Dormcon General Body Meeting - October 14, 2021
Time: 7:00 PM (ET)
Location: Baker House Upper Dining Hall
IF YOU HAVE ISSUES WITH MINUTES (EDITS/CHANGES): PLEASE EMAIL dormcon-secretary@mit.edu and mitalic@mit.edu
Meghana: any questions about updates?
Looking forward to house team results
Mohan: updates - random hall apple picking event approved by exec due to
treasurer mistake, $950 (?) this weekend (Saturday)
Next haunt and ABC up to vote today
Doubled budget for exec and GBM food ($300 now for GBM) since apparently food
has gotten quite expensive these days
ABC vote - do we make budgets public?
Meghana: probably
Mohan: details - amount not requested but max we can do is $600 so we’ll go
with that
Before vote - do we want to do these at GBMs or do we want to do a pulse check
with the email list (raise objections over email - this way it won’t have to
wait 2 weeks)
Presidents: I think an email is fine
Meghana: Email is fine for vote but say at GBM what went through
Mohan: thumbs up
ABC
Tina: Confused
Mohan: clarifying that $1200 is budget so default is $600 unless people have objections
Meghana: how much money do we have
Mohan: tens of thousands, normally we don’t have that much but now we have excess, I’m of the opinion that we should use as much as possible for events
Simmons just got to point where they overspent so going to take care not to have
that happen here
$36,000 total budget
Alan: Vote by dorms
Baker y
BC y
EC y
Macg y
Masseeh y
Mcc y
New absent
NV y
Next y
Random y
Simmons y
Mohan: rip the mismatch in spreadsheets
Will fix it later
Time for next haunt vote
Meghana: I will send you the doc
Mohan: Details in exec updates
$3,500 for Next haunt
Meghana: Lumber expensive and everything had to get thrown out in 2019, paint,
fire retardant, puzzle design, costume, make up, food for people, shirts for
volunteers, speakers, buffer
Event is open, 450+ people normally, lots of non Next build volunteers
Sarah: How did you decide buffer
Meghana: made numbers nicer
Someone: do you sell tickets
Meghana: no, its free
Some budget from Next
Mohan: any questions before vote
Brendan: something something settle with EC??
Mohan: start the vote
Nvm
Tina: how much are we approving
Mohan: everything with dormcon next to it
Meghana: can go down to $3000 since it doesn’t match up and budget was updated
Mohan: when would you ask for money
Meghana: we can ask for it after
Mohan: we can approve $3500 to account for potential extra costs
Meghana: we can request half the money post event based on actual expenditures
Alan: vote
BC y
EC y
MacG y
Masseeh y
Mcc y
New absent
NV y
Next y
Random y
Simmons y
Baker y
Mohan: and that’s all tyvm ask for money later
Meghana: sunmee’s updates are follow us on social media
Mitali: send RAC feedback last call
Zawad: met with housing about murals, want to start with 1 or 2 dorms in the spring, New and Next will start and then BC, something about new architecture in BC
Sarah: picture rails to hang canvases
Do we know what the plan was originally?
Meghana: something similar to what they said, plywood hanging or something
Zawad: plan for most dorms is screw into walls, new reno dorms should have something sliding
Sarah: we have hang on a hook, sliding sounds preferable
Zawad: we can talk about this more since the details aren’t really hashed out
Meghana: we will open up this convo with deets from earlier
Alan: my updates are yeeeehaw
Meghana: yee harder
Mitali: if you have ideas for hazing prevention lmk, don’t start hazing or accidentally haze <3
Meghana: dining updates! Mark and Heather are v responsive if there are things
you have trouble with, they want to come in and have conversations about things
to fix
Please talk to me
Next had changes made within a week
They are also new to the system, hired just before pandemic, may lend itself to
flexibility
Tim’s mart thinking about changing hours but will take time with union
negotiations
[redacted]
~~UA~~ dormcon dining survey will be out soon
Questions??
Cool!
Presidents
Octavio: Maintenance in Masseeh slower than it used to be, mostly in kitchen,
dishwasher been broken for a month etc.
Trying to get in touch about what is up
Brendan: EC renovations only thing now days ahaha
Trying to figure out about 70 Amherst with GSC
Meghana: do they have power
Brendan: no but we’re trying to involve grad people
Mohan: nothing for Simmons except our ice cream is frozen solid, is this an actual problem??
Meghana: does simmons have dining chair
Mohan: no not really I am the dining chair by constitution
Meghana: next dining chair sits down with the head chef to talk about things
like this ex. Internal soda poll to change the sodas
YOU HAVE POWER in your dorm
Mohan: i’ll figure out who it is
Meghana: we can help with that! Does NV talk to dining?
Tina: finishing elections tomorrow so we’ll have dining chair woot!
Other updates breakfast is 7-9 pick 6 now, brunch 9:30 - 2:30, so the 9 - 9:30
nothing available but idk if we can fix this because it’s a scheduling issue
Meghana: can bring it up to Mark
How did elections go
Tina: maybe 80 people voted but it just went out last night so pretty decent
Mostly freshman running which is p exciting
Elected primary positions, planning for more elections in December for things
like REX, i3, etc.
