Minutes of the MIT Dormitory Council meeting of February 12, 2009 In attendance: James Torres, DormCon President, Burton-Conner Maggie Delano, East Campus Keri Garel, Senior House president Anila Sinha, McCormick president Shenwen Huang, Next House vice president Kamil Gedeon, New House president Aimee Harrison, Ashdown Karl Wolff, Ashdown president Geoffrey Thomas, DormCon secretary, Next House Chris Palmer, DormCon housing chair, MacGregor Raul Garcia, MacGregor president Britni Ihle, Baker House president Lyla Fischer, Random Hall president Kip Landergren, DormCon JudComm chair, Burton-Conner Michael Poon, DormCon treasurer, Random Hall Noah Jessop, UA president Sandhya Ramakrishnan, DormCon REX VP, McCormick Rachel Meyer, East Campus treasurer Nathan Pollo, East Campus president Josh Bails, East Campus vice president Vinayak Ranade, DormCon risk management chair, East Campus Fangfei Shen, East Campus dining chair Vrajesh Modi, East Campus James Ostrowski, DormCon dining chair, East Campus Preeya Phadnis, DormCon EVP, Random Hall Aziz Albahar, Baker House Absent: Simmons Guests: Maura Tierney, MIT admissions counselor Elizabeth Otto, RLA Admissions / CPW Maura: We're going to be hosting CPW April 16-19, over Patriot's Day weekend. I came to spread the word about hosting and volunteering over CPW. 1000 students, 600-800 parents. We need a thousand hosts for students. Spread the word to volunteer or host; the deadline is March 20. The website is web.mit.edu/admissions/mitcpw/ You'll find your hosting assignment on April 12; there's a mandatory meeting that night. Dorm hosts go by how many people from each dorm are signing up -- we want to make sure as many of the students yield as possible, so we want to put them in a place that's comfortable for them. Limit of 7 varsity athletes per FSILG house. If you're in an FSILG, you still sign up to host individually, the house doesn't sign up. We also need students to volunteer during the festival, greet students at Logan, be Tim the Beaver, etc. Also on the website, same deadline. If you're in a performance group or club you want to be represented at the festival, you can sign up by Friday, March 13. Earlier is better so you're on the public schedule earlier. Saturday, April 18, open houses in dorms 2-5 PM: please make sure you're able to give tours or open your doors for prospective students and parents. Also encourage your housemasters to host a brunch from 12-2. We had 5 dorms do brunches last year and the event got really great reviews. We'll proably also have a panel on the different dorms and housing arrangements. Basically, please encourage your dorms to sign up as hosts. As of Wednesday, the dorm with the most potential host signed up is Baker with 25. 4 from Bexley, 15 from BC, 1 from EC, 9 from MacGregor, 4 from New, 13 from Next, 1 from Senior, 4 from Simmons. W1 Karl: Dean Colombo talked to us. Like the article James forwarded said, an anonymous donation of a substantial amount was made for the outside of the building to get things restored. [That article is http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2009/w1-0127.html] TSE James T.: Today we had a meeting for the Task Force for Student Engagement, a committee of the four presidents of UA, IFC, Dormcon, and Panhel, the four GSC exec members, and top level admins like Clay and Colombo and Hastings. It's closed but I don't know how closed. I can't properly represent you guys without saying at least something, so... we talked about 7 things: - students on academic council - budget - hacking - Campus Police - dining - tuition - Student Life's interact.mit.edu website, in development The big announcement is that Blue Ribbon did not meet over IAP; they felt there were not enough people to constitute a meeting. So the consultant has been talking with Karen Nilsson and Donna Denoncourt. She's been looking over the data and giving the report to them, and they've gotten it twice asking for more information. This caused some disdain among students who think there's some behind-the-scenes action going on. This is not the case at all. They are merely trying to get as much information and have a proper recommendation supported by the survey data and focus groups. Blue Ribbon -- Noah: Pause. That is, uh, what they would want you to have said. James: I realize that, but still... Noah: Take it with a grain of salt. James: Anyway. Blue Ribbon will be having a meeting because of the disdain, hopefully very soon, that will clear everything up, and we'll be signing off on the recommendations, if not at this meeting, in the next two. Once the recommendations have been signed off, it will then go public along with all the data for public talks. I don't know exactly how the public talks will work, but students will be able to see everything, and it will no longer be this shrouded, hidden thing. We tried to help out with fixing that, but they were