DormCon General Body Meeting

Date: October 12, 2023
Location: New Vassar Mezzanine
Food: Kalamata Greek, Shawarma Falafel, Remi’s

note

If you find any issues with the meeting minutes, please email dormcon-secretary@mit.edu

TL;DR (will be created after the meeting)

• see updates from dormcon exec: DormCon GBM Updates 10/12/23
  • housing price model change, hrs will present about this at the next gbm so tell people to come give feedback
  • new postering policy in discussion
• apple picking debrief
  • collecting feedback for next time
  • updated costs per dorm below
• abc funding request got approved
• discussion on house team relationships
  • what is the extent of their role
  • changes people would like to see

Agenda

• HRS desired pay rate changes/admin at GBM 10/26
• Apple picking debrief

Current signups:	Total Cost	Pre-departure roster	Post-departure roster
Baker	$387.99	11	5
BC	$2,045.78	58	45
EC	$1,657.79	47	37
Macgregor	$1,587.24	45	37
Maseeh	$1,587.24	45	35
Mccormick	$1,834.15	52	37
New House	$670.17	19	14
New Vassar	$1,446.15	41	32
Next	$1,375.61	39	28
Random	$1,728.33	49	42
Simmons	$1,163.98	33	28
Net	$15,484.44	439	340

• House team relationship reflections

Full minutes

mitali: please speak loudly!!

Exec Updates

• rex/cpw (temkin/daniel)

  • sending out survey to early returns because everyone got dining swipes
  • if you are a president pls encourage them to fill that out
  • cameron: rex survey when?
    • temkin: we want our questions to be on there and they want us to send it out ourselves
    • rebecca: will follow up
    • cameron: same outrageous number of questions? [yes]
    • jordan: is ec on there?
      • we think but will double check

• advisors (lusi/amanda)

  • good job on apple picking happening!!
  • lusi: hired director of communications (ashley). internal hire from vpf. very excited, look out for communications from hrs to have a tone again (!!!)

• judcomm (sara/mateo)

  • judcomm is judcomming
  • working on the constitution
  • grad housing stuff
    • mitali temkin daniel talked to grad house student govs, they are willing to represent undergrads.

• housing (jordan/cameron)

  • talked to rich + david last week
  • mccormick elevator
    • to fully fix your elevators they would have to close the building for over a year (to replace the whole elevator)
    • talking to elevator company to have replacement parts on hand
    • cannot do this with students
    • it would be on the renovation plan
  • everyone should receive notif of laundry app going down within 30 min
  • there are black boxes in laundry room, if you unplug them your laundry will stop working
    • because someone did in bc
    • just so you know
  • laundry revenue coming at some point
    • rich checking up on it
    • you should get some portion of your dorm’s laundry funds into your house funds
    • historically happened every month
    • will it stay the same? idk
  • planning to at some point in the fairly near future change the way that on campus housing is priced
    • probs means that regardless of dorm/how many people live in your room (single/double/triple) you will pay the same price
    • there are other scenarios but this is what they are heading towards and our peer institutions do this already
    • couple of reasons they have for this
      • biggest is housing will be covered by finaid regardless of whether you live in single in nv or double in random
      • currently finaid covers a tier 1 double (does not cover tier 2 single or tