------------------------------------------------------------ Section 1: Introduction ------------------------------------------------------------ The Unified Student Proposal for an MIT Residential System is a comprehensive and systemic design. We believe it addresses the interests and concerns of all relevant stakeholders: future MIT students, the parents of undergraduates, Fraternities, Sororities, Independent Living Groups, Theme Houses, Residence Halls, graduate students, faculty, staff, and alumni. The Strategic Advisory Committee to the Chancellor and the united student governments of MIT: the Undergraduate Association, the Dormitory Council, the Interfraternity Council, and the Graduate Student Council composed and submit this proposal to Lawrence Bacow, the Chancellor of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Motivation The Strategic Advisory Committee to the Chancellor (SAC) was created by the Chancellor in Fall 1998 as a continuation of the Student Advisory Group to the Task Force on Student Life and Learning. The purpose of the SAC is to provide student views and proposals to the Chancellor on an Institute-wide scope. The residence system is a natural area of concern for the committee, both because of its importance to the students of MIT and because the Chancellor will be making important decisions regarding its future. The student governments have paid close attention to the future of the residence system since the announcement by President Charles M. Vest in Fall 1998 that all freshmen would be required to live in residence halls in Fall 2001. The Residence System Steering Committee (RSSC) was charged by the Chancellor to design and submit a proposal for the residence system and will do so in October 1999. The membership of the RSSC was drawn from the undergraduates, faculty, alumni, and staff of MIT. We applaud the Chancellor's commitment to community based decision making and the countless hours of work the members of the RSSC devoted to creating their final proposal. We also thank the members of the RSSC for their willingness to listen to members of the MIT community integrate that feedback into their proposal. When the RSSC released a first draft of their proposal in April 1999, the student governments produced the Unified Student Response to the Phase II Status Report (USR). The USR included a section on the key values for the MIT residence system and responded to a number of the recommendations of the RSSC, but was not a comprehensive proposal for the residence system. The Final Report of the Residence System Steering Committee, released in September 1999, was significantly different from the Phase II Status Report. Many of these changes were recommended by the USR. Though the recommendations of this proposal differ from the Final Report of the RSSC in significant ways, the primary distinction is one of scope. We address issues from capital investment to system management to residential life programs. The MIT residence system is very complex and we believe that a broader approach is crucial to design success. We believe that our experience, expertise, and perspective, enhanced by the work of the Clay Committee, the Task Force on Student Life and Learning, the Lewis Commission, the office of Residence Life and Student Life Programming, and the Residence System Steering Committee could produce an excellent system and we believe we have done so. Methodology The Unified Student Proposal for an MIT Residence System was announced to the public on September 14, 1999. The committee actively advertised its efforts to the community at large through both paper and electronic publicity campaigns, and was featured prominently in campus media. The process was completely open and public - notes from all meetings were posted on the web for public perusal and comment. The composition of the report was done primarily by students, but input and feedback was solicited and received by students as well as faculty, staff, and alumni. We also used recent reports of the Institute, including but not limited to the report of the Task Force on Student Life and Learning, the Institute Dining Review, the Clay Committee, the Phase II Status Report and Final Report of the RSSC, and the various proposals submitted to the RSSC. Although the committee would have preferred to begin with a community-based needs analysis, followed by several iterations of community feedback, proposals, and amendments, the time available was severely limited. We did sense, however, a growing consensus among the student body of what the new residence system should be. Perhaps because of this common direction, we found it relatively easy to integrate the several separate sections drafted by internal task forces. We are encouraged that community members have responded to our calls for feedback by helping us build a better system, rather than criticizing our ideas as a narrow-minded proposal from an isolated group of people. The ideal community-wide process for creating a comprehensive design for the residence system would have taken more time than we had available. We would have begun by soliciting input from all members of the MIT community about the needs and goals of the residence system. This information would then be analyzed and integrated into a prioritized list of need and goals for the residences system. Drafts of the needs and goals analysis would be released to the community through several iterations to ensure that they were, indeed, the proper needs and goals for the residence system. All design proposals would then be judged against these established criteria. We would have then solicited design ideas and proposals from the community. We then would have taken these ideas and proposals and evaluated them by the established needs and goals of the residence system. We might have discovered that one proposal was a best fit for the residence system, but it is more likely that we would draw ideas from several proposals to create a system we believed was optimal. We would then pursue several iterations of community feedback to ensure that our proposal did meet the needs and goals of the residence system. The goal of this feedback process would not be to create the most popular residence system proposal, but to increase the number of eyes and minds working on the design. When we believed that the design was optimized we would present it to the Chancellor. We encourage the administration of the Institute to continue its current progress towards community-based decision making, as exemplified by the 1997 Institute Dining Review. Attention to proper needs analysis, stakeholder involvement, and performance assessment will continue to produce excellent system solutions in the future. This document represents the consensus of all members of the Strategic Advisory Committee to the Chancellor. Objectives We recommend that the Chancellor adopt this proposal as the blueprint for the future of MIT's residence system. Moreover, we believe it demonstrates that students can be involved in all levels of planning and can reconcile diverse interests through integrative design and negotiation. ------------------------------------------------------------ Section 2: Executive Summary ------------------------------------------------------------ The Unified Student Proposal for an MIT Residence System is a comprehensive and systemic design. We address a complete set of issues related to the residence system, ranging from capital investment to governance to residential programs. We believe this proposal addresses the interests and concerns of all relevant stakeholders: future MIT students, the parents of undergraduates, Fraternities, Sororities, Independent Living Groups, Theme Houses, Residence Halls, graduate students, faculty, staff, and alumni. This proposal was composed and is submitted by the Strategic Advisory Committee to the Chancellor and the united student governments of MIT: the Undergraduate Association, the Dormitory Council, and the Interfraternity Council. In developing this proposal, we used a uniquely open community process. Our process has been completely open and public - notes from all meetings have been posted on the web for public comment. To date, most of the sections of report have been written by students, but we have received and incorporated input from other students, faculty, staff, and alumni. Further, in creating the proposal we relied heavily on past reports concerning residential life, including the Report of the Task Force on Student Life and Learning, Principles for a Residential System (Clay Committee Report), and the Institute Dining Review. We also incorporated ideas from the designs presented as part of the Residence System Design Contest, as well as from the Phase 2 and 3 reports of the Residence System Steering Committee. We have the following objectives for this proposal: * To become the blueprint for the future of MIT's residence system. * To demonstrate that students can be involved in all levels of planning at the Institute. * To show that students can reconcile diverse interests through integrative design and negotiation. We invite you to review our work to date, available at http://web.mit.edu/advise. Our proposal continues to evolve, and we invite you to make recommendations concerning it. I. OBJECTIVES OF THE RESIDENCE SYSTEM We recognize three major objectives of the residence system. 1. Provision of Housing. On the most fundamental level, MIT must provide housing for its students. This housing must be safe, clean, and affordable. 2. Provision of Home. The residence system must support its students psychologically. Students must be able to find the close friendships that will support them during their stay at the Institute and beyond. On a larger scale, they must find residential communities that support their well-being. Problems (whether directly residence-related or not), must be resolved quickly and equitably. 3. Provision of Community. We support the recommendations of the Task Force and the Clay Committee in that the residence system needs to be a pillar in MIT's efforts to encourage community interaction and provide informal but invaluable educational experiences. While these goals are not prioritized, it should be noted that they follow a logistical order. If housing is not provided, either by denial of housing or provision of inadequate facilties, providing a supportive environment and encouraging community and educational experiences is not possible. If a supportive environment is not provided, any efforts to provide community interaction and other educational experiments will not succeed. All of the following recommendations relate directly to successful provision of the above objectives. The arguments for why the recommendations are needed are abbreviated necessarily, but are given in detail in the body of the Proposal. II. COMMUNITY INTERACTION AND STUDENT SUPPORT The current residential system fosters strong communities within the individual living groups. These communities provide a preliminary structure for campus wide interaction, while also contributing a strong base of support for students. It is essential that the residence system encourage interaction between all members of the MIT community, including undergraduate and graduate students, alumni, faculty, and staff. Interactions of this sort, while sometimes spontaneous in nature, often require an additional degree of organizational support. The idea is not to force interactions, but to break down the barriers that prevent these interactions and increase the total number of possibilities. 1. Recognition of the Importance of Student Life Activities Perhaps our most important recommendation in this section, the faculty and staff must recognize the importance of residential and extra-curricular activities as part of a student's education. Consequently, they must ensure that students have time to participate in these activities. To do this, existing regulations allowing students time to participate in these activities (including restrictions on evening exams, classes during dinner hours, and end-of-term regulations) must be uniformly enforced. On a larger scale, departments should carefully consider the content and courseload of their course classes to avoid "busywork," as well as quality of instruction. 2. Community Dining The Institute Dining Review has discussed in great detail the critical importance of community dining for supporting students and encouraging community interaction. We strongly recommend that the complete set of recomendations within the Review be implemented with full funding. 3. Faculty-Student Interaction A. We recommend a major increase in the House Fellows Program. If possible, each living group should have one or more house fellows. Each house fellow should receive approximately $1000 in research grants. This grant, combined with additional funding from the administration, would allow for significant programming, including academic, cultural, social, and service events. B. To facilitate residential programming, each housemaster should receive one half-time assistant. These support staff would assist in day-to-day residence operations, and in planning student events. C. The Programming Committee of the Student Life Council should have a budget of $100,000 per year to support student-faculty-staff gatherings. These shall include projects supported by the Committee, by staff offices, or by residences. (For more information on the Student Life Council, see Part IV.) 2. Programming by Graduate Residence Tutors GRT's and RA's should conduct at least one dorm-wide social or educational event per term. The tutors of each dorm should collectively be responsible for one campus-wide event held outside of the residence hall. Funding for these social events shall come from the Office of Residence Life and Student Life Programs. 3. Community-wide Events Living groups should be responsible for one event per year which is open to the community and (if possible) held outside of the living group. These events need not be large in terms of the number of attendees, but should be of interest to a variety of students, faculty, staff, and alumni. 4. Professional Development 1. MIT should support a 'Student Development Program' (SDP) which help students develop non-classwork competencies that will serve the student well in future career positions. This program will provide instruction in the following areas: teamwork, communications skills, leadership, service, self-management, and inter-personal relationships. Particular classes and experiences would be developed and controlled by individuals and groups, with MIT providing funding and coordination. Participation should be voluntary, but should be well-integrated into the residential (and academic) experience. 