resistant to making it more public. Geoffrey: You said you'd sign off. There's presumably an option ... not to? Noah: I would definitely hope so. James: Yes. Noah: They made it clear you can't not-sign-off on just the recommendations. You can either sign off on the entire report, or not. Kate Delaney, EC's housemaster and one of the faculty on BRDC, has made it clear that if it doesn't meet her requirements she won't sign, and it may even be "the committee except for me" signing. James O.: Is it entirely too late to add more stuff to it? I remember when people were trying to justify the mininmum nutrional fee ... people want healthy food ... could we say this would justify a produce cart on the Dot so we we can afford healthy food? Or are they refusing to modify it? Noah: I'm pretty sure the event horizon for large-scale modifications has passed. It's now in the frame of "let's avoid", er, rephrase, "what the community wants to see in a large-scale plan for the next ten years". James T.: I honestly don't know how much we can edit the recommendations once we get it back from the consultant. It's unclear whether we can say which recommendations we like and which we don't. I would hope we can; I don't know if it's an all or nothing. I've heard conflicting stories. Keri: If you sign off, will it go into effect? James: That's the other thing. These are recommendations for the administration; it's ultimately their decision. James: Does anyone have anything they'd like to bring up before TSE or Blue Ribbon? James's point about a vegetable cart? Nate: So, we're working with Student Life and Dining to see about getting a fresh produce cart on the Dot, or in bad weather Morss in Walker, and it seems we're going to make very good headway. This is mainly for our dorm; out of 118 people we talked to, each one said they'd use something like this. We'll get a pilot program started. Chris: Speaking of pilot programs, the 3-year weekly MacGregor dining pilot is going to be shut down. This is awesome. We're all psyched. Noah: So you get real study breaks? Chris: We're hoping the Office of Campus Dining will fund us. Noah: Any progress on putting in a late night, like Simmons? Chris: So remember at HSG [Housing Strategy Group], after talking to Chris Colombo and Robin Smedick, the Housing Office is not planning to do any big stuff. (Even the usual summer renovations are being curtailed -- luckily, they've been so adamant in the past that we can afford to hold back this year.) So no, no progress. Chris: Raul's going to get to it, but our housemaster gave us the numbers. So far MIT's been subsidizing our program about $10 a plate. 31 people came, last time, and there was a loss of $700. Last time 27 people came. Noah: wtf Chris: srsly Raul: ya rly. We had a study break coscheduled, once, to try to make use of it. 8 showed up to dining and 110 to the study break. James: Any other big ticket items? Keri: "We like our kitchens don't get rid of them" James: That point came across very loud and clear. I think the administration has realized that. Noah: Philip Clay made a specific point: if people want to make those choices, we'll stand behind that and put money behind that as if it were a dining hall. For instance, you can renovate and keep kitchens. Risk Management Vinayak: Hi. James: We both missed the P&E meeting. Donna has been pestering Liz for us to go. Liz: Pesky thing called a REX agreement? Vinayak: I thought EtOH was doing that. James: I missed the last meeting. Did you get to it? Vinayak: No. James: We should get to these meetings. Online Party Registration Vinayak: Everyone working for that is very well intentioned and they're working hard but it's not going anywhere. James: Danny Trujillo e-mailed the people involved in that two weeks ago saying finally the police detail had finally given her okay ... the old person left, the new one wanted an okay, so she wanted to make sure she was okay. She's okayed it. The site has already been coded. We were supposed to schedule a meeting to give the stamp of approval and it hasn't been scheduled... Kip: Why is the registration for dorm and dorm space different from frats? Liz: MIT owns MIT buildings but not FSILGs. Kip: MIT owns some FSILGs. Fraternities can have parties with over 100 people with no police detail, but if we get over 50 we need to. It gets ridiculous to restrict attendance at the door even though the space is zoned for well over 49. Along with that, I heard there was server training? I think there needs to be training for people who do register events for dorms. Completely different from how fraternities run stuff; they have risk and event managers, we don't. James: The limit of 50 goes to 75 when we go online. Liz: Part of the reason there's no clear training is the different layouts and logistics of the buildings. There are best practices, but not every system works in every hall. James: How the