Nearly six weeks after Massachusetts Institute of Technology junior Daniel “Dong” Mun disappeared from his fraternity, students and other members of the MIT community remain hopeful for his return, despite a lack of information about his whereabouts.

Mun was last seen by his fraternity brothers in the Chi Phi house around 4 a.m. on Dec. 5, the night before a snowstorm hit Boston. There is no evidence of foul play and none of Mun’s friends suspected he was depressed or would have any other reason to disappear, according to MIT spokesman Arthur Jones.

Police are treating the investigation as a missing persons case, meaning they are monitoring Mun’s credit cards and passport, none of which have been used since his disappearance. Mun is described on a missing-person poster that police issued to area hospitals as “a heavyset man of Asian decent about 5 foot 10,” according to The Boston Globe. In addition, police have searched the area surrounding both his fraternity house and MIT, as well as the Charles River and other locations Mun frequently visited, Jones said.

Police and MIT officials are also staying in touch with Mun’s parents, who live in Missouri.

“The longer it goes, some of the more obvious resolutions begin to evaporate, but you remain hopeful,” Jones said. “There have been people who have been missing and they turn up weeks later for one reason or another – they’re delirious or run away or other things that get through the net of the search.”

Jones added there is no specific time at which they will stop searching.

“It’s not like there’s a sort of deadline where you just stop and assume the worst,” he said. “You just don’t do that until you have evidence of the worst.”

Jones said many of Mun’s friends took advantage of counseling the school provided after his disappearance.

“It happened around the time when finals were underway and people wanted to avail themselves of the service,” Jones said. “We were certainly there to provide it for them.”

Robert Randolph, MIT’s senior associate dean for students, told The Tech, MIT’s student newspaper, that Mun had “left some indication in writing that he could have harmed himself.” Randolph also told The Globe that “there are indications he could have harmed himself.” Randolph told The Daily Free Press he got that information from Mun’s parents, but he would not comment further.

“It’s for all of us a very difficult time because we don’t have any information except the most generic information that he has disappeared,” he said. “We’re doing everything we can, which is precious little at this point.”

MIT senior Kimberly Chao, the outgoing president of MIT’s chapter of Alpha Chi Omega, who met Mun once last semester and knows several of his friends, said many people on campus were “shaken up” by Mun’s disappearance -even those who had never met him.

“It came as a very big shock,” she said, describing Mun as “a big teddy bear, almost.”

Chao did not personally seek counseling after Mun’s disappearance, but she knows people who did, she said.

“I know they were given some extra consideration when it came to their final exams,” she said, noting that she thinks some students are still finishing exams.

Chao said she did not hear anything about the search for Mun during winter break, and she is disappointed that there is still no news.

“I was kind of hoping when I got back that some news had developed about it, that they had found something,” she said. “I still do hope that something turns up because I think it’d be better to have some answers rather than to go on thinking the worst could have happened.”

Chao said she is trying to move on and thinks Mun’s fraternity brothers are doing the same.

“The general impression I’ve gotten from the brothers I’ve talked to is that they’re just trying to get on with their normal lives and also respecting Daniel and his family,” she said. “I wouldn’t say they’re giving up, but they’re in the process of putting back the pieces of their own lives and adjusting from that shock.”

No one from Chi Phi could be reached for comment.

Jones said MIT police are leading the investigation, and the FBI, Massachusetts State Police and Cambridge and Boston police departments are also involved.

Anyone with any information about Mun’s disappearance should call MIT police at 617-253-1212.