Chocolate City Response to RSSC Proposal

Issue: Housing Selection By Mail

General Concern: In perhaps one of the most drastic suggested changes, the RSSC has proposed to transform the well-respected MIT system into that of it's "peer" institutions. Every dorm on MIT campus has a personality, whatever that may be. And for them to say that we are going to be able to encapsulate that in an interactive CD or pamphlet is just ridiculous. MIT already provides literature over the summer for students to read and to say anything less than that we are going to allow students to be uncensored in their true feelings of what their dorm represents is unacceptable. How are students going to choose wisely by mail when they have to decide by July 1st and their biggest concerns are APs, Prom, Graduation, and family time? For any senior high-school student, picking a dorm would seem so trivial and yet, it is the crucial decision at MIT that helps provide the basic support networks, which allow students to survive here for four years. You can't make it through by yourself. The dorm system is representative of that. People group together by whom they get along with. If we say that any two people can live next door to each other, then we are evading the obvious. Yes, any two people can live next to each other, but not any two will be neighbors. Just because you can stand living next to them doesn't mean you will have that support network from your neighbors (who end up being your best friends if you ask most MIT students). Basically the RSSC has suggested that we destroy MIT from the inside out.

Chocolate City's Concern: You can't capture any "theme house", much less Chocolate City, in 1000 words, or in a picture, or even in an array of combinations of both. The reason for this is that the personality of it changes every year according to the inhabitants. The things that stay the same are intangible and ineffable. It is the willingness and the heart of every brother to create an inviting community and network where minorities on campus and Massachusetts-wide feel they have almost a safe haven. A place where they feel they can come and enjoy an afternoon without having to worry about the prejudices and looks when one tries to be themselves - a minority. There are very few places in America where minorities make up more than a two percentage of the population. Now, if we disband one of the few places where this special quality exists and then we create a gap in the MIT community- a 'blackhole', if you will. It's easy to see a picture and say that so-and-so looks like me. But can you say that that same person understands me from a picture? Chocolate City is not a dorm of people who look-a-like or people who think-a-like, but a dorm of people who understand and appreciate each other in a way that most cannot do for each other if just randomly placed next door to each other.

Issue: No Dorm Rush

General Concern: By having no dorm rush, I don't think the RSSC realizes how little interaction between dorms there will be and how segregated the campus will be. During dorm rush, students are forced to examine each and every housing situation. By assuming that this Orientation time will be dedicated to just extracurricular activities we assume that everyone will meet people by this factor only. But this is not going to happen. People leave their dorms during R/O because they are lost. Everyone is trying to find someone else who has a clue. So you go out, look and you find that everyone else is just as lost and you realize that it's not so bad because there are others in your situation. Maybe the first person you find doesn't add a piece to your puzzle, but at least you're searching. This whole process helps students to search out diverse living styles and possibly pick something they might not have thought they could ever live in. In the suggested situation there is nothing to make students go out and meet each other. Extracurricular activities are great but they don't bring people together until much after they've started meeting. Dorm Rush helps people mature and think in a way that is representative of MIT. And that is to be an adult. In the real world, you don't know where you're going to live or with whom, but you go out there and look around. Sure, it's scary for the parents, but their child has to be allowed to think for his/herself. The parent is not going to live here for 4 years; the student is. And yes they are paying for it. But do they want to pay for mental-hell for their child? Or pay for a great education and great support networks?