2. As part of the SDP, students should have the opportunity to participate in internships that build SDP competencies such as leadership. MIT, through ORLSLP should actively create, and solicit for the creation, of these internships, would publicize their existence and coordinate hiring, and sponsor concurrent seminars that would allow participants to share their experiences and trade suggestions. 5. Peer Advising and Support A. MIT should support the creation of a network of peer advisors throughout the residences. The peer advisors would comprise students who have a variety of skills, ranging from conflict resolution, to solving MIT-related problems, to health advice, to advice on subject selection. The Student Life Council and ORSLP would support training programs in these areas, ensuring their quality. ORSLP would also maintain a central registry of peer advisors, so that students would always know who to go to for particular situations. B. GRT's should receive substantial training concerning introductory peer counseling, conflict resolution, and techniques and processes for solving student problems related to the Institute. 6. Rewards and Recognition MIT should offer a variety of rewards and recognition for inviduals and groups who further the goals of community interaction. These should include additonal prizes similar to the Compton and Stewart Awards. They should also include publicity, preferably through write-ups in MIT's widely read alumni magazine, Technology Review. Finally, we recommend a special form of recognition for junior faculty. As part of the tenure review process, junior faculty should be able to submit recommendations from students and others testifying to their contributions to student life at MIT. III. CAPITAL EXPENDITURES We recommend completion of the following capital projects beyond those currently given in MIT's Capital Plan. These projects are staggered in three stages. 1. To be completed (or have funding earmarked) by the summer of 2001. A. Renovations to dormitories to reopen dining halls and create new programming space $15 million B. Funds to buy / rent FSILG space from houses that would otherwise fold, thus keeping the spaces in the housing system. The spaces could be used for new FSILG's, theme houses, or, depending on student distribution, as graduate houusing. (Assumptions: max ~10 houses may fold * ~$2M per house) $20 MM C. Funds to renovate FSILG's (from the Vanderwiel facility audit sponsored by the AIFC) $9 MM D. Near-term renovations to Walker Memorial and $5.5 MM Stratton Center E. Athletics: renewal, phase I $8 MM Total, Phase I: $57.5 million 2. To be completed by the summer of 2004. A. New graduate dormitory (500 beds @ ~$100K/bed) $50 MM B. New undergraduate dormitory. Purposes: -- Eliminate overcrowding. -- Add additional flexibility into system; allow for FSILG's to move to the dorm, for instance. -- Buffer MIT's dependence on ILG's. (Assumes 400 beds * $100K per bed) $40 MM C. Housing Renovation and Renewal Plan, Phase 2 $ 6 MM D. Renovations to East Campus $25.5 MM E. Renovations to Stratton Center $ 2 MM F. Athletics: renewal, phase II $ 8.5 MM Total, Phase II: $119 million 3. To be completed by the summer of 2009. A. Second graduate dormitory (500 beds @ ~100K/bd) $50 MM B. Housing Renovation and Renewal Plan, Phase 3 $18.5 MM C. Renovations to Walker Memorial, Phases I and II $31 MM Total, Phase III: $99.5 million Grand Total, New Capital Recommendations: $276 million The Committee recognizes that MIT has already committed to projects that reach MIT's debt ceiling. Nonetheless, the fact is that the projects above range from critical to very important if MIT is to have the residential system that is the goal of senior management as well as the rest of the MIT community. We believe funding the above program will be feasible through measures including allocation of Capital Campaign funds and off-budget construction. IV. GOVERNANCE AND MANAGEMENT Successful management and governance of the residential system is vital if the new system is to fulfill its objectives. In this section, we propose several new programs and policies that, we believe, will bring about successful oversight of the residential system. 1. Division of Responsibilities The MIT senior administration, administrators of ODSUE, student governments, and appropriate faculty committees and housemasters should convene a conference in the Spring of 1999. This conference shall create a general agreement that: (1) assigns the responsibilities for oversight and management of the residential system to the conference parties, and (2) defines how the parties shall communicate with each other on pending issues and resolve disputes. 2. The Student Life Council We recommend the creation of a Student Life Council that would be responsible for strategic planning for the student life system, monitoring student quality of life issues, and supervising community-wide programming. To fulfill these duties, the Council shall: -- Serve as a forum for student life-related, cross-cutting issues, and advise senior Institute officials and the Corporation on any and all matters pertaining to student life. -- Consider capital projects, including proposals for new construction and proposals for renovations. The Council shall identify the scope and goals of these projects. -- Develop a unified strategic plan for the student life system, focusing on those areas under the jurisidiction of ODSUE. This plan shall be updated annually. It shall include a statement of needs and priorities that shall be the basis of ODSUE's budgeting process. -- Monitor the state of student life at MIT, and make (or advocate for) any changes implied by the results of the monitoring process. -- Coordinate community-wide programs. The Committee shall comprise 12 members, 4 students, 4 faculty, and 4 staff members, including the Dean for Student Life and Undergraduate Education, who shall be the President of the Council. To ensure transparency and accountability, the Council shall post edited versions of its minutes and reports to the community, and members shall regularly attend the meetings of student life organizations. 3. System Assessment In evaluating the residential system, the Monitoring Committee shall use the principles established by "Principles for the MIT Residential System", as supplemented by the principles and objectives established in this report. Further, the Committee shall use the following measures: -- Progress in carrying out the programming recommendations listed in Section 5, and in carrying out the capital projects listed in Section 6. -- Progress towards meeting the "Characterisics of an Excellent Residential System" as described in Section 5 of the RSSC's Final Report. -- General approval measures, as received from students, faculty, staff, and alumni. The Committee shall use the following techniques to measure system performance: -- Surveys. At least one major survey shall be sponsored by the Committee per year. The survey shall include general approval questions along with specific questions related to the indicators listed below. -- Focus groups. The Committee shall sponsor at least one round of focus groups about various student life issues per year. The focus groups shall include sessions with all members of the community, including students, faculty, staff, and alumni. -- Facilities inspections. -- Deliberative evaluations, which shall include input from other student life organizations, such as Institute Committees and student governments. 4. Performance Management All senior administrators responsible for the welfare of the student life system, and in identifying and providing resources to the student life system, should be eligible to receive a bonus based on the status of the student life system. The bonus regularly achievable would be 10-15% of the administrator's base salary, with greater bonuses being awarded for exceptional performance. Bonuses would be decided by committees established by the MIT Corporation (such as the Visiting Committee on Student Life). 5. Process Management Student life decision-making and implementation should be done in accordance in modern project and process management principles. V. ORIENTATION AND RESIDENCE SELECTION The Committee makes the following recommendations pertaining to orientation and residence selection. We believe that these recommendations would best foster the goals of providing a supportive home for freshmen as well as providing for community interaction. 1. Residence Hall Selection A. Freshmen would receive information about residence halls over the summer, and would pre-select a residence hall or theme house. They would receive a preliminary assignment over the summer. B. During orientation, time will be set aside for freshmen to tour the residence halls (one day, plus free time in the evenings). They will then actively confirm their summer choice of residence, or enter a lottery with a new ranking of residence halls. In this new lottery, two freshmen may staple their choices together, so that they may be guaranteed of rooming with each other. C. Following this second lottery, dormitories will do internal rooming assignments by a mechanism determined by the dormitory governments and approved by the Student Life Council. During rooming assignments, entries and suites may request that particular freshmen to live with them, but may not prevent a freshman from living with them. Information about which freshmen have received positive requests shall be absolutely confidential. ORLSLP shall establish procedures that shall allow suites or entries to make requests that a freshman not live with them due to extreme circumstances (for example, if the freshman is sexually harassing a resident). 2. Orientation A. Freshmen should not be required to pay additional fees to participate in Pre-Orientation programs. B. We recommend a variety of new activities during Orientation (see report for details). Primary among these are a Carnival for incoming freshmen (NOTE: I thought this was for everybody, including incoming grad students), explorations of Boston, a joint picnic with other colleges, and sessions that will discuss student resources that every incoming student should know about. 3. Theme Houses A. The Committee believes that a limited number of theme houses would be a valuable addition to the MIT community. However, we also believe that new houses must contribute to the diversity of the system, and must show need to be a theme house rather than a non-residential student activity. Further, theme houses should reinforce MIT's educational mission. B. The Committee recognizes that theme houses must maintain committment to their theme through a selection process. We recommend that houses be given a choice of two options: -- Houses may recruit rising sophomores, much as independent living groups do. -- Houses may require incoming freshmen to meet with a house leader and sign a form commiting them to the house duties required for active membership. 4. Recruitment and Selection for Independent Living Groups A. The Interfraternity Council, in consultation with the Residential Life Office and the Student Life Coucnil, should set guidelines for the new member recruitment and selection process. B. The Institute should make every effort to encourage freshmen to consider their upperclass housing options and to facilitate and support that process. 5. Fall and Spring Residence Lotteries A. In general, the Committee encourages the idea of students living in different residences while at MIT, and that MIT should discourage the current cultural norm that students must stay in their residences except in emergency cases. However, the Committee strongly believes that all such moves be voluntary. We also believe that there is no reason to restrict moves solely to rising sophomores. Any undergraduate should be able to request a move quickly and easily. B. A dormitory lottery will be held in November of the fall term and March of the spring term. These lotteries should be mandatory for all dormitory residents, but residents should be able to choose to remain in their current house. 6. Housing Guarantee Housing must be guaranteed for four years to all undergraduates. In the event of short-term population distortions due to the evolution of the FSILG system and dormitory lotteries, we recommend the following measures be taken (in order of preference): A. Provide incentives for students to move to residences that are underutilized. B. Crowd existing dormitory space and spread such crowding as evenly as possible between residence halls. C. Rent non-residence hall space for undergraduates. D. Utilize graduate student housing for undergraduates and provide subsidies for out-of-system graduate student housing for those students denied housing in those dormitories. E. Change the dormitory lottery so that it will not guarantee that students remain in their current dormitory. Note that D and E should only be used in case of extreme situation. A desire by the MIT administration to save money will not count as an extreme situation. 6. Support for Independent Living Groups A. Starting in June 2001, MIT should transfer funds to each FSILG equal to 25% of total house capacity times the standard hosuebill. This subsidy shall decline to zero over six years. B. Independent houses that are in particular financial trouble may apply for special funding. C. MIT should support any single-sex fraternity which wishes to become coeducational. This support may include the purchase of the current chapter house from the fraternity's national organization. D. FSILG's may choose to be listed as graduate housing options in MIT's publications for graduate students. E. MIT should provide logistical support to FSILG's that wish to move closer to campus. VI. SPECIAL NOTES 1. About Requiring Freshmen to Live in Residence Halls The Committee hoped to have the ability to design what would be be a globally-optimal residence system. Unfortunately, we are limited from doing so by the non-relaxable constraint that freshmen not be allowed to live in independent living groups. It may well be that the optimal residence does feature freshmen living only in residence halls. However, we cannot make that statement for certain since we did not consider any options that had freshmen living in ILG's. 2. About the Residence System for Graduate Students The Committee recognizes that this report is heavily dominated by undergraduate housing issues. As much as possible, we have tried to include graduate housing issues as referenced in existing material. Many of the community involvement programs discussed in Part II apply to graduate students just as much as they do to undergraduate students. Further, in Part III we call for the construction of two new graduate dormitories. Nonetheless, it is clear that graduate housing must be explored in depth. We therefore concur with recommendations to have a separate community-based committee redesign the graduate housing system. Despite this recommendation, we are adamant that the $100 million- plus in capital construction for graduate student housing be done on schedule. The exact form may vary based on the results of this new committee. However, providing housing for graduate students is critical to satisfy the first objective of the residential system -- providing safe, clean and affordable housing. It is time for MIT to keep its promises regarding graduate student housing. ------------------------------------------------------------ Section 3: Fundamental Objectives of the MIT Residence System ------------------------------------------------------------ Why have these objectives been created? The MIT residence system exists by virtue of itself. When MIT was founded, students came from the Boston area and commuted to school. A residence system was never planned nor was it formally established, it was simply the result of different fraternities and other independent MIT-related residences being established in the Boston area, followed by the move of the Institute itself and the subsequent addition of MIT-owned residences. The growth of the system was due to the establishment of individual buildings, while the system itself was never established with specific objectives in mind. We feel that when a new residence system is established, it should be established based on some fundamental objectives so that it can evolve with specific goals in mind. We feel that there are three fundamental objectives which should describe the purpose of the MIT residence system. The objectives are based on what we feel are the most important resources provided by the current residence system as well as what we feel are the most important resources lacking of the current residence system. They are also philosophical and interpretive, and so might lead to different conclusions under different circumstances. We have given each of these objectives a one-word description, and in the following section we describe the philosophy underlying each objectives and give some examples of the more specific goals which we feel to be directly implied from each objective. We have decided to refer to the three fundamental objectives of the MIT residence system as House, Home, and Community, always listed in that order. What are the objectives? I. House Philosophy: The first, and perhaps most easily overlooked, fundamental objective of the residence system is to provide students with housing. This includes the basic requirements of a particular place to live, along with the space to sleep, to "put stuff," to read, to work, and even to entertain guests if possible. Housing provides students with personal space, which, however small, is necessary for emotional well-being. Essentially, all aspects of a student's physical survival and comfort are described by this objective. Also, though this is a very simple objective, it is a very important one. For if there is not adequate housing for students at MIT, it makes the MIT residence system that much weaker. The very existence of the system depends on its ability to provide any and all students with a place to live. Implied Goals: The major implied goal to be taken from this fundamental objective is that the MIT residence system should house as much of its student population as possible. It is clear to us that if the MIT housing system housed fewer students than it could, it would be a step backwards toward the days when MIT had no residence system at all. The system thus becomes even less valuable than it is now. One must keep in mind that the guarantee of four years of housing for undergraduates is one of the strongest aspects of the residence system as it currently exists. Another implied goal derived directly from this is that if the current amount of housing is inadequate to house the student population, MIT should take measures to ensure that it becomes so. II. Home Philosophy: The second fundamental objective of the residence system is to provide students with a home. Though this objective is not necessarily a unique feature of the MIT residence system, we feel it is an especially important objective at MIT for multiple reasons. One is that a very large portion of the student population of MIT comes from outside the area, some even coming from other countries. With so many students moving very far away from home, often with little chance of their being able to travel back on a regular basis, it is important for students to establish a "second home" at MIT as opposed to just "temporary accommodations". Therefore a student's living environment must be as comfortable and welcoming as possible. Another reason is that MIT is very academically challenging, and when things get stressful for a student it is important for the student to receive personal support. We feel that the best immediate support a student can get is from those who live nearby, and therefore a friendly relationship with one's living community can be necessary to a student's surviving the academic rigor of the Institute. Support could come in the form of volunteer tutoring (which at MIT can be just as common and useful as organized tutoring), or even just in the form of a friend to talk to or a group of people in which one feels welcome. A friendly living environment, which is what we feel describes a "home", is one of the most treasured aspects of the MIT housing system as it now stands. Implied Goals: One goal implied by this objective is that students should be able to exercise some choice in where they live. Different students may have different needs with regard to their living environments, and it is therefore possible that students may feel more comfortable in one living environment than another, or that a particular student might not feel comfortable at all in a particular living environment. The objective of providing a home implies that a student's comfort should be maximized, and so not only is it important for students to have a wide range of options from which to choose, it is also important that students know as much as possible about each of their options before making their decisions. III. Community Philosophy: The final fundamental objective of the residence system is to support the concept of an MIT community. This has never been a particularly strong aspect of the residence system, and is therefore one of the most heavily addressed aspects of recent redesign efforts. The Task Force Report on Student Life and Learning and related documents have recently brought the concept of community to the attention of the Institute. We shall briefly explain the basic concept of community, though these documents do a much better and more detailed job of describing it. The residence system as it stands is a collection of separate dormitories and independent living groups, all of which are in essence independent from each other. These are also very independent from the larger Institute, the faculty and administrators who interact little if at all with the students' lives outside the classroom. Community is an ideal very different from what exists currently. Community means that there is more social interaction among students of all different living environments and more influence of faculty members in the lives of students (beyond the typical influence of making their lives more difficult by assigning homework). We feel that interacting with many different people with many different perspectives on life is an important part of the MIT experience. True learning, as we see it, is more than simply study, problem sets and lab work. Community is also important because it provides to the faculty, administration and staff of MIT as well as its students. Implied Goals: Since one can see that community is not yet fully provided to students or faculty, one should conclude that the only major goal implied by this objective is the creation of an MIT community. There are conceivably many ways this could be done, some of which are described clearly in the Task Force Report and are reiterated in the design section of this proposal. Therefore any specific goals which are implied by this objective have been left to the remainder of this document. What makes these objectives valuable to MIT? It has been explained how these fundamental objectives are important to MIT students, and thus should be considered important to MIT. But the Institute should also recognize the educational value in having a residence system founded on these objectives. First of all, the objective of providing housing has educational value by allowing students to live close to where they study, making education more accessible to students, as well as by saving students from the worry of having to live on their own, a worry which might force students to spend more of their time concentrating on things other that their education. There is educational value in having a roof over one's head. A home also has educational value, not only by providing the support students need to survive a rigorous academic discipline but also by allowing people the opportunity to learn from each other. The educational value of a community similarly lies in the tendency of a wide range of students, faculty, and others from all corners of MIT to interact and learn from each other. True education, as stated before, is not only to be found in books; it is to be found in life. The educational value of a residence system can make it a very important asset to a University. How do these objectives interact with each other? When thinking of these objectives as a set, it is important to recognize several things about them. First, one notices that they are mutually supportive in many respects. Without adequate housing, it would be impossible for students to create the kinds of homes they would need. Also, if there aren't any students living "at MIT" (in dorms or FSILGs), there could be no such thing as an MIT community. In the other direction, the benefits of an MIT community would emphasize the need for housing, as it has pushed for the construction of a new dormitory. Also the strength and support of a home would support the call for new facilities and improvements to the physical aspects of housing, as is the case when dormitories lobby for weight rooms and dining halls and FSILGs install such facilities themselves. One must also recognize that there are ways in which the three can be mutually exclusive. For instance, one might conclude that to support the house objective it would make sense to build bigger dormitories. On the other hand, larger buildings might reduce the closeness of students within a living environment and detract from the home objective. One of the most important conflicts tends to be that between home and community. Promoting interaction among different living groups becomes difficult if students rely on constant interaction within their own living groups. Also, when faculty members interact with students within their living groups, it can be seen by some as the academic part of the Institute encroaching on the "sanctuary" of a student's home. However, since we recognize the equal importance of home and community, we cannot simply say that the preservation of one objective demands the rejection of the other. Our goal in this situation is to strike a balance between the two, and to provide that the promotion of one objective does not go so far as to undermine the importance of another. One may also recognize certain mechanisms which tend to support all three objectives. For instance, common dining space provides students with physical sustenance (which is related to the "house" function), provides living environments with space in which to meet and socialize, and a place for members of the larger community to come together. In a different way, FSILGs also support all three objectives by providing additional rooms to the system, providing close living environments in which students to receive support, and broadening the MIT community as a whole. Thus the three objectives are very closely related and can sometimes be treated as one. However, there are also mechanisms which have somewhat mixed effects on the three goals. Crowding is an especially enigmatic mechanism. On one hand, it provides more places for students to live, thus promoting the house objective. But it also decreases each student's personal space, seemingly detracting from the house objective. From a different perspective, one might think that crowding makes students less comfortable, thus detracting from the home objective. Alternatively one might think that it creates closer relationships between students by forcing them to live closer to each other, thus supporting the home objective. So the effect of mechanisms in meeting objectives are not always clear-cut, and sometimes one must weigh the benefits and costs of a mechanism to decide to what degree it should be implemented. In the case of crowding, one cannot simply say it is bad and discard it nor can one say it is good and implement it universally, one must try to find the way it can benefit the objectives of the system the most while detracting from them as little as possible. How do the objectives relate to the design? These objectives have been set forth as a means of evaluating the mechanisms proposed in the following design and of recognizing the benefits and problems they might create for the residence system. Most any idea which might be implemented within the system can be thought of in terms of how it influences house, home and community. The ultimate goal of this design is to maximize the achievement of all three goals together while maintaining a level of balance among them, that is not allowing one objective to become overemphasized at any great cost of another. Mechanisms which equally support one or more of the objectives are ideal. However, in areas where trade-offs must be made between certain objectives, we have tried to figure out how to provide the optimal balance among the three. In addition to this, we recognize that in the real world there is no way of telling whether a proposed system is "perfect". However, we feel that these objectives can be used as a guideline in comparing different concepts of how the residence system should function. Therefore they might be used to decide whether one of two or more options is best. So one should always have these primary objectives in mind when evaluating the mechanisms given in the design and should use them as a way of understanding their purpose. ------------------------------------------------------------ Section 4: Community Interaction And Student Support ------------------------------------------------------------ The current residential system fosters strong communities within the individual living groups. These communities provide a preliminary structure for campus wide interaction, while also contributing a strong base of support for students. An ideal residence system -- house, home, and community -- ensures student happiness, and thus supports academic success. To this end, the system must contain both formal and informal advising and mentoring. It is also essential that the residence system encourage interaction between all members of the MIT community, including undergraduate and graduate students, alumni, faculty, and staff. Interactions of this sort, while sometimes spontaneous in nature, often require an additional degree of organizational support. The idea is not to force interactions within and between communities, but to break down the barriers that may prevent these interactions and increase the total number of possibilities. I. Faculty-student Interaction Many documents have established the need for a stronger commitment to faculty-student interaction. [quote from task force?]