing sessions every workday, Monday through Friday. The program is open to all MIT students, postdocs, faculty, staff, and affiliates who are working on papers, proposals, thesis/dissertation chapters, application materials, and other writing projects.Please register for any number of sessions:Monday, Wednesday, and Friday 9:00–10:30am (EST) Tuesday and Thursday, 8:00–9:30am and 9:30-11:00am (EST)For more information and to register, go to this link or check the WCC website. Please spread the word and join with colleagues and friends. MIT Students and postdocs who attend at least 5 sessions per challenge will be entered into a gift-card raffle.

The Picower Institute Fall 2025 Symposium: "Circuits of Survival and Homeostasis"Date: Tuesday, October 21, 2025Time: 9::30am - 4::30pmLocation: 46-3002, Singleton Auditorium (Third Floor of MIT Building 46)Faculty Organizer: Sara PrescottRegistration: Free but required. Please click here to register.Understanding how the brain senses and responds to internal physiological states—like hunger, thirst, and inflammation—is vital to survival. Recent advances are revealing the circuits that link body and brain to maintain homeostasis and shape behavior. The Picower Institute's Fall 2025 Symposium, "Circuits of Survival and Homeostasis," gathers leading researchers exploring how these systems monitor, regulate, and repair fundamental physiological functions, offering insights into their mechanisms and potential therapeutic targets.Presenters:Ya-Chieh Hsu, PhD, Harvard Zachary Knight, PhD, University of California, San Francisco, HHMIMark Krasnow, PhD, Stanford University Qin Liu, PhD, Washington University in St. LouisYuki Oka, PhD, CaltechClifford B. Saper, Harvard Li Ye, PhD, Scripps Research Institute, HHMI

On view October 1 -- December 11, 2025This exhibition draws on archival materials from the Aga Khan Documentation Center at MIT (AKDC) to explore a century of cultural heritage preservation in Aleppo, Syria. It takes as its point of departure the work of Kamil al-Ghazzi (1853–1933), the pioneering Aleppine historian whose influential three-volume chronicle, Nahr al-Dhahab fī Tārīkh Ḥalab (The River of Gold in the History of Aleppo), was published between 1924 and 1926.Ink, Stone, and Silver Light presents three modes of documentation—manuscript, built form, and photography—through which Aleppo’s urban memory has been recorded and preserved. Featuring figures such as Michel Écochard and Yasser Tabbaa alongside al-Ghazzi, the exhibition traces overlapping efforts to capture the spirit of a city shaped by commerce, craft, and coexistence. At a time when Syria again confronts upheaval and displacement, these archival fragments offer models for preserving the past while envisioning futures rooted in dignity, knowledge, and place.