IV Elements of the New System A. Housing Options MIT has made a commitment to improving the freshman year experience by requiring all freshmen to live in residence halls. Such residence halls have been envisioned as being both safer and more suitable for freshmen than current residence options. Many people have in response expresssed concern that excluding freshmen from FSILG's will deny some freshmen opportunities for personal growth, since some FSILG's provide unique environments that are particularly suitable for certain freshmen. We propose a new residence system in which FSILG's that meet high standards will be incorporated into the housing system as residence halls. We propose that MIT undergraduate residence options be divided into two primary categories: MIT residence halls and MIT affiliated housing. Residence halls will implement programs and initiatives to contribute to the educational triad of academics, research, and community and will house both freshmen and upperclassmen. Affiliated housing will be compatible with the educational triad and will house upperclassmen. Both types of housing will be supported by graduate residence tutors/advisors and housemasters or other involved faculty and staff. Residence halls will include MIT owned dormitories or dormitory subunits and "theme housing". Theme housing will encompass existing arrangements (the language and cultural houses), additional units in the new residence hall, existing dormitory subunits that choose to participate, and existing FSILG houses that choose to participate. Affilated housing will include existing FSILG houses that choose not to participate as residence halls. 1. Residence Halls All residence halls must implement programming to ease the transition to the MIT environment, develop life skills, promote health and balance, and provide mentoring for students. Housemasters and other involved faculty will be responsible for leading their residence communities in developing and implementing these programs. Scenario: A housemaster initiates a series of discussions broadly relating to issues of health and balance. In the course of these discussions, the residence community collectively concludes that student distrust of MIT Medical and the campus police is a barrier to students seeking help. They decide to address this distrust by inviting individuals from the campus police and medical center to the residence for informal discussions, and asking that these organizations designate specific permanent liasons to their living group. Another residence community is also concerned with issues of health and balance, but identifies a lack of suitable late-night dining facilities as their most pressing problem. They decide to address this lack by forming a student-run shopping and cooking collective, which stocks a 24-hour open pantry. A third community decides that the health and balance of its members could be most improved by increasing opportunties to explore the city, experience nature, and interact with the wider world outside MIT. They elect an officer who schedules group trips to the MFA, the Arnold Arboretum, and the Walk-for-Hunger. Starting from the same list of generally desirable values, different residences will identify different concrete shortcomings in their environment, and may come up with uniquely appropriate ways of bettering their communities. 2. Specialized Residence Halls: Theme Houses Small, close-knit communities such as theme houses can provide especially suitable environments for fostering a family-like atmosphere and sense of belonging. Undertaking communal responsibilities such as meal preparation, maintenance, and new member integration provides students with special opportunities for self-development. Theme houses also benefit the MIT community by providing settings for learning about different cultures or philosophies. We emphasize that the formation of theme housing should be student driven. Possible themes might include substance free living, vegetarianism or environmentalism, community service, the performing arts, religion and spirituality, or any other theme that students desire to build their communities on. Additional ideas and information on theme housing at other schools may be found in a recent article from the Boston Globe ("Campus Housing Changes to Try to Suit Almost Every Taste," F3 9/27/98 -- see appendix). We propose that MIT's existing theme house program be expanded by allocating space in the new residence hall and providing encouragement for dormitory subunits and FSILG's interested in participating. While our proposal recommends welcoming FSILG's into the residence system as theme houses, each house will have to institute various levels of change to satisfy the necessary requirements. a. Qualifying for Theme House Status All theme houses must meet these requirements: 1. They will promote a theme of common interest that is compatible with the educational mission of MIT. 2. They will hold events or activities that enrich the MIT community, open to the entire community. Optionally, a house may also have non-residential members. 3. They will not preclude student members from non-residential membership in any other theme house or organization. 4. They will ensure adequate supervision of student members. 5. If not located inside a dormitory, they will strongly encourage members to become involved in cross-residence programs, and commit to programs to overcome the effects of geographical distance. This provision will also apply to dormitories located off the main campus. 6. If not located on MIT property, they may lease their property to MIT for a nominal fee if ORLSLP determines this to be desirable. We recommend that the Council on Student Life and Learning (described below) certify theme houses. Theme houses that are not part of a dormitory may choose to band together with other houses into circuits that share common non-residential housemasters, or may choose to affiliate with or annex themselves to a dormitory. Since the housemaster of such a theme house might not physically reside there, such houses will need other ways to satisfy requirement 4 above. Two possibilities include increasing the responsibilities of the graduate resident advisors or guaranteeing supervision of all events by alumni corporation board members. We believe that factors such as being substance free or coed should be taken into account when determining what an adequate level of supervision must be. b. Theme Houses in the Residence Lottery Because theme houses tend to have explicit social contracts among their residents (like speaking French during meals, or cooking communally), it is important for them to be able to self-select their new members. This is why the current dorm lottery system allows theme houses to approve freshman for assignment into the house. Our proposed lottery system is essentially the same as the current one in this respect. The residence lottery will allow freshmen to designate up to three theme houses as a top choice and then rank the other residence halls. The names of all freshmen who have listed a particular theme house as a top choice will be released to the house, along with information about which other theme houses (if any) the freshmen have selected. The houses will then work out among themselves which freshmen will be given spaces in which houses and notify the lottery administrators of the names of the freshmen who are to be assigned to each house. The lottery system will then assign all remaining freshmen to non-theme based residence halls. 3. Affiliated Housing Although affiliated houses will not house freshmen, they must satisfy requirements in order to qualify for MIT support. MIT has an obligation to ensure that all of the housing choices that it presents to its students: 1. Meet standards for facility maintainance 2. Provide an environment that supports academic achievement 3. Maintain safe behavior 4. Are good neighbors MIT should work with affiliated houses, their alumni corporations, the surrounding communities, and students's parents to help these houses satisfy these requirements. A residence council, standing committee, or adminitration in RCA would be responsible for certifying that each affiliated house meets these standards. We suggest that the certifying body be a standing committee with student, parent, faculty, staff, and administration representation. Affiliated houses may choose to either accept non-residential freshmen members who would move in during the summer between freshman and sophomore year or to wait until the sophomore year to accept new members (or some combination). MIT would support these houses by facilitating new member match-up during a set time before registration day fall term, however, houses may opt to replace or complement this time period with additional independent events at other times. If significant numbers of affiliated houses wish to have an additional set time period for new-member match-up (such as IAP), MIT should support and faciliated the additional time period.