| meeting minutes
DormCon Meeting Minutes - September 26, 2005
Present: BC Simmons Random EC Next Senior
Absent: Baker Bexley New McCormick macg
Introductions
Guests: Richard Berlin (director of campus dining)
Marietta Lamarre-Buck (campus dining)
Dining
Harvey
- wants centralized dining initiative
- wants to know how campus dining decisions made
Rich- try to make decisions w/students/faculty/staff (people affected)
- can be difficult to do during summer (people not around)
- been going off of online survey results
- trying to expand Preferred Dining (Pritchett, kosher dining at religious center, etc)
- adding Indian, Burger/Chili Cheese steak (student center)
- taking out Alpine Bagel, maybe putting in Asian Cuisine
- EC students want late-night cafe (8-1) run by students
Marietta
- in-dorm dining
- constantly expanding/changing menus (esp. Next House)
- listen to students, meeting vegetarian needs
Harvey
- what do you want from us students?
Rich
- student body always changing, must re-educate each year
- ideally have point person at each dorm
- meetings on regular basis where you can rely on students to be there
- Baker open 7 days a week
Marietta
- wants to be able to advertise services outside 4 dining dorms
- currently only has access to 4 dorms with dining chairs
- Nicole Purshing (simmons dining chair)- survey from Simmons
- people concerned about healthy food
- healthiest stations close earliest (before athletes get back)
- think food is bland (want more spices/spicy option)
- General comments on state of vegetarian dining at dorms
- Shauna - Burton Conner interested in receiving dining advertisements
- Harvey - Bon Apetit and Sydexo have different websites
- Rich - can unify information on centralized webpage
- Snaggs- Bon Apetit not in Pritchett?
- Rich- can't have Bon Apetit in Sydexo's space, but still part of Preferred Dining
- Chris - how well is Preferred Dining working? opt-out in future?
- Rich sees it as investment in community, getting people to eat together
- David - "celebrity dinners" doing well, getting people to converse
- Chris - likes "all-you-can-eat" nights
- Rich - not as popular with women (don't eat as much)
- can't bring home extras (good for keeping people in dining room)
- Marietta - McCormick doesn't do take-out option anymore
Nicole
- very split responses to all-you-can-eat option
- too much strain for staff for a mediocre response
Rich
- try out new (spicier) dishes in all-you-can-eat format and get feedback
- implement favorites as a-la-carte
- easy to add spices
Nicole
- want simpler dishes (not "haute cuisine")
Rich
- Bon Apetit interested in pushing simpler foods and Asian dishes
Marietta
- been trying Asian Cuisine
- chefs going to training on Mediterranean Cuisine next month
//Harvey
- next step is creating dining position and filling it next meeting
Rich
- how do you get students to listen?
- even if info is in the tech, people still don't know
General
- people too saturated, keep it short w/embedded links
- make it easy to find info so people use it
- spotlight on MIT homepage
- be realistic about where people will go to food, tailor to each dorm
Marietta
- Thursday night is "eat locally" night, all food from 150 mile radius
- Baker 5-8 farmer's market
Budget Proposals
- no quorum
Harvey- propose to have incentives for people to attend meetings
Dining chair
- go to meetings, update dormcon
- get others involved within dorms
- currently all done by UA (means DormCon doesn't find out about it)
-Dance
Snaggs - need to have an adult visit Park Plaza with staff member
- make funding contingent upon visiting with staff member
Aaron - got Lucia on the phone, has talked w/Laurie Ward
- allowed to do business with Park Plaza Hotel
- has taken McCormick and Baker RLAs to visit
-EC 81st birthday
-Augusta arrived-->quorum
Budget:
Rex- 7000
Exec- 1000
Attendence Incentive- 1,100
Meeting food- 490
Events- 15,500
//15,090
Votes
- DINING CHAIR (CREATE POSITION, AD HOC FOR THIS SEMESTER): y-6 n-0
- BUDGET: Y-6 N-0
- FORMAL DANCE: Y-6 N-0
- EC FAMILY FALL PICNIC: Y-6 N-0
Risk-Management Update
Chris
- met with Jeff (alumni, former dormcon prez '03)
- talked about how to deal with specific instances
- want to figure out what dorms do for risk management
- two Chrises planning on talking to individual dorms
David
- Simmons' risk management approach is proactive
- educate residents, everyone has personal responsibility
- reactive (e.g. incident last October)
- working to develop "social host initiative training"
Jeff
- Random hasn't had official dorm event involving alcohol in recent memory
Shauna
- BC housemaster sends out sever emails
- follow up with informing people on party registration
Harvey
- register parties
- on good terms with house-masters and Snaggs
- people take care of each other
Chris
- freshmen on campus posing a problem with fraternities in dorms
- in fraternities, party thrown by entire fraternity
- in dorms can have single residents/non-residents throw parties
- have discussion with IFC about consequences for frat parties thrown in dorms
Shauna
- increase party safety by having non-threatening figure check on party
Judcomm
Jeff
- dorm judcomm still not functional
- ready to write skeletal doc; individual dorms can flesh out
- needs feedback from presidents about what types of cases they want dorm to hear
* discipline cases and rendering decision
* mediation cases (less formal)
- Danny wants to insert process
* he has conversation with dorm/judcomm chairs
* dorms get to hear more of their own cases (doesn't escalate to administration)
Jaclyn
- needs to resign as judcomm chair- not enough time
- not enough trust with administration
Housing Update
Jimbo
- Robin Smedick wants IAP training program for RACs
UA Update
Milo
- class councils doing events
Facebook
Dan
- process for monitoring Facebook.com
- remind constituents that information not private
- employers looking at information
Augusta
- remind people not to give out interviews to media (easy to misquote)
Dormcon Agenda
Harvey
- see his email, respond with ideas/comments
- think about 10-year plan, brainstorming session
->nominate little Chris, Shauna can help
Snaggs
- try to get freshmen to come to meeting
- special Rex feedback meeting?
- 5:00 THIS WEDNESDAY MEET WITH OUTSIDE STUDENT LIFE CONSULTANTS (from Duke and Cornell)
- talk about details of housing process
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