Meghana: when is turnover planned
Tina: december schedule, saying for this academic year but maybe year and a half term will figure out with constitution
Meghana: do you want other constitutions from Alan
Tina: yes that is next steps
Sarah: officially picked 9 people for reopening team
Transitioned from transition team hahaha
Good interest from 24s and 25s
First meeting in december, run by Judy Robinson if people have thoughts about
her leadership style
Transition team is going to discuss landscaping and furniture
Main goal is to nix the corporate looking furniture for more homey furniture
Shruti: the furniture is in MacG if you wanna look at it i haven’t seen just protecting
Sarah: if it’s corporate looking let people steal it >:)
Ret: Random internal updates
More feedback and talking about the Yellow light proposal (additional checks
about guest list)
Pushback from house team bc they seem to not like the express guest list at all
Meghana: Next internal elections, one freshman
Might go to Salem instead of apple picking because of no buses
How to keep country kitchen clean please help
How do you fix washlava machines
Mitali: have you tried unplugging it and plugging back in
Others: ask house team
Adina: McCormick emailed Suzy (?) they want to discuss enhancing mcc spaces,
thinking about upgrading gym [insert sad gym descriptions :(]
People who live in mcc for modesty/religious reasons and want to workout can’t
go to the gym
So maybe having a weight room would be cool
If people could send pictures of their gyms would be great
Are we going to talk about New house situation
Meghana: we all got an email from Suzy
Others: it was discussed at UA
Meghana: share
Shruti: posters that were really violent and aggressive, lot of people felt
uncomfortable, president of ASA and BSU shared their thoughts about it
Meeting from UA to figure out how to make sure people are held accountable for
things like this and how we should act as communities
Meghana: keep us updated
Adina: this is in a dorm context do we want to send out an email about it or
something, what can we do as dorm prez to be accountable and responsible
Potentially send out a blanket email saying how to be nice if you have issues in
your living community, it’s okay to be upset but don’t be aggressive
Sarah: email reminding about resources for these issues like AD, GRAs, RPM (for conflict resolutions)
Brendan: Kitchen czar’s in CFY who impose these kinds of message but harder to be proactive about the racist language, need to build culture over time of internal checks and self regulation
Meghana: with Brendan about having issues with kitchen cleanliness etc. but need to think about how to build respectful communities
Shruti: hard for people who haven’t had this much shared spaces, especially now that people are back after covid so making sure we’re genuinely respectful in our community building
Meghana + Shruti: people shouldn’t be afraid to take things down like these posters
Meghana: ways for people to not get so upset about gross shared spaces
Shruti: not limited to kitchens, laundry room etc.
Meghana: how to address things
Adina: another update - losing our AD in a couple weeks
Emily: Baker also going to be down an AD
Shruti: macg (and baker) just finishing interviews
Emily: had AD interviews
Problems with mask compliance, talking to house team about solutions but looking
for solutions from other dorms too
GRAs can’t be solely responsible for discipline since they are a support
resource
Meghana: where are the issues
Emily: people not wearing masks as they leave the dorm or pulling them down in
common spaces
Solution so far has been positive reinforcement to prevent immediate punishment
but not sure what the best incentive is
Sent an email last week reminding about flu season but not sure how effective
Alan + Meghana: had these conversations in Next about how house team can support students in enforcing this but not very responsive on their end
Emily: baker is kinda opposite because GRAs have been pretty proactive about
it
Hard to balance supportive role while enforcing rules
Ofc easier with repeat offenders but not sure how far to go with the
disciplinary actions
Adina: where exactly are the issues
Emily: lounge in 3 parts of the floor, common to sit in one of the spaces and work with friends, many people pulling down masks around friends or when just going through like waiting to grab it from the front desk
Mohan: wrt GRA thing, GRAs have the policy behind them, in Simmons for example say something without policing
Emily: GRAs have been doing it but stuck in a place of do we report people if we see it more than once
Meghana: how old are people what can you appeal to
Emily: Baker is very frosh heavy so harder to do community arguments etc. upperclassmen know quarantine sucked so it’s mainly people who don’t know how sad last year was
Emily: thought about buying masks but very expensive so now thinking about a reward system like a raffle your name gets taken out of for non compliance for positive reinforcement
Sarah: put up posters saying you don’t want to get quarantined with covid
Emily: postering gets nowhere in baker, emailing is also not very effective
GRAs send floor level complaints but not sure how effective they are
Will check in with house team it’s been about 2 weeks
More peer accountability since then so maybe it’s helped
[redacted]
Alan: Next house experience is that compliance is hard
Meghana: Can talk to us about discipline things
Others: Dependent on hall/dorm community pressure to set a norm
Shruti: maybe reimplement pod program? MacG has suites where things are working out
Emily: trying to do what is best for our community as a whole
Brendan: inconsistencies with policy which exists and enforcement of it
Meghana: reminders about last year, upticks in cases after this weekend
Shruti: MacGregor finished AD interviews, planning events upcoming including
food trucks, dinner with reflection on the past couple of years and smashing
pumpkins
Some problems with mask compliance in the gym but put up signs and seems to have
helped
Buying a new peloton $$$
We have nice gym
Adina: send me pics pls
End meeting