Dormcon General Body Meeting Minutes

Date: February 8, 2022
Time: 6:30pm (ET)
Location: Maseeh Private Dining Room
Food: DINING HALL FOOD BECAUSE YAY WE CAN HAVE FOOD NOW. also maseeh kinda popped off today

caragay: so we have some new people bc new presidents! my name is caragay i’m dormcon prez. this is shuli dormcon vp. the way dormcon meetings work. exec goes around. exec is dozen people on dormcon exec. we all go around and give updates. update doc sent earlier. recommend getting that doc out and taking a look. then we’ll go around all the prez and get updates on what’s going on in your dorm. this can be things like elections, problems, you can bring up solutions. and then after updates we will have agenda items. today we’ll do the same thing but pls introduce yourself. your name. your role. ok cool. we try to keep these relatively efficient but pretty casual. this is a weird room setup but feel free to say anything. let’s start exec going that way.

alan: hi im alan dormcon judcomm chair. don’t have that many updates. that means i hold elections and have a general sense of goings on and historical knowledge.

ashley: i’m ashley one of our two dining chairs. one is not here tonight meghana. she’s wonderful. i also sit on the fsat (food security action team). updates. so fsat did a pilot during iap i’m sure many of you heard about some students got 125 dining dollars a week for dining halls or local grocery stores. they’re looking at making this a regular thing. interesting finding. keeping track of where students were spending money. by far the top destination was hmart. could be because hmart is very expensive. also winter break bridge meal plan. free. pretty good results and looking to extend that as well. mark hayes director of dining will be coming to next gbm to talk about shifting of meal plan minimums made by working group with admin and students. also will be doing q&a on this.

mohan: hi i’m mohan. dormcon treasurer. only update. we have budget. we are looking to lose some money because we have too much. 15k budget for events. events are generally approved. before we were saving money because no food at events but this has been changed. cpw will have 1000 to every dorm. before was 500 and last semester rex was up to 2000 but moving back down to 1000. because last semester was celebratory yay we’re back on campus and also sophomores.

zawad: i’m zawad this is jordan we are dormcon housing chairs. we deal with dorm issues related to housing which is most of dorms besides dining. meet hrs every 2 weeks. jordan update?

jordan: yeah. one thing they wanted us to know is that cpw is going to be in person. they’re trying to work with ofy to make sure that there will be enough students to host over cpw. planning to have an expo before academic expo so students can ask about housing. will be housing managers and stuff. virtual program for parents since they will not be allowed at cpw this year. housing is getting a new housing system because the application portal is severely awful. they’re moving pretty fast from the grad portion right now (testing phase). they will be asking undergrads to test pretty soon. they don’t think it’ll be ready for housing building switch intent form but will be available for the first years.

zawad: two other things we talk about. mural pilot rn in new and next houses. working to put up canvases so students can paint murals since we can’t paint on the walls anymore. issues so far. we can hang larger murals? and looking to pilot different materials.

jordan: other dorms that might be interested. they want to get a sense of how it’s going in these dorms and potentially extend to other dorms

someone: what are some of their concerns about the canvas versions?

alan: they put 3x4 canvases which are paintings not murals

caragay: less of not wanting it to happen they are just doing it very slowly.

zawad: other things to talk about in the discussion portion so stay tuned for that 👀

mateo: hi i’m mateo. new dormcon i3/rac chair. off to a bit of a slow start. with i3 stuff. gonna be until march when things start going out to the i3 chairs. for the rac i sent email out to dorm presidents asking about mailing lists being updated. please check and respond. for racs we do want to collect rooming processes for every dorm and put it in one place so that when bc opens up we can show that to their rac.

fatima: hi i’m fatima i’m one of the cpw/rex chairs. olivia do you wanna introduce?

olivia: i’m olivia the other cpw/rex chairs. we just got confirmation that all of the dorms have cpw chairs except new vassar who is having elections. we are talking with trinidad and we will have a meeting with cpw chairs pretty soon

sunmee: hi

cameron: hi i’m dormcon tech chair in spite of everything dormcon still has a website. at dormcon.mit.edu.

alexandria: good evening everyone i am alexandria clyburn i use she/her pronouns. and i am area director of ec covering ad of random. privilege of being dormcon advisor. here to be the designated adult in the room. if you have questions i am officially admin. can answer questions, give updates about ad life. other things i should talk about

shuli: how great you are!

alexandria: enjoy what i do. highkey obsessed with what i do

mitali: hi i’m mitali i am the risk management chair on exec. what do i do? that’s a wonderful question

shuli: mitali is our special projects director

mitali: we are thinking of renaming my position.

caragay: basically risk management position there’s not much to do but mitali is wonderful and loves to do things for dormcon

mitali: so one project is i’ve been talking with medlinks about supporting students in isolation like providing care packages and giving information on what happens in isolation. we would be providing cough drops tissues tea bags non perishable snacks but also maybe crafts.

caragay: i think that was all of exec?

shuli: but us.

caragay: oh us. you guys got an email about dormcon retreat on february 21 presidents day weekend. this is mandatory. if you can’t come pls try to send a proxy. this is 1) a time to get to know each other more as we sit together in a room. 2) a good time to learn what you want to do as president.

shuli: we’ve been getting notifications that rfps for communal food items like flour for a hall have been getting rejected. so we let the right people know and this should be resolved but the food policy is changed so you shouldnt have this problem anymore! also this is a good example of how if you see something wack happening in your dorm you can bring it up to the people here and we can get it resolved

shuli: post rex survey! was sent out later than ideal.

caragay: keep an eye out for [] idk sorry i missed it

shuli: ec and random both had clothing optionality on some floors in the past. which has been replaced with top optionality. there have been some issues with this. so we held a pilot event about clothing optionality. two part event. we had the first part and the second part is going to be scheduled. we’re hoping that we will have more reflection time with admin on how to have better collaborations

caragay: any questions on any of that? [silence] ok let’s go around presidents?

emma: hi i’m emma i’m the new president of maseeh. sophomore course 2. previously treasurer. some updates. we got our piazza up and running which was a hit last time. making sure to keep things a bit moderated. during covid maseeh had their 10 year anniversary so this year we’re going to have a 10 year anniversary for maseeh. also bringing back things from maseeh pre-covid. we just chose our committees. everything’s going smoothly

alan: hi i’m alan again (shuli: hi alan again) i’m also next house president. we just completed transition which is why i’m here. working with hrs on guest policy and david has some questions we didn’t get. we wanted to know if any dorms here have guest lists that only student desk workers can see?

jordan: yes simmoins.

alan: keith david and rich all had questions about these policies so how does it work?

mohan: we have it on the db and security guards kinda trust that we know who should come in and who shouldn’t

jordan: keith just approved our express guest list so he should probably know about it

alan: also do any other dorms have dryers constantly broken

[other people come in talking about various broken things]

caragay: do students know to email washlava if machines are broken. housing chairs if you could bring this up to housing maybe. there’s not a very clear way.

jordan: so tell them to get rid of washlava…

alan: in the semester next house is looking to run the things it normally does.

ashley: i’m macgregor secretary but president for the night. main thing is we’re trying to get a president and vp. so last semester we were supposed to run elections and then no one ran. and then we were gonna push to iap but things happened. but now we might have candidates so elections soon. food composting pilot? talk with other dorms that might have that. also in gra search process for g entry. should go well.

jordan: hi i’m jordan. this is mohan. we basically are collectively the simmons president. main update our summer storage has been extended past the summer. but will not be after that at all. same for random it sounded like.

mohan: we don’t know what our values are just yet.

caragay: interjecting update. for retreat. reminder (also in the email) if you guys could come with some set of values your dorm has. ik it sounds cheesy but it can also be valuable. let us know if you have questions.

shelby: hi i’m shelby i’m one of mccormick’s co presidents

meenu: hi i’m meenu another copresident

margaret: hi i’m

shelby: we have mcfast a tutoring program that normally runs in the fall. just appointed an academic chair on that. also working with professor on 6.070 the electronics project lab class happening in the dorm.

caragay: what’s that?

ashley: it’s 7-10pm and they were like do you not want to leave

meenu: we are finally getting a weight room. our athletic chairs are in contact with ordering all the equipment. hopefully have it up and running by the summer. gra search. picked ad and coming soon!

margaret: two more updates. during iap we had a lot of maintenance issues. elevator broke many times. fire alarm happened but no fire, the pipe was broken

ec people: that happened to us!

margaret: so people’s rooms got flooded. shelby was working really hard on this. worked with housing to get those people reimbursed with techcash. seems like not just a mccormick problem. 6/14 washlava machines broken. our house manager john has been very helpful. here’s good news. we were thinking about mccormick on values. asked everyone for 5 words about mccormick and made a word cloud. it’s in the shape for mccormick {shows us).

tina: hi i’m tina the president of new vassar. several updates. elections closing tonight. didn’t run elections back in december. cpw, i3, rac, and study break chair (new positions). hopefully all in by tonight. we finally have guest lists up. we also bought our first big purchase. we bought 12 tvs. new vassar’s first birthday is this weekend so that’s exciting. two sets of pots and pans we’re looking to sell because they don’t work on our induction stovetops so if anyone wants to buy them off of us. (alan: how much?) i don’t know but will get back to you

caragay: dormcon meetings become ebay

tina: i’m also part of banana lounge. we were sending bananas to every dorm but no longer since banana lounge is back open.

sarah: i’m sarah i’m the bc president. just came from associate hoh report meeting. nearing final stages of that. should know in 2 weeks. new ad just started last week. came to exec and floor chairs meeting last night. seems super willing to help. february floor exploration this weekend. bc publicity event. not any guarantee to get into bc. but wanted to get out there before switch lottery next month.

christina: hi i’m christina prez of new house. not that many updates. committees in new house haven’t gotten elections yet. but hopefully have meetings after. we’re hoping to get our makerspace ehs approved so that people can use it. one of the numbered houses is starting gra search.

michelle: hi i’m michelle

bookbinder: i’m bookbinder

michelle: and together we are the random president. new gra. in process of hiring new ad. temporarily alexandria who has been wonderful about helping us buy a new washing machine.

alexandria: literally worst process ever.

bookbinder: we got to interview two potential ads this time. which is unusual. to clarify we don’t have any explicit power in this process, more like recommending but nice to have fractional influence.

michelle: random’s washing and drying machines are student owned so they are students’ job to purchase them. the process of purchasing was lost in history with covid.

someone: were you all able to get a pcard

bookbinder: i don’t think we’ve made an effort yet. one of our floors has become top optional via unanimous vote (only way) 2 floors of 7.5 floors of random.

zangi: i’m zangi i’m kinda the ec co president. my counterpart hannah is not here right now. talks with admin about finalizing top optionality policy. some concerns about wording. working with some residents on this. a bunch of vacancies coming up for gras. 3(?) vacancies. our renovations got pushed back a year. not renovating until summer 2023. another renovations workshop this week. more in the future. we’ll be getting a second rac. those elections happen next week. so new rac 2 weeks from now.

bookbinder: so normally one rac?

zangi: so we normally have one rac that is also the vp

madison: hi i’m madison. president of baker. we also need to hire 2 gras. interview soon. new ad rachel who seems awesome. also doing elections because not filled last semester. sustainability chair and first year rep. we’re really trying to diversify exec right now they’re all swimmers. so we’re trying.

caragay: any last q’s on updates

bookbinder: one other thing. talking to summer storage people. previously gave ultimatum that htis summer we will not have summer storage. and reached out recently that this summer we can have summer storage.

jordan: are they still helping yall make it into a gym in the future?

michelle: yes

shuli: related to that. the current storage situation everyone is doing their own thing. as you heard the dorms that did have storage are going away because “mit is not in the storage business.” we don’t have anything concrete to say but trying to get housing to start a centralized summer storage thing. do you all think that would be nice? [many yes’s]

sarah: is this getting rid of individuals’ ability to store stuff or halls?

zawad: just individuals

caragay: mitali

mitali: i don’t know what the process is but i have a rough budget.

shuli: a description of process?? if you wanna spend money

mohan: you can talk to us or submit form called funding application on the dormcon website .some weird formal stuff. overview of what you wanna spend and give a little budget. if it’s low enough we will approve. if it’s bigger we will bring it up to a gbm

shuli: so what kinds of things? we prefer to fund things that are for all dorms. and then inter-dorm. if it’s something more like mccormick weight room it’s not an event but we are open to proposals if you have something like that. basically the way that we do it is we bring it up in discussion and it’s usually approved

mitali: so on the budget rn medlinks is going to be covering advil sudafed and robitussin. they’re all medicines. other medicine type things breathe right strips if you’re having congestion. apparently super helpful. the way i did the budget. we would make around 300 packages. hopefully will cover the upcoming cases. if there’s feedback on that as well. let us know. 1 of each of the smallest unit in the care package. overall cost is around 611 dollars. some items. also cough drops. tissue packets. bags to put everything in. tea bags. in terms of snacks. fruit snacks and rice krispies. non perishable. craft. i spent some time on amazon. the only thing that seemed cost effective and seemed like it would be suitable for our age group. these scratch art bookmarks. 611.67. any feedback on this and whether dormcon would be willing to spend this money

bookbinder: how long do you think this will keep people covered.