. MIT students are surrounded by some of the world's most prestigious and enthusiastic professors, yet many students have never even spoken personally with a member of the faculty. In turn, the faculty wonder why they are so distant from the students whom they see each day in class, but who rarely approach them with questions. Currently, MIT has implemented a few programs to improve the situation, but more and better support is needed. The House Fellows program has brought a handful [insert numbers? 10? Matt will ask] of faculty in contact with undergraduate residential life; the housemasters of dormitories provide another handful of involved faculty. However, both of these programs are woefully undersupported by the administration. A.House Fellows The House Fellow program needs to provide an incentive and a means for faculty to get involved. The program coordinator for residence life should work hand in hand with students to seek appropriate house fellows for the individual cultures of each residence. Faculty who volunteer for this program should be compensated in a manner similar to freshman advisors; that is, they should receive on the order of $1000 in research grants. Ideally, the number of house fellows should be approximately the same as the number of GRTs in the dorms and FSILGs. The administration must provide more financial support for programs and events sponsored by the house fellows, both because of the increased participation, and to allow more significant programming. The programming should range from practical to cultural, from social to intellectual. Faculty could arrange trips to Red Sox games, the Boston Pops, hiking, service days, or even just study breaks or house activities like installing a hammock. B.House Masters To facilitate residential programming, the administration should provide staff support for housemasters. This support should be in the form of one half-time assistant for each housemaster; seven full-time or fourteen half-time staff members would be required for the current system, at a cost of approximately $250,000 per year. These support staff could assist faculty in the day-to-day dealings of the residence, and in planning student events for the residence, leaving the faculty with more time to interact with students. The current event funding level for housemasters is adequate, and should be maintained. C.General faculty interaction Faculty and staff must recognize the value of participating in the residence system, and ensure that students have enough time to do so. Consequently, existing academic regulations must be rigorously enforced, and departments should carefully consider the content and instruction quality of their subjects to ensure that students are not doing "busywork." Also, it is important to provide incentive for faculty to become involved in residence-based programs; faculty should not be penalized for spending time on student interaction. Indeed, contributions to student life should be considered in the tenure process for junior faculty; participants in programs should be able to submit recommendations testifying to their commitment to this goal. Subcommittee ***FOO*** of the Student Life Committee will be responsible for events and programs to encourage student-faculty interaction. By sponsoring events and by facilitating student-run events, the subcommittee can generate interaction between students and faculty, both inside and outside of the residences. Promising events include student-faculty gatherings in the Bush Room, faculty invited to dinners or study breaks at living groups, and family-friendly events such as carnivals or picnics. The Subcommittee should have a budget of $100,000 per year for such events, and they should also provide grants to residences for community-building and intellectual events. II. Student Support and Development [intro paragraph] A.GRTs (add something about "Graduate Residents should receive substantial peer counse ling and conflict resolution training.") In addition to their current student support role within the living groups, the GRTs and FSILG resident advisors should plan and implement residence-wide and campus-wide events. Each tutor should be responsible for one dorm-wide social or educational event per term. In addition, the tutors of each dorm should collectively be responsible for one campus-wide event, held outside of the residence hall. The ORLSLP will provide appropriate funds for GRT events. B.Peer Advising and Support Currently, the residence system provides informal mentoring and support by upperclass students in living groups. While this is one of the successes of the current residence system, the system could benefit from a more established support framework. MIT is a stressful and difficult place to live, and the emotional wellbeing of students is crucial to their academic success. However, setting students in positions of authority over other students raises a number of issues. -liability -social interaction -responsibilities -reporting/policing (then outline how this will work: database of *trained* medlinks, judcomm, physics gods, counselors like nightline people, etc) C.Professional Development III. Community Events (intro??) A. Campus-wide events Regular campus-wide events maintain and foster campus-wide community. To this end, living groups shall be responsible for one event per year which is open to the community and held outside of the living group. These events need not be large enough to accomodate the entire community, but should be of interest to a variety of students, faculty, staff, and alumni. Various events of this sort exist currently; the new "Tuesday Nights at Baker" program is an excellent example. Occasional larger events may be co-sponsored by several living groups. To facilitate planning of these events, MIT needs to reorganize its administrative structure to engender cooperation amongst the various program coordinators. e.g. CAC, athletics, departments, living groups, ORLSLP. B.Dining [insert IDR segment] C.Rewards and Recognition (MIT should privide a variety of rewards and recognition for people participating in the residence system, including publicity in Technology Review) D. Easy Access to Community Facilities Many dormitories have spaces which are intended for use by the entire MIT community - Baker Dining and MacGregor Convenience, for example. The current arrangements in many dormitories often either prevent easy and convenient access to these spaces by the public, compromises the security of private areas, or both. Currently, for example, there is nothing to stop a student visiting Baker Dining from wandering the entirety of the dormitory. Residents have also often become dangerously accustomed to opening doors for anyone who requests entry, on the assumption that they are on their way to a community area visiting a friend. Visitors also often find explaining themselves to desk workers to be a hassle, which discourages them from visiting friends at other dormitories, or eating in another in-dorm dining hall. On the other hand, due to the high volume of legitimate traffic in many entryways, desk workers are not always diligent about questioning every person who wanders by. MIT should conduct a comprehensive review of physical security in its residence halls, with aim of accomplishing all of the following goals: - Allow members of the MIT community easy and convenient access to those areas of the building which residents designate as "public" - Effectively restrict access into areas designated by residents as "private" to current residents and their guests - Allow residents creative flexibility in designing and enforcing access restrictions to the facilities of their dormitory MIT must implement the changes requested as a result of this review process. This will require a minor but important commitment of Institute funds toward updating the physical security infrastructure of its residence system. In a dormitory with a dining hall, event space, or similar common areas, residents may opt to give 24-hour (or limited-hour) open access to all members of the MIT community in order to promote inter-residence interaction. Weight room, music practice rooms, and similar facilities might be allocated by a reservation mechanism controlled by the front desk, with priority given to residence. Additional card readers or key locks might be requested on entries to private hallways from public areas. Additional security "checkpoints" would allow different access policies to be enforced for different areas in a given building. Students in many floors and entries enjoy the social and physical benefits they get from being able to leave their doors open all of the time. In other places, students would prefer ease of public access to common hallways. Taking into account these differing preferences is important, and under no circumstances should the security policies of a building be changed against the wishes of the majority of the residents. ------------------------------------------------------------ Section 5: Capital Expenditures ------------------------------------------------------------ Countless faculty, staff and students have expressed the sentiment that MIT has underfunded its residence system. While community strength has helped keep student satisfaction rates high, the combination of aging facilities and increasing demand on the system by both undergraduate (due to freshmen on campus) and graduate (due to the tight rental market) students presents serious capital demands on the system. MIT's five-year capital plan details only a few of these necessities, in particular, the undergraduate dorm [to house freshmen on campus] and the life-safety system renovations that the Committee on Resource and Space Planning approved in July 1999. Approximately $275 million of capital projects are necessary to address three strategic needs: reducing MIT's dependence on the FSILG system to house undergraduates, maintaining up-to-date facilities and housing fifty percent of graduate students on campus. Three phases comprise the short-term (ten-year) capital plan for the residence system. MIT must complete (or explicitly commit funding, time and manpower) the projects in the first phase by the first fall in which all freshmen will live on campus. MIT should target completion of the second-phase jobs by the summer of 2004 and the third-phase work by the summer of 2009. Because the capital plan accounts for all of MIT's debt capacity through 2004, MIT will have to provide for completion of the first two phases through "off-budget means" or by using Capital Campaign proceeds. MIT can finance the third phase through the usual means, should their debt capacity so allow. Phase I-Through summer of 2001 Renovation to dormitories to re-open dining halls and create program space ($15 million) [These expenditures will allow MIT to carry out large portions of the Institute Dining Review and Principle B3 of the Clay Committee, "Build Supportive Communities". The Institute Dining Review described in detail the critical value of residential dining as the result of research which included discussion with hundreds of students and many faculty and staff, including housemasters. The Clay Committee also called for an improved residential dining program, and also pointed out the importance of common space to build community. The importance of common space is dining is widely recognized; see also Simha (he's really into this -- need to get citation from him) and recent reports of the Committee for the Undergraduate Program and Committee on Student Affairs (1996)] [Following paragraph generally edited] We emphasize the need to implement the residential dining recommendations of the Institute Dining Review. With the exceptions of the hiring of a Dining Director, improvements to the card system, and pilot projects that use dining spaces as-is, MIT has delayed implementation of the Institute Dining Review for various organizational and monetary reasons. This allocation will allow proper use of residential dining halls, which is an integral the residence system. Code considerations and general neglect mean that renovation of the McCormick kitchen will approach $5 million alone (according to studies done by request of the Dining Implementation Team), and renovations of Burton-Conner's and MacGregor's dining spaces (as enhanced program space or as dining) also carry significant price tags. Funds to buy or rent FSILG space from houses that would otherwise close ($25 million) The new rush system has caused great concern for the IFC, whose contingency plans provide for the closing of about ten houses, due to revenue problems associated with unsuccessful Rushes. Closing houses lower the number of beds in the system at a time when every bed is crucial. Therefore, MIT should commit funds to maintaining closed FSILG space in the system, either for graduate or undergraduate students. The $25 million figure comes from the ten-house