online registration will work is that only people who go through server training can register online. For every 25 people, you also need a moderator. We didn't want to make training mandatory for moderators, and moderators can also be under 21. That's one of the key points for online registration, besides being more convenient ... faster ... in every way I can think of, better. James: "Server training" is done by CDSA and covers how to put on a party. Chris: Does going through server training and hosting make me liable? James: Whoever hosts is liable. Keri: I've been talking with our RLA. Putting your name down, if you make a good faith effort, is supposed to reduce liability if someone does something stupid. Apparently the CPs have been telling people the opposite. James: The idea is that people will back you up because you went through the proper process. Registering is much better than not registering. James: The original plan was for this to happen a year ago, a test in BC and EC for last spring. If we get it this term, I'd hope we could test it in those dorms and open it to all dorms this fall. We're just waiting for Danny to schedule a meeting. HOUSING Chris: i3: Hopefully you got an e-mail from the coordinator. She seems good, Robin Smedick likes her a lot. The meeting was at Monday, 7PM, W59. So far it all sees fine. Robin wanted me to mention that since we're trying to improve the housing webspace, they want dorms to update the websites and make them more frosh-friendly. For instance, MacGregor's current site is more geared to people in the building. At the last HSG meeting, people agreed that the housing website is a piece of crap. In an entertaining story, Chris Colombo could not navigate it himself. We got a soft commitment we could get a better housing website done when the freshmen move in. Geoffrey: Progress on students updating or redoing the website? Chris: Semi-shot down. They were conflicted.... I feel like the non-outside-facing part of the housing office is more in favor. I'm pushing Karen Nilsson and Chris Colombo. Chris: The unified desk software thing: they're still moving forward but they don't have real time tables. This summer they're getting input from house managers and desk staff. The software is there, they're just configuring it. Vinayak: ...What does that mean? I'm a CS major, that doesn't make sense. Chris: Sounds like the software is a front-end to FileMaker, so they have to configure it with widgets. Chris: Last two points. All of HSG was adamant that they loved W1 to death. Also, ATO moved out of MacGregor. The money they were going to pay us is in the housemaster's fund. ATO is moving back in to their building over the next couple of weeks. Four are moved in today; the rest were moved to all the dorms. A great deal moved to Next. The ATOs, with their National and with Student Life, came up with a plan to restore the bulding to "MIT's expectations". Noah: My understanding is Cambridge Licensing will let a few people live in it so it's not a liability. Chris: I think there was a domino effect: Cambridge gave them okay, then ATO had issues with nationals... Then Cambridge decided that the building was still bad. You have to keep the building warm so that, I dunno, a homeless person doesn't die if they go in there? Kip: So pipes don't freeze. Chris: Oh, right. REX Preeya: We haven't elected a REX chair... we should look into doing that. Presidents, you should find people in your dorm who want to help out with campus-wide REX. Sandhya: A well-organized person, definitely. Preeya: Tell people who like REX things but are only kind of involved in the dorm to do campus-wide REX. Steer Roast Keri: We've been in meetings with Karen Nilsson, Danny Trujillo, Donna Denoncourt. Due to issues last year they think we're a group of bad bad children who are unable to take care of ourselves. We're writing documents about community standards and holding multiple meetings. We've written a 90-page document to them and Colombo and Clay. Spent two weeks writing it, and they went through it page by page. Preeya: Why wasn't Dormcon invited to these meetings? Keri: They said no. Maggie: Anything we can help with? Keri: Not much left to do. We've had alumni letters sent to admins. If it happens to be a no, we'll need a lot of complaints and help... Noah: I encourage you to put all factors into the administration's decision-making prior to the decision being released. It's easier to change directions with new information before rather then after. Keri: Then by all means. Aziz: Let's write a joint letter to those five people you mentioned. Next Meeting Kip: We'll host. James: I'll send out another Doodle for the new presidents. Kip: Why is it called Doodle? I think it should be called Giggledrop. "Guys, we must use the Giggledrop. It's integral to Dormcon's survival! After that we must use the Jigglypoof and everything wiil be okay."