Chocolate City's Concern: I have already stressed the fact that we cannot convey what we are on paper or even begin to describe our significance to the community, but why wouldn't someone want to live with us? We offer community, friendship and a single. That is what we offer. But how do we know what the student has to offer. Even if we had an application process to get in, to separate those who would just live in the community and those who would contribute, how could be sure that these words on paper would be genuine? We would accept this amendment to the proposal as a last step but it would simply be better if we were just considered a Hybrid dorm, instead of a dorm w/ privileges so that we could continue to exist. What we have obviously works as all the "theme" houses are an example of, so why destroy our community? If there is a problem and one solution sort of works and another sort of works as well, then what do you do? You create a third solution and see what gets you the best results. We are not asking for anything astronomical. We just want to continue with what has proven to work.
Issue: Freshman Choice
(No Upperclassman Choice/ Increase Parental Choice)
General Concern: The committee has decided that what will differentiate the system in place now and the system they propose will be that Freshmen will finally have choice. But don't be fooled. "Freshman Choice" is a misnomer for parental choice. No longer will students have the opportunity to think for themselves. Instead they will have to sit and read a pamphlet or watch an interactive CD while a parent/guardian looks over their shoulder. How many of us can say that we would have chosen our dorms for the reasons we did if we had to choose while we were at home? How can we not say that students are going to be far more unhappy with their decisions once they get here then they would be if they got to see it first hand. This isn't the type of unhappy where they will necessarily request to be entered in the correction lottery but I guarantee it will be the type of unhappiness where the overall student demeanor on campus is affected subconsciously. Factors which can't possibly be conveyed in pamphlets will cause students to perform worse than in past years. The reason is that there are many things that just can't be put in a pamphlet that will help a student decide. Here are some examples:
i) Distance from main campus- can you really get a sense of how far is far from a pamphlet? Can you really tell what you're willing to sacrifice for a dorm that is close?
ii) Bathroom situation- very key for any living situation and I am sure no dorm is willing to say theirs is imperfect. So a pamphlet will not be able to convey this aspect.
iii) Personality of a dorm- Each dorm has a personality. Whether the institution recognizes it, internally each dorm is recognized and/or associated with certain aspects of MIT life. How can you quantify something like this on paper? This is something a student assesses by meeting students on campus who are from and not from the dorm being observed.
iv) What to compromise for a dorm- meaning every dorm has pluses and minuses? Whether it is distance, appearance, bathroom situation, rooming, whatever it may be. How can you tell what you would sacrifice for if you were never immersed in your surroundings to decide?
v) A student's ignorance- MIT places students in situations most incoming students would never have experienced.This ignorance to such diverse lifestyles clearly gives way to biased decisions based not on experiences the student gets when they arrive, but on experiences students never had prior to their arrival.This will definitely segregate the campus immensely.

Chocolate City's Concern: There are always more applicants than there is space available to live in Chocolate City. So if 20 people were to request housing by mail and only 7 people (usual number) were picked by the lottery (algorithm) then how could there be any notion of community as Chocolate City knows it? We are not asking to have the ability to force whomever we want to live in Chocolate City, to live in Chocolate City, because we never do that and that would be eliminating freshman choice. We are simply requesting to pick out of those who request housing in Chocolate City by some sort of interview process. We have to be sure that their interest to live here be genuine and not for superfluous reasons and for that reason an application is necessary. Perhaps they arrive here and decide this isn't the place for them. How can they determine that by phone or by paper? How could we be sure if an algorithm simply picked? And yes, best case scenario, only one freshman does not add to the community, but even then as the "theme" houses have voiced before, if even one member of the community does not participate or involve him/herself in the activities than the community is weakened. The "theme" houses rely on participation of every member of the house on different levels and for this reason I feel that the very way we live is threatened.
Issue: Crowding?
General Concern: It appears that in an effort to give FS/ILGs a chance to survive, the committee has proposed a plan more than imperfect. For example, if everyone is happy with their choice by mail and they love their choice for the first year, they will be forced to move second year. Second year is the most difficult transition period for MIT students as they move on to grades. When forced to move, no longer would they be surrounded by their support network, they would be moved to another part of campus with different people and possibly forced to move off-campus. The reason for this is that even if everyone tries to stay in the same place, they can't, because 350 spots have to be empty on account of no freshmen off-campus. It doesn't work if everyone is unhappy. Then there are people who are disappointed first year, which would reflect on poor academics for freshmen, who would still be forced to move second year and still not have a support network. The committee has made it so that second year you will not be happy with your living situation necessarily, unless you were happy with what you had and somehow got it again.
More people are going to be unhappy with their selections. The committee has to realize that by having freshmen pick by mail the margin of error is going to be greater than ever for satisfaction of choice. And when the number is too large, then a correction lottery is going to be a sign that the system is not catering to the needs of students. And then what? Chocolate City's Concern: (Same as above)