assumption (at $2 million per house), plus contingency. Obviously, MIT could only commit the funds by summer 2001. Funds to renovate FSILGS ($11 million) Many FSILG facilities also have deteriorated over the years. Because the FSILG system is central to ensuring housing for undergraduates, MIT must do its part to maintain the spaces. A recent Alumni IFC (AIFC) study estimated (on average) $300K of renovations for each house, for a total (based on 36 houses) of $11 million. Total for Phase I: $51 million Phase II-Through summer of 2004 New graduate dormitory ($50 million) MIT has promised a new residence hall for its graduate student community since before the end of rent control. The end of rent control made graduate student life much more difficult, as rents [in some apartments -- including some owned by MIT -- have quadrupled. Beyond rent control, Boston's recent economic boom has led to rental shortages and much higher rents in general, as has been much reported in all major Boston publications. The upshot of the rental shortage is that, unless significant measures to house graduate students are taken, MIT may not be able to fulfill its obligation to ensure that graduate students can find safe, clean, and affordable housing.] A new graduate hall (with 500 beds, at $100,000 per bed) will alleviate both graduate students' concerns about finding affordable housing and the pressure graduate students exert on the Cambridge housing market, an important issue to the Cambridge City Council. The extra capacity will increase the percentage of graduate students housed on-campus from 29% to 38%, in partial fulfillment of the 50% target. Second new undergraduate or "flex" dormitory ($40 million) MIT's dependence on the FSILGs for housing its students is at a level that necessitates both dormitory overcrowding and an annual uncertainty about the ability to house all students, as MIT promises to all applicants. A second undergraduate dormitory (with 400 beds, at $100,000 per bed) will relieve both of these pressures by decreasing MIT's system-innate demand on the FSILGs by 10% of the undergraduate population. Should the FSILGs continue to enjoy successful Rushes, graduate students or junior faculty or staff could fill any beds leftover from eliminating crowding. Incorporating graduate students and junior faculty and staff will help enhance the community of scholars within the residence system, enhancing the informal interactions that enhance the MIT experience for the entire community. Renovations to East Campus Houses ($27 million) The East Campus dormitory presents pressing renovation demands. While the structure is essentially sound, the internal works of the building are in a poor state. Drastic increases in the amount of power comsumed by students over the years are putting a tremendous strain on the antiquated wiring. The building is not properly grounded, placing the students and their coursework at risk. The wiring dates back to the buildingUs construction and is not properly grounded. The plumbing does not meet the current needs of students. The basement is in a particularly poor state. It is not properly ventilated and frequently floods, preventing students from utilizing the space effectively. A [1998 Physical Plant Renewal Plan] priced the renovations at $27 million. Total for Phase II: $117 million Phase III-Through Summer of 2009 Second new graduate residence hall ($50 million) A second new graduate dorm would bring on-campus graduate student housing to 47%. Incorporating other MIT-owned properties, including 1010 Massachusetts Avenue, the percentage would be over 50%. Remainder of deferred maintenance schedule ($58 million) The $58 million amount arises from the original estimate ($130 million), minus $45 million in life-safety systems (approved by CRSP) and the $27 million of EC renovations in Phase II. Renovations to Walker Memorial The only way to implement a competitive dining system (as the Institute Dining Review specified) is to renovate Walker Memorial into a space that can serve as a flagship for the center of campus. In addition, a new Walker Memorial would provide badly-needed program and activity office space. The $25 million estimate comes from the recent Walker Memorial renovation committee work. Conclusion The quality of student life is heavily dependent upon the quality of the living and learning environment. It is important that MIT maintain the physical structures of its buildings in a manner that is supportive of the changing needs of students. Technology and larger class sizes are placing increased strain on the facilities. MIT should set and meet the goal of an equilibrium state in the facilities renewal process, preventing such renewal backlogs from occurring in the future. ------------------------------------------------------------ Section 6: Management and Governance ------------------------------------------------------------ Successful management and governance of the residential system is vital if the new system is to fulfill its objectives. In this section, we propose several new programs and policies that, we believe, will bring about successful oversight of the residential system. As in the previous sections, most of our recommendations are based upon previous residential system reports, or generally-accepted techniques from the relevant academic literature. 6.1 Division of Responsibilities The MIT senior administration, administrators of ODSUE, student governments, and appropriate faculty committees and housemasters should convene a conference in the Spring of 1999. This conference shall create a general agreement that: (1) assigns the responsibilities for oversight and management of the residential system to the conference parties, and (2) defines how the parties shall communicate with each other on pending issues and resolve disputes. The RSSC's final report best explains the rationale for this proposal: In our many discussions with hundreds of students, faculty, staff, and alumni/ae about our residence system, a fundamental issue is always one of authority, responsibility and accountability. Not only our are students unclear on these matters, so too are our staff and faculty. We would submit that the residence system cannot possibly function well if its contributors do not understand where the authority, responsibility, accountability, and resource control lies. [1] This proposal provides an effective way to implement the RSSC's recommendation. We suggest that the conference be repeated every 4 years or so, to account for changing circumstances facing the Institute. 6.2 The Student Life Council Following the conference, MIT should convene a Student Life Council. The purposes of the Council shall be similar those specified in Principles for an MIT Residential System: * Provide a predictable forum and venue for the regular interaction and consultation among residence system stakeholders; * Assure that student life issues will get on-going, not episodic or disjointed attention; and * Provide a framework to ensure that initiatives reflect a consensus on academic / residence matters, student life, campus affairs and management issues related to the student life systems. [2] We believe that the purposes for this recommendation are self-explanatory, and that this recommendation will further mitigate the division-of-responsibilities problems highlighted by the RSSC above. We do differ with the Principles document on the scope of the Council. The Principles recommends a council that would deal solely with residential issues. We believe that the various aspects of a students' life at MIT -- including residence life, community involvement, academics, and research -- are far too integrated to allow for a single area to be addressed by itself. Hence, we call for a "Student Life Council" that would address all student life issues from an integrated perspective. The Student Life Council would be responsible for strategic planning for the student life system, monitoring student quality of life issues, and supervising community-wide programming. To fulfill these duties, the Council shall: * Serve as a forum for student life-related, cross-cutting issues, and advise senior Institute officials and the Corporation on any and all matters pertaining to student life. * Consider capital projects, including proposals for new construction and proposals for renovations. The Council shall identify the scope and goals of these projects. * Develop a unified strategic plan for the student life system, focusing on those areas under the jurisidiction of ODSUE. This plan shall be updated annually. It shall include a statement of needs and priorities that shall be the basis of ODSUE's budgeting process. * Monitor the state of student life at MIT, and make (or advocate for) any changes implied by the results of the monitoring process. * Coordinate community-wide programs. Most of these roles for the Council have previously been specified by the Principles document. This proposal simply expands these roles to cover the entire student life process, and clarifies the calls for strategic planning and monitoring in the Principles to include specific deliverables. The roles do extend the authority of the Council somewhat. In the Principles, the Council had a strictly advisory role; here, we recommend that the Council be the primary body for doing strategic planning and evaluation. We recommend this change for several important reasons. First, we strongly support principles of community-based planning. We recognize that all of the interests and expertise of MIT's student affairs community must be included in the planning process if the community's student affairs needs are to be properly identified and satisfied. The Council would provide the unifying body for all student life offices and all members of the community needed for inclusive planning. Second, including representatives of the community in the planning process will greatly improve the chances of building consensus for improvements, and will do much to alleviate the inter-community strains that have seriously undermined efforts to improve student life (as identified by the both the RSSC Final Report and the Principles). Note that community-based planning is now a widely accepted concept; major works concerning community-based planning (value of doing, as well as implementation methods) include those of Keeney [3], Gregory and Keeney [4], and Susskind [5]. Further, the Harvard Cooperative Society's Board of Directors provides a powerful "existence proof" of the value of community management. The Board of Directors comprises the President (a professional manager), eleven members who are alums or staff of Harvard and MIT, and elevent student members. The alumni and student members have jointly been responsible for developing and implementing a number of initiatives vital to the continued health of the Coop. [6] Students and faculty may be found in important decision-making entities at other institutions of higher learning, as well. The Dorm Design Team such a found such a body at England's Cambridge University, on their observational visit in April, 1999. (A similar "Student Life Council" was included in that team's entry in the 1999 IAP design contest.) The following excerpt from their report [7] illuminates the structure of the University Council. Since the 1960s, students have had a significant role in the governance of the university. The University Council includes three student members, two of whom are undergraduates. These students are permitted a one-year leave of absence from their studies so that they may concentrate their attentions on the business of student governance. Other members of the Council are drawn from heads of colleges, professors, readers, and lecturers. The Council provides a critical forum at the highest level of the administration, at which students, some of the most important stakeholders in the university, are involved in the process of executive decision-making. The Council structure is a working example whose role is similar to what we envision for our proposed Student Life Council. The Council's function is not advisory to any other body; it is the university's most senior executive decision-making body. In addition, this proposal would not require a significant cessation of power on the part of the Dean's Office. The Dean of ODSUE would be the President of the Council, and the Chair of the Strategic Planning Committee (see below). The various subcommittees of the Council may be expanded to include those staff members who should have a say in strategic planning, as well. The Council shall have the following standing committees: * Strategic Planning Committee * Programming Committee * Monitoring Committee Membership on these committees shall not be limited to the members of the Council; the Dean of ODSUE, as well as the Council as a whole, may appoint other members of the community to these committees. The wider membership of the three committees offers a formal venue for overlapping and complementary student government structures (usually committees of the UA, GSC, InterFraternity Council, Dormitory Council, and Association of Student Activities) to confer on pressing student life issues. Currently, the various organizations each maintain separate committees and subcommittees that pursue relevant agenda items. The three SLC committees should further recent attempts at effective, close inter-governmental cooperation, and should help make that process easier and more permanent. The central authority of the SLC also allows student, faculty, and staff interest groups and governments to more productively channel their lobbying efforts. Today, grievances must often be directed at a variety of administrators in a number of locations, none of whom are fully accountable for any one issue at a broad level. Many times, students and faculty are unable to navigate the Institute's organizational chart far enough to discover the person or body with jurisdiction over a particular policy. The Strategic Planning Committee would be the subcommittee responsible for developing and maintaining the strategic plan for student life. It would be chaired by the Dean of ODSUE, who may appoint other staff members to the Committee, such as Department heads.(usually separately and redundantly) The Programming Committee would coordinate and fund campus-wide activities. It would have approximately $200,000 annually to spend on these events. This Committee is discussed in more detail in Section 4. It should include both members of the Council and all staff and students who direct most of the current on-campus programming. The Monitoring Committee has two major roles. First, it would be responsible for managing regular evaluations of the student life system. To do so, the committee would sponsor annual surveys and regular focus groups of students, faculty, staff, and alumni. The group would also meet regularly with members of other bodies concerned with student life issues, such as the Institute Committee on Student Affairs, the Committee on the Undergraduate Program, and the Committee on Graduate School Program. Second, the Committee would compare the status of the student life system with the goals set in the strategic plan and other Institute goals concerning student life, and would report its findings to the Compensation Committees of the Corporation (see section 6.5). The Council shall have the following officers: * The Dean of ODSUE shall be the President of the Council. She shall present a report and agenda to the Council for each meeting. She shall represent the Council to other MIT bodies. * Two members of the Council shall be elected Chair and Vice Chair of the Council. They shall be responsible for organizing meetings, preparing the agendas, facilitating the meetings, and ensuring that minutes are written and distributed in a timely manner. This arrangement is similar to that used by many corporations, including the Harvard Cooperative Society's Board of Directors. The Council shall comprise the following members: * Four student members, two graduate students and two undergraduate students. * Four faculty members. * Four members of the Administration, including the Dean of ODSUE. All members will serve a one-year terms. However, a member may succeed themselves multiple times (no term limits). We believe that this distribution of members successfully represents the various parties involved in student life issues (students, faculty and staff) while keeping the size of the Council manageable. We would be willing to add alumni members, as well, if there is an interest in doing so on the part of the MIT Corporation or the Alumni Association. We recognize that there are some members of the community who oppose placing students in positions of responsibility with the Institute. However, we offer the following arguments as to why students can and should be included on the Council: * Students are more experienced with student life systems and programs than anyone else at MIT, as they "live the current system". They therefore have vital insights that will be needed if the student life system is to meet its goals. Further, students, through research, classwork, and experience, often know about the latest developments in management, planning, and organizational learning. These developments often provide invaluable assistance to strategic planning and evaluation processes. * One objection sometimes heard is that students cannot motivate major improvements. There are a number of proofs-by-existence that counter this objection. At MIT, students successfully served in management roles during Student Services Reengineering, even managing teams that included administrators. Students largely designed the procedures and evaluation techniques used during the Institute Dining Review. Finally, students have spearheaded several vital initiatives for the Harvard Cooperative Society [6]. * We appreciate concerns that students (or non-supervising staff or faculty, for that matter) should not be viewing confidential personnel information. Since the Student Life Council will be concerned with general strategic planning and evaluation, members of the Council have no need to see such confidential information. While it is true that the Monitoring Committee will make regular reports to the Compensation Committees, these reports will be limited to information about progress towards student life goals. The Monitoring Committee will not set bonus awards, nor will they see any personal information about them. * The professional caliber of the students will be ensured by the selection process described below. The student members shall be chosen as follows: * One member shall be the President of the Undergraduate Association, or a designee approved by the UA Council. * One member shall be the President of the Graduate Student Council, or a designee approved by the Council. * The remaining two members (graduate and undergraduate) shall go through the following selection process: they shall first be interviewed by a Nominations Committee appointed by the Student Life Committee. The Nominations Committee shall select several candidates for each position. The student body shall then receive ballots listing the candidates for each position, along with a c.v. and statement from each candidate. The students shall then rank their choices for each position, and the top vote-getters, as determined by preferential balloting, shall be appointed to the Council. By setting these selection procedures, we believe that we will ensure that only the most experienced and professional students will be appointed to the Council. The GSC and UA Presidents are the recognized representatives of the graduate and undergraduate student bodies, and should therefore win seats on the Council. The other two student members are appointed by a process similar to that used by the MIT Corporation in selecting recent alumni members. To foster transparency and accountability, the Council shall: * Post edited versions of Council and Council Committee meeting minutes to public web sites. * Ensure that members regularly attend the meetings of other student life organizations, such as student government meetings, Institute Committee meetings, and Housemaster meetings. These recommendations are intended to ensure that (1) the Council receives the input it needs to make decisions in the best interest of the Community, and (2) the Community has faith in the efforts of the Council. Both are vital if the Council is to succeed. In fulfilling its strategic planning, programming, and evaluation roles, the Council and its Committees shall use standard procedures that conform to Level 3 of the Systems Engineering Capability Maturity Model. This recommendation will ensure the continued effectiveness of the Council through organizational learning. We recognize that there is a great deal of anxiety that organizational learning requires unacceptably voluminous paperwork and red tape. In the last subsection of Section 5, however, we will explain Level 3 in detail, and show (1) that it can be done with reasonable effort (only a few minutes per week for most activities), and (2) that the results are well worth the effort. 6.3 System Assessment The residence system must be regularly evaluated to insure that its goals are being met. As discussed above, we recommend that the Monitoring Committee of the Student Life Council be responsible for coordinating the monitoring of the residence system and other student life systems. We make several recommendations concerning system evaluation. In evaluating the residential system, the Monitoring Committee shall use the principles established by "Principles for the MIT Residential System", as supplemented by the principles and objectives established in Section Three of this report. Further, the Committee shall use the following measures: * Progress in carrying out the programming recommendations listed in Section 5, and in carrying out the capital projects listed in Section 6. * Progress towards meeting the "Characterisics of an Excellent Residential System" as described in Section 5 of the RSSC's Final Report. * General approval measures, as received from students, faculty, staff, and alumni. The Committee shall use the following techniques to measure system performance: * Surveys. At least one major survey shall be sponsored by the Committee per year. The survey shall include general approval questions along with specific questions related to the indicators listed below. * Focus groups. The Committee shall sponsor at least one round of focus groups about various student life issues per year. The focus groups shall include sessions with all members of the community, including students, faculty, staff, and alumni. * Facilities inspections. * Deliberative evaluations, which shall include input from other student life organizations, such as Institute Committees and student governments. The measures relate directly to the recommendations in this report and in other recent residence system reports. The techniques given are those generally used to do evaluations, and balance traditional social research techniques with thoughtful deliberation. The regular evaluation schedules ensure that the MIT community will have access to accurate information about the state of the residential and student life systems. 6.4 Performance Management ...Striking too was the fact that so little has changed in our residential system: shortcomings identified a generation ago, including overcrowding and the perceived dichotomy between the academic and out-of-classroom experience (the residence as "refuge"), still persist. In some ways, conditions have worsened in recent decades, witnessed by the elimination of common dining in many of the residence halls in the 80s, the effects of deferred maintenance, and our difficulty in establishing and enforcing a uniform code of conduct in all living groups. -- From "Principles for the MIT Residential System" [8] As pressing as these [residence system] resource problems are, however, it is not fair to expect them to be meaningfully addressed until faculty and staff professionals are personally responsible to produce excellent results within the residence system. Resources tend to flow to those areas upon which professional advancement depends. Where the delivery of an excellent educational product within the residence system becomes a primary metric of advancement, we anticipate additional resources will be made available. -- From the "Final Report of the Residence System Steering Committee" [9] The recommendations in this section are likely to be some of the most controversial in the entire proposal. Nonetheless, we believe that they are also some of the most critical if the goals of the residence system are to be achieved. In brief, we believe that those charged with maintaining the residence system must be evaluated on how well the residence system meets its goals. As far as we are aware, this is a new idea for MIT. In much of the rest of the world, performance management is now widely seen as a necessary condition for the success of fundamental reforms, such as reengineering projects. The importance of performance management is taught in classes such as 15.568 (Management Information Systems, taught by Professor John F. Rockart), and 15.901 (Strategic Management, taught Professor Starling Hunter). Indeed, we have heard that one well-known management consulting firm, Ernst & Young, now advises its Reengineering clients that they will be unlikely to succeed unless their employees are compensated, in part, on well how the objectives of the Reengineering effort are carried out. [10] We make the following recommendations concerning peformance management. All senior administrators responsible for the welfare of the student life system, and in identifying and providing resources to the student life system, shall be eligible to receive a bonus based on the status of the student life system. * The bonus regularly achievable shall be 10-15% of the administrator's base salary. Greater bonuses may be awarded for exceptional performance. * Bonuses shall be decided by committees established by the MIT Corporation. No students shall serve on these Compensation Committees; however, all Committees will include at least one Corporation member who has received a degree from MIT within the last ten years. * Administrators who shall be eligible for student-life bonuses include the President, Provost, Chancellor, and Executive Vice President of the Institute; the Dean of ODSUE and all other ODSUE administrators holding the rank of Dean; and other administrators that the Corporation may designate. * Compensation committees shall use the following guidelines in making bonus determinations. At the start of every fiscal year, the committee shall determine a set of goals for the eligible adminstrator in consultation with that administrator, along with monetary awards for achieving each goal. During the same time, the committee shall review the progress of the administrator in achieving the goals of the previous year, and shall grant awards in accordance with the administrator's progress. This process is very similar to compensation processes for senior executives used by many organizations. We have made several changes to the basic process. First, in most organizations the Board of Directors sets compensation for senior Executives; at MIT, that role is played by the Corporation. Second, we have eliminated students from the Compensation Committees in response to concerns that students should not have access to personnel information. However, we do recommend that at least one member of each Committee be a recent alum of MIT, as recent experience with the MIT student life system will be vital in evaluating progress within it. All employees involved with student life systems should be evaluated, in part, on the progress of student life systems. * Annual evaluation mechanisms (e.g. Annual Personnel Records) will include entries for individuals to record participation with, and achievement in, student life systems. * All employees shall have the opportunity to receive bonuses based on achievement within student life systems. These bonuses shall be adjudicated by compensation committees within the MIT administration. * Salary and promotion decisions for staff members (including senior administrators) shall reflect positively on achievements within the residential system. If the residence system (and all other student life systems) are to be successful, rewards for progress must be expanded to all student-life employees responsible for its day-to-day operation. Again, this recommendation is similar to employee recognition programs in other organizations, and follows similar recommendations in the RSSC's final report. [11] It should be noted that rewards and recognition for achievement within the residential system should extend to all members of the Community, not just staff members. However, recognition for faculty, students, and alumni needs to be thought of differently than the conventional performance management recommendations discussed in this section, since they are not employees of the Institute charged with the welfare of the student life system. Consequently, recognition for students, faculty, staff, and alumni was discussed in Section 4. 