To: advise@MIT.EDU Subject: SAC Minutes, 9-21-1999 Date: Wed, 22 Sep 1999 15:29:06 -0400 From: Liana Lareau SAC Meeting, 9-21-1999 Present: John Hollywood, Shawn Kelly, Jen Frank, Jeff Roberts, Jennifer Berk, Matt McGann, Jeremy Sher, Liana Lareau, Lex Nemzer, Chris Beland, Aaron Ucko, Chris Rezek, Will Dichtel, Amir Mesarwi, Richard Barbalace, Winnie Chan The Alumni Leadership Conference will be occuring Fri. Sept. 31. The RSSC will be making a presentation. This may be a good opportunity for us to pass out information of some sort. Publicity: We have a good web page. We have some creative poster ideas. Money for copies will come from somewhere. Schedule: The point of this meeting is consensus on the ideas in the subgroup minutes or drafts. We will also try to decide on some overall goals and principles. By next Tuesday's meeting, groups should have their rough drafts in readable form. Introduction: The introduction should include a description of the process, and a justification for its existence: why it is legitimate (b/c the SAC exists to advise the Chancellor), why it is necessary (because we feel there were flaws in the RSSC process and report), why it is truly unified (because all together, we represent the student body pretty well, with elected and appointed people from many groups). Should we provide our rationale for decisions? Should we compare to RSSC and the current system? We need to explain why our solution is better, but this should perhaps be covered in the next section. Objectives/Goal: We need a main statement. Jeff's mail has some good comments about need for a unifying concept. We might want to incorporate statements of goals from the Task Force recommendation, but perhaps not. The residence system contribute to education, and keeps students happy. This should be expressed in a hierarchical structure: principle -> ideas -> implementation Jeff's mail said "student-directed, faculty-supported, staff-administered". Is this really what we want? We might change some of the words if we use it. Other goals: -provide competancies -home for students -support structure John discussed the "Delta Structure"- triangle with three concepts * system lock - monopoly / \ / \ / \ / \ *_________* "total best product solutions" System lock is mostly irrelevant because there are very few if any areas in which MIT has a monopoly overall. Currently, they don't have a residence system monopoly because of FSILGs and unaffiliated housing. Best product is perhaps where we are now - stuff students as full of knowledge as possible. Total solutions is where we should be... happy, well-educated nerds. Richard showed his arch cartoon [I can't reproduce it here, but it may end up as a spiffy graphic]. Basically, it has "livability" as the two pillars- emotional and physical supporting an arch with maintenance, etc, and a keystone of student choice. The arch supports the three columns of the academic triad, with a nice happy student on top. Tell MIT to "stop, look, listen!". Students *can't* be (more) unhappy because their wellbeing is the foundation of academic success. The current system has evolved and been built by students because they needed it. It is ridiculous to say that we are making a worse system just to meet a goal. Housing is the "last pillar of sanity" under students. Main Philosophy Educational value is important Happiness supports this Programming and Advising: We may want to add something about "educating the taste of students" to fit MIT's status as not just a vocational tech school. Also, there is an overlap between faculty/classes and programming. The rules of the faculty need to be enforced/augmented to allow time for other activites. Professors should reduce grunginess of problem sets if it's not teaching anything. The staff support for programming should be not just money but ideas - MIT should recruit experts from other universities since we've been so hideous at programming. Capital Expenditures: Should we remove the money for FSILG repairs? FSILGs are independent, and MIT doesn't win much from lending them money. But it's cheaper for MIT to pay for FSILG upkeep than build new space. Instead mention Independent Residence Development Fund and recommend that it get more attention from MIT. Grad student issues: we'd like to avoid being the "unified undergrad response" but do we know enough about the situation to make recommendations? Just requesting new grad dorms while avoiding other issues may hurt the effort in the long run. Still, we should reinforce the need for grad housing. Governance and Management: Add rationale for Student Life Council that it would solve communication and coordination difficulties, plus lack-of-time difficulties. Proposal to recommend that MIT adopt some of Cambridge U's governance structure, with students involved at higher levels. What is the scope of this - students in SLC, students on Corporation, students on Academic Council or Strategic Planning Group? All but the first may be much bigger issues than we want to deal with in this report, and may be out of the range of residence systems. Recommend that students be included in the SLC. Orientation and Residence Selection: Out of time, will discuss next time.