Issue: No Squatting Rights

Chocolate City's Concern: The inability to stay within the "theme" house is perhaps one of the most hurtful suggestions by the RSSC. If 7 freshmen picked Chocolate City freshmen year and then had to move and another 7 sophomores and 7 freshmen moved in, then the community would be completely destroyed in 2 years. From a strong community of 28, there wouldresult in 28 who were not tightly knit. How can we preserve the community even as an upperclassman dorm if we have no guarantee that the new people who enter can stay after a year. There is no way to preserve or maintain Chocolate City or any other "theme" house community as the guidelines currently stand. As quoted from one of the RSSC members in a UA held forum at the UA's first council meeting, "Some communities are going to die." This is just a sign that our fate has been sealed and recognized by those who have forced it upon us.

Issue: Minority Admissions

Chocolate City's Concern: Whether MIT or any of its bodies wish to recognize it, Chocolate City plays a huge role in Minority Admissions. Many minority students have an inbred vision, or stereotype, of what MIT life consists of. Either that or they have no conception of it at all, because they believe that minority life as they see it cannot exist at MIT. During campus preview weekend, through joint ventures and individual efforts, the members of Chocolate City make an effort to reach every minority and make them aware of the fact that not only can they exist here, but they can also be appreciated. These efforts can be supported by the OME and through records of minority students being housed in Chocolate City. Chocolate City is not the only key to successful minority recruitment, but it is a crucial one that helps to augment the efforts of MIT to attract intelligent and capable minority students. With the small percentage of MIT students on campus every year, many minority students (both residents and non-residents of Chocolate City) on campus will testify to the fact that they would not have attended MIT if Chocolate City did not exist here. I would be one of those students and I am sure every member of Chocolate City would testify to the same.
Issue: General Institution Improvements
Safe Ride- Since the beginning of this program the amount of vans for Safe Ride has doubled from 2 to 4. It is apparent that the need is there but the institution is slow to realize the obvious. More vans and/ or more area covered by each van is necessary ensure the safety and speedy travel by students.
Housing Improvements- Most dorms require serious renovations internally. From repainting walls to new furniture, some of MIT's dorms require serious work. If the institution would stop building new dorms and make the current ones more suitable for living, it would be reflected in the general student attitude.
Athena Clusters- Currently the only dorm cluster, I am aware of is in McCormick. As we all know, McCormick is less than a block away from the nearest Athena Cluster and still maintains 7 athena workstations and 1 quickstation. Yet, there are dorms on opposite sides of campus which only have 1 quickstation for a whole dorm. Why is this? The excuse that they are the only ones that can facilitate this is unacceptable, because if asked, most dorms would convert a room into a cluster, if the chance arose.
Community Space- A lack of increase in community space is representative of MIT's lack of care for the diversity of extracurricular interests by students. MIT's facilities are very commonly required to be reserved months in advance or with some sort of aforementioned notice in order to be reserved. For this reason, more community space is required to provide students with the means to express themselves outside of class.

The "theme houses", specifically Chocolate City are an example of Principle 11 of the MIT Task Force On Student Life and Learning (p.14): "The Importance of Diversity". "The Task Force believes that diversity of the students, faculty and staff of the Institute is critical to the educational mission In striving to encourage diversity within it's community, MIT must also strive to maintain an environment in which such diversity is appreciated and every student has a sense of place". Yet, the RSSC proposes to take out some of MIT's finest examples of Diversity on campus instead of preserving it. (p.35)

"However, the educational mission of the housing system has been hampered by a lack of resources and programs. Crowding has been an acute problem. On-campus housing has remained crowded despite new construction over the past few decades."(p. 37) And it will be more of an issue with the proposed plan.

I feel that if any and/or all of these issues are addressed, then Chocolate City's chances of survival can only be improved.

-Raymond Morales ('02) and Ebraheem Fontaine ('02)

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