6.5 Process Management Student life decision-making and implementation should be done in accordance in modern project and process management principles. In particular, making and implementing student life policy should be done in accordance with Level 3 of the Systems Engineering Capability Maturity Model [13]. Projects should be managed in accordance with the Project Management Institute's "Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge" (PMBOK) [14]. We believe that this recommendation is also one of the most important. Currently, there is little formal planning in making new student life policies. There is also no organizational learning that allows new designing and implementing groups to learn from previous groups. The unfortunate result has been that many efforts designed to improve student life have met with failure [12]. Consequently, in the words of the RSSC's Final Report, "the `Characteristics of an Excellent MIT Residence System' . . . describe a system that in many respects is very different from the current one." [1]. The benefits of project management (which includes planning and implementation techniques) will include the following: * Project members and the MIT community will have a clear understanding of what a given project is supposed to do (the "scope" of the project). This will give the project clear goals to address, and provide a clear baseline for performance measurement. Knowing the scope of the project will help prevent the project from being sidetracked. * Project planning guides tradeoffs between quality, cost, and time of project completion. It also identifies critical risks. Further, planning allow senior managers to coordinate efforts to make sure that all projects have the resources and information needed to be successful. * Project execution techniques ensure that project members work on tasks necessary to completion of the project, that quality is maintained, and that the scope of the project remains in focus. The benefits of organizational learning, as defined by the Capability Maturity Models, include: * Student life decision-makers and implenters will be able to learn from previous efforts, both in terms of what went well and what pitfalls to avoid. To paraphrase MIT's Chancellor, Larry Bacow, using organizational learning will free decision-makers to "make new mistakes" without repeating old ones. This is particularly important considering that MIT experiences high turnover, especially among students. * Student life decision-makers will be able to organize what works best into standard processes. Standard processes will greatly expedite the amount of time it takes to do tasks common to all student-life improvement efforts, and will greatly improve on the quality of the results of the efforts. [Details to be added.] References 1. Final Report of the Residence System Steering Committee. September 7, 1999. Section 6.B.1. 2. Principles for the MIT Residential System: Report of a Working Committee. September 1998. Section 3.D. 3. Keeney, R. Value-Focused Thinking. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992. 4. Gregory, R. and R.L. Keeney. "Creating Policy Alternatives Using Stakeholder Values." Management Science, Vol. 40, No. 8, 1035-1048. 5. Susskind, Lawrence, and Jeffrey Cruikshank. Breaking the Impasse. New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1987. 6. Comments of John S. Hollywood G, who is a third-year member of the the Coop's Board of Directors. 7. A Creative Tension: The report of the Dorm Design Team to the Residence System Steering Committee on the Cambridge college system and its American analogues. April 26, 1999. Available at http://web.mit.edu/residence/systemdesign/cambridge1.html 8. Principles, Section 1. 9. Final Report, Section 6.B.2. 10. John S. Hollywood G. Hollywood completed 15.901 and 15.568, and worked on a 15.568 group project with a consultant from Ernst and Young. 11. Final Report, Section 5.A.3-4. 12. Concerns over repeated failures over student life improvement groups reached such a high level that in 1995, a group of faculty led by Professor Larry Bacow was asked to study why previous efforts failed. 13. Carnegie Mellon Software Engineering Institute, Roger Bate, Chief Architect. Systems Engineering Capability Model. November, 1995. Available at: http://www.sei.cmu.edu/cmm/se-cmm.html 14. Project Management Institute. A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge. 1999 (updated regularly). Available at: http://www.pmi.org/publictn/pmboktoc.htm ------------------------------------------------------------ Section 7: Orientation and Residence System ------------------------------------------------------------ Outline I. Strengths & Needs II. Residence Hall and Room Selection III. Orientation IV. Theme Houses V. Member Recruitment and Selection for FSILGs VI. Fall and Spring Dormitory Lotteries VII. Housing Guarantee VIII. Financial Support for FSILGs IX: Graduate Students in FSILGs Strengths and Needs Overall, our residence system is a strength. Of our peer institutions, the MIT Residential Experience is rated highest, according to the Spring 1996 Cycles Survey (86.8% satisfied). Compared to the average of the peer institutions, significantly more students are "very satisfied" with MIT's residential experience (52.30% vs. 34.3%). We are above average in inter-residence interaction, social life, and ranked third in campus community. The Orientation 1998 survey indicates that 89 percent of student were satisfied with their choice of living group, up 2% from 1997 and 9% from 1994. In fact, 70% of students were "very satisified" with their choice of living group, up from 63% in 1997 and from 45% in 1994. In 1998, only 3% of students were "very dissatisfied" with their living group selection, down from 7% in 1997 and 12% in 1994. As Associate Dean Alberta Lipson points out in the Orientation Survey results, 1998's Orientation represented "a break from the past." Orientation had a significantly diminished focus on residence selection, while still allowing freshmen choice during Orientation. However, a non-negligible number of our students have a difficult, stressful time selecting a living group. Two-fifths of incoming freshmen in 1998 and one-third in 1997 indicated that the housing decision was difficult. One-eighth of the 1998 freshmen and one-fifth of the 1997 freshmen students felt that they had insufficient information to make a decision. One-fifth of the 1998 freshmen and one-third of the 1997 freshmen felt that they did not have sufficient time. Also, according to the 1998 Senior Survey, 21 percent of students had a negative attitude towards choosing a living group during the first week, and 22 percent of students in the 1994 Senior Survey. It is crucial that a new residence system address this 10-30% of students who did not have optimal residence selection experiences, while preserving the strengths of the system experienced by the remaining 70-90 percent. MIT's 36 residential FSILGs provide a diversity of living options unparalleled in higher education. While FSILGs are not for everyone, they do provide more opportunities for leadership and service and allow students to experience a greater degree of mutual support and responsibility than is possible in a residence hall. Many FSILGs also provide lifetime membership in international or national organizations that can provide community decades after members have left MIT. FSILGs provide more cost-effective housing and meal options than do MIT residence halls. Also, as the Phase II Status Report of the RSSC says, "the FSILG system has been a leader at MIT in mentoring and advising freshmen" and allowing that relationship to continue to grow, even if freshmen cannot live in FSILGs, can only benefit the freshmen and MIT. The satisfaction rates for FSILGs are higher than those for residence halls. "The 1994 Senior Survey showed that 93 percent of independent living group residents were either satisfied or very satisfied with their living group experience, compared with 80 percent of dormitory residents." (TFSLL, p66) The residence halls of the Institute also provide vibrant living environments that provide a diversity of supportive living environments for undergraduates. The dormitories have demonstrated their ability to run successful programming with minimal funding and support, and as MIT invests in its residences the quality of live is sure to continue to improve. The informal support networks that have developed in many cases rival those found in FSILGs. Dormitory-internal living groups, both the formal Theme Houses and less formal hallways and entries, provide distinct residential environments that cater to a variety of interests and lifestyles. Two other notable strengths of the MIT residential system are the four year housing guarantee and the new and innovated Pre-Orientation programs. We readily acknowledge that MIT's residences are not perfect. MIT has grossly under-recognized and under-supported the residence system for most of its history. Noted weaknesses of the system are poor facility maintenance, low faculty involvement in residential life, a shortage of graduate student housing, and unwarranted crowding in the residence halls. No one should confuse the failures of the current system with the failures of MIT to support that system. Residence Hall and Room Selection The residence hall selection process will happen in two phases. Incoming freshmen will have the opportunity to make a preliminary choice of a residence hall during the summer. They will be provided with literature in various media produced by the residence halls as well as contact information for each residence hall. The purpose of providing information and the ability to contact residents of a dormitory is to increase the ability of the freshmen to pick an housing environment where they would feel welcome and comfortable. The freshmen will submit a ranked list of residence halls and information about their preferences in a living environment. During Orientation, all freshmen will be required to actively confirm their summer choice of residence or enter a lottery with a new ranking of residence halls (which may include their current assignment). Two freshmen may choose to lottery together. The purpose of this lottery is to enable freshmen to change their dormitory if their choice, based on limited information over the summer, is not what they expected. Two freshmen should be able to staple together so that freshmen who meet and become friends during Orientation are able to become roommates, and we hope that internal dormitory room assignments will take that into account. We believe that groups larger than two should not be permitted because that could create isolated groups within dormitories or be incompatible with internal rooming assignments. Following this lottery, dormitories will do internal rooming assignments by a mechanism determined by the dormitory government and approved by the Student Life Council. The freshmen will have the opportunity to meet members and examine rooms from all parts of the dormitory. Upperclassmen should be given the ability to positively select freshmen for internal divisions of a residence hall (e.g. the halls of East Campus or the entries of MacGregor) but not the ability to deny or "blacklist" a freshmen the ability to choose a particular internal division of a residence hall. Upperclassmen who share rooms or suites with freshmen must be given the ability to chose mutually acceptable living arrangements. We believe that upperclassmen, because of their experience with and knowledge about the living groups within their dormitories, are able to positively contribute to the freshmen selection process, but we recognize that granting the power to deny freshmen a particular room is inappropriate. Giving upperclassmen the opportunity to preferentially attract freshmen with compatible personalities improves the frequency and productivity of informal interaction, including everything from help with problem sets to sewing advice. Upperclassmen should not have the ability to unkindly bounce a freshman somehow labeled as "undesirable" from place to place, nor should an exclusionary attitude dominate the beginning of the MIT experience. Any positive selection means should be confidential and only available to rooming chairs. All in all, we hope that the proposed residence selection system will help eliminate roommate, floormate, and housemate "horror stories" from the MIT experience, by allowing freshmen and upperclassmen to make mutually compatible living arrangements in a informative, low-pressure, informal social environment. This system removes much of the pace and pressure of orientation while enabling a degree of the self-selection which has produced the current vibrant communities in residence halls. We were very reluctant to agree to any form of summer pre-selection but recognize that it is in the best interests of the Institute to do so. Orientation "The central purpose of orientation should be to create the feeling of joining a single, campus-wide community. To do this, there should be more activities that involve faculty, graduate students, and undergraduate students in shared experiences. Orientation events must be more than pro forma exercises to be endured. If each orientation experience has a constructive purpose, students could be expected to take them seriously." (TFSLL p43) From the Task Force's recommendation and our own experience and wisdom we suggest freshmen should be able to do the following by the end of Orientation: * describe the purpose of the General Institute Requirements * describe the purpose of UROP * briefly describe all five schools * name two faculty members they have had real conversations with * name at least a dozen freshmen they have had real conversations with * name at least a dozen upperclassmen they have had real conversations with * name at least half-a-dozen graduate students they have had real conversations with * name four off-campus restaurants * know at least three cultural opportunities in Boston/Cambridge * name all residence halls and be able to give a brief description of at least one-third * name at least a dozen FSILGs and be able to give a brief description of at least one-third * name at least ten departments * name at least half-a-dozen undergraduates on different athletic teams * name at least half-a-dozen undergraduates in different activities * briefly describe MIT's research agenda * summarize the educational mission of MIT * describe the mission of Academic Services, Counseling and Support Services, and the Office of Career and Pre-professional Advising * know the name, email, and phone number of their advisor(s) * honestly say that Orientation was a worthwhile and enjoyable time To achieve these goals, we believe the following events need occur: * Pre-Orientation * introduction to academics, especially the General Institute Requirements * introduction to research, especially the Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program * introduction to resources for students * introduction to advisor(s) * introduction to student activities * introduction to residence options * introduction to athletic opportunities * ample time for informal interactions (a.ka. fun) with community members, including not only undergraduates but also graduate students, faculty, alumni, and staff. Pre-Orientation programs should continue to be supported and developed. The goals should be to accommodate all freshmen who wish to take part in a Pre-Orientation program and to raise freshmen interest to near 100%. In order to provide equal access, freshmen should not be required to pay additional fees to participate in Pre-Orientation programs. Corporate sponsorship, such as that obtained for the inaugural Freshman Outdoors Program, may be beneficial. These programs should provide experiences not typically available during the term and enable freshmen to get to know each other and other members of the MIT community. A possible schedule: SATURDAY: Freshmen arrive for Pre-Orientation programs. Parents Orientation occurs. SUNDAY: Pre-Orientation begins. Parents Orientation continues. MONDAY-WEDNESDAY: Pre-Orientation. THURSDAY: Presidents Convocation. Freshmen meet Orientation Groups. Faculty Welcome Dinner. FRIDAY: Academic Expo. Core Blitz. Meetings with Advisors. Residence Midway SATURDAY: Athletics Gateway. Activities Midway. Carnival begins. SUNDAY: Carnival. The Carnival is intended as an evening and day of fun for freshmen and will take place primarily on Briggs Field. Events may be run by residence halls, student groups, academic departments, FSILGs, or staff. The Student Life Council should set minimal guidelines for such events. MONDAY: Introduction to UROP. Freshmen Lab Explorations. Dormitory Open Houses. TUESDAY: Meetings with Advisors. Introduction to Alternative Freshmen Programs. Dormitory Lottery due 5pm. WEDNESDAY: Meetings with Advisors. Explorations in Boston with Orientation Groups. Dormitory Lottery results out by 5pm. Dormitory meetings and internal tours in the evening. THURSDAY: Move into rooms. Pre-registration due. FRIDAY: Community service event; Picnic with Wellesley/BU/BC. SATURDAY-MONDAY: Open social time. TUESDAY: Registration Day. WEDNESDAY: First Day of Classes. Theme Houses MIT should provide housing options that will best support its diverse community. To this end, a limited number of theme houses would be beneficial to students. Approval for houses should necessarily require that it add to a diversity of options in the residence system, and not compete with existing student groups or living options. Theme houses must be able to defend the necessity of being a residential group as opposed to a non-residential student activity. Approval should also require that the theme reinforce MIT's educational mission. It is crucial that the theme houses maintain character through some sort of selection process. The theme house should have the opportunity to fill all vacancies within their assigned areas in either one of the following manners, or they may use a combination of the two. The first method consists of recruiting Freshmen, Sophomores, and Juniors at the end of a Spring Term to live in the House in question starting at the beginning of the following Fall Semester. The second method consists of compelling all future Freshmen to sign a commitment, approved by the Student Life Council, that says they will be willing to do the house duties that are required of them for membership. If the commitment is violated (as in the house member in question refuses to complete the work required of him), then an administrative channel will exist which will allow the house to have the member moved out of the house and replaced with a person who has their approval. Member Recruitment and Selection for Fraternities, Sororities, and Independent Living Groups As was discussed in the Needs and Strengths section, Fraternities, Sororities and Independent Living Groups fill a valuable niche in MIT's educational mission, provide unparalleled support, are a cost effective housing option for undergraduate students, and provide co- and extra-curricular opportunities not available in residence halls. The Institute should make every effort to encourage freshmen to consider their upperclass housing options and to facilitate and support that process. The Interfraternity Council, in consultation with the Residential Life Office and the Student Life Council, will set guidelines for the new member recruitment and selection process. We recommend that the IFC take special care to address issues about hard flushing and repeat violators of Rush rules. The Institute should expect that the IFC will not run a rush that will compete with established Orientation activities. The administration should work closely with the IFC to ensure periods of recruitment that fit well into the MIT calendar and are as free of academic pressure as possible given the time(s) of the year. We anticipate that the IFC will choose to hold one such recruitment period in September for non-residential freshmen members. We note that each FSILG chooses its members in a manner consistent with its own constitution and principles. The current organized system of Rush is enabled by voluntary coordination and cooperation of the member houses of the Interfraternity Council, not by imposition from the outside. We fear that attempts to place undue restrictions on the FSILG rush process will create more problems than it will solve - cooperation, not control, is the correct attitude. Fall and Spring Dormitory Lotteries A dormitory lottery will be held in November of the fall term for housing in the following spring term and March of the spring term for the following fall term. These lotteries will be mandatory for all MIT undergraduates and one of the options will be to confirm their current residence. Two students may lottery together. This system lowers the barriers to change residence halls, making it much easier for students to live in more than one living environment, should they choose to do so. As the RSSC notes, the current system can perpetuate the idea that each student has only one place where they could find a home. Institutionalizing and socializing the idea of residence flexibility will encourage cross-community interaction because students are likely to visit their friends in former residence halls and in residences they are considering for the future. We believe that producing systemic instability by removing the ability of freshmen to stay in their freshmen year residence hall is incompatible with our goals of "house, home and community" by forcing people out of their home, their support structure. We understand that this system could cause the evolution of dormitories with disparate ratios of freshmen to upperclassmen, if living group demographic balancing does not happen on it own. We have no evidence to believe that a leveling would not happen, but should this be the case, the Student Life Council should interfere, if the unbalance is extreme. The most effective strategy for the SLC is likely a system of economic incentives. A blanket removal of squatting rights should be avoided if possible. We have also considered the argument that allowing freshmen to remain in their freshmen dormitories may decrease the incentive to consider Fraternities, Sororities, and Independent Living Groups. We do not disagree with this argument, but we believe that the effects of squatting on new member recruitment will be minimal and, more importantly, that the costs are too high. Housing Guarantee Housing will be guaranteed for four years to all undergraduates. The current guarantee of contiguous housing for students is a valued part of the recruitment process of MIT and an important part of the educational value of the residence system. The pace and pressure of the academic rigors of the Institute are widely acknowledged, and always knowing you will have a roof over your head removes a potential source of significant stress. MIT's current residence system has an acknowledged problem in that it 'crowds' students into lounges because there is not enough space in the residence halls to house all undergraduates who would like to do so. Even with the new residence hall, there will still not be enough spaces for undergraduates in the future system. In addition, the evolution of the FSILG system may also result in more undergraduates needing Institute housing. Though this effect may be temporary, as FSILGs learn to recruit in a radically new environment, the problem must still be addressed in the short term. We recommend the following prioritized solution: a. Crowd existing dormitory space and spread such crowding as evenly as possible between residence halls. b. Rent non-residence hall space for undergraduates, either on a per-room basis or entire buildings. c. Utilize graduate student housing for undergraduates. Provide subsidies for out-of-system graduate student housing. The subsidy should be equal to the number of graduate students who would be denied housing in sufficient amounts to equalize the price between out-of-system and in-system rents. d. Deny housing to rising seniors and provide those students with financial subsidies to equalize the price between out-of-system and in-system rents. Financial Support for Fraternities, Sororities, and Independent Living Groups In accordance with the recommendation of the Task Force on Student Life and Learning, MIT will provide direct financial support to FSILGs during the transition process. Supporting the FSILG system is important from an educational standpoint because of the different environments they provide for MIT students to live and learn, as briefly described above. FSILGs will be facing a radically different recruitment situation in 2001 and they must be given the opportunity to evolve to fit the new system. However, supporting the FSILG system also makes sense from a financial standpoint. The cost to create and maintain a 'bed' in an FSILG is substantially less than in a residence hall. To make the point dramatically - MIT could give every FSILG $1 million for a total of $38 million and it would still be less than the $45 million estimated cost of building the new 350-person residence hall - and FSILGs house more than 1400 students. It would be foolish for MIT to attempt to save money by being parsimonious with FSILG support. We recommend that MIT should transfer funds to each FSILG in June 2001 in the amount of (35%)(total house capacity)(standard house bill). During a period of five to seven years, this support should diminish to a steady state of zero support. The precise formula for this reduction should be determined by the IFC and Alumni IFC, in coordination with the relevant administrators. We recommend that the initial support be greater than the predicted shortfall in house bills to allow FSILGs to invest in their future. The new member recruitment and selection environment is a large unknown and will require experimentation to optimize in the new environment. Just as the Institute is investing in educational experiments to improve the undergraduate curriculum, it should invest in the FSILGs so that they can experiment to improve the education and support they provide to undergraduates. Independent houses that are in particular financial trouble may apply for special funding beyond the direct support granted to each house, and perhaps extending to a period beyond the regular period of support. We recommend that MIT make a one-time contribution to the Independent Residence Development Fund of 25 million dollars. MIT is currently sponsoring renovations of its residence halls and as our Capital Expenditures sections shows we expect that to continue. We believe that providing FSILGs the financial resources needed to upgrade and repair aging homes will improve the living environment of the resident students. As we have said elsewhere and as faculty and administrators should be quick to appreciate, the quality of your home can significantly affect the quality of your work. MIT should invest in its students' homes. We recommend that MIT purchase houses for the two sororities that are currently un-housed. The sorority system at MIT has grown dramatically since the founding of Alpha Phi in 1984. Three sororities currently have houses and the two un-houses sororities have more than sufficient members to fill a house. The sex balance in the Institute, on an undergraduate level, continues to move towards a 50-50 ratio and the availability of housing options should reflect that. McCormick does provide a valuable choice in the residential system for women seeking an all-female living environment and adding more independent living group options will only enhance the choices available to women. We recommend that MIT support any single-sex fraternity which wishes to become co-educational. This may include the purchase of the current chapter house from the national organization or the purchase of a new house. This is important both because of MIT's policy of non-discrimination but also to allow the demographics of the FSILG system to change with MIT's demographics. MIT will support FSILGs that wish to move closer to campus. The Institute can provide this support in allowing three basic options will be: (1) an FSILG may lease land from MIT and build a building on it; (2) an FSILG may lease a building built on MIT land; and (3) an FSILG may purchase land from a non-MIT entity and build a building on it. Graduate Students in Fraternities, Sororities, and Independent Living Groups FSILGs may choose to be listed as graduate housing options in MIT's publications regarding such matters. However, we do not support a program that relies on graduate students as the primary source of financial support for FSILGs. There will be two options for billing: either (1) MIT will pay the full regular house bill for each graduate student, and may bill the graduate student whatever it wishes; or (2) FSILGs may set their own house bill for graduate students and bill the graduate students directly. ---END OF FILE---