mitali: there’s also psets to keep people entertained.

shuli: maybe packets of colored pencils and we can print out coloring sheets?

caragay: yeah more crafts than snacks because they give you a lot of snacks.

ashley: is this opt in

mitali: one thing we talked about. put it in a box along with where they pick up their food. but have to talk to them again. since we last talked to them seemed like medical was getting into the conversation.

caragay: so we have housing?

zawad: time for exciting. as you might know from zangi’s update. ec is not closing. bc is opening. housing will have around 300 extra beds. what dormcon wants to do is talk to housing about what happens for the 300 extra beds. some options. housing wants to use them to help place first years into first priority dorms. but keep distribution even. one thing we brought up is people on housing waitlist. people who moved off campus. or lived in fsilgs. or leave of absence. also a bunch of people from bc who went off campus. also option for some dorms to de densify. 4 things that are possible unless you all have some “creative solutions.”

shuli: right now if you get off housing waitlist. you have a guarantee for the following year. has housing thought about what they’re gonna do when these 300 extra beds are no longer available.

zawad: for waitlist maybe give priority to 2023s since they will graduate. 205 people on waitlist today. housing wants to look at what upperclassmen want to do through a form. closing on march 25. on the intent form.

ashley: upperclassmen means sophomores and juniors? (zawad: i think it means everyone)

shuli: i think this is the regular binding housing intent form

sarah: putting in a huge pitch that this be put in for bc people. 22s who took LOAs 23s who took LOAs and scuffy 24s who are currently living in fsilgs. housing will not give decision til later but wanted to bring it up and see what dormcon wants. any thoughts or questions?

bookbinder: i also support bc people’s return

alan: also support bc although i’d love to dedensify

zangi: students who were under the impression that they had a guarantee and were not able to renew. bunch of ec people got screwed over because the form was messed up last year.

zawad: there are 105 people on the waitlist. maybe people that aren’t on the waitlist but would like to get back housing.

zangi: i think so. the waitlist also puts you on the grad housing waitlist and some people don’t wanna be placed there. other category is people who think they filled out the form but didn’t get confirmation.

caragay: bc people. besides scuffy everyone would be a senior next year?

sarah: no 23s who took leave are juniors.

caragay: if you could get numbers?

sarah: yes working on a census

ashley: interested to see numbers on how many people took leave during the covid year

sarah: curious about this first years things. increase the range of spots set aside for first years?

zawad: this is from a meeting in november. i think they might be...this is probably the implementation they would use. but also probably get numbers from execs.

ashley: do dorms have stuff in the bylaws about frosh ratios? bc we do [insert nos]

caragay: normally you have empty spaces and freshmen usually go into those empty spaces. when there were two classes of people they took average of recent year distributions. i think this would be giving dorms more flexibility on that percentage.

ashley: i know dorms have by floor freshman ratios which end up being entire dorm ratios

alan: hmm..

zawad: any more questions reach out to us

sarah: density. do we have any percentages on that?

zawad: de densifying. depends on the dorm because some places like ec don’t have that but like next house has lots of triples. lots of people are moving around so that’s why housing intent form will be very important.

ashley: do you know what caused the intent form issue?

zangi: no..

caragay: they know this is an issue and they will try to make sure it doesn’t happen

shuli: last time covid kinda screwed things up so hopefully this time there will not be something like that

zangi: are you working with housing on what questions will be asked to the freshmen on their housing form.

shuli: in addition to glitches some changes could be made to questions and how it’s structured.

caragay: any other questions to housing chairs

sarah: dates for housing switch form lottery?

zawad: intent form is march 7. switch lottery happens after march 7?

caragay: one last agenda. top optionality ec and random. something rolling around a bit. what if another dorm wants top optionality for all the really good reasons these two dorms should have it. thinking about what the process would look like and the advocacy. if your dorm is potentially interested let us know? not the entire dorm but if there would be a closed sectioned area interested.

shuli: the vote has to be unanimous so if you had very small sections it would be easier. if not would have to work with how to place people around.

caragay: one of the big reasons talking about in other dorms. very good for queer students and other reasons. would love to spread to other dorms if you want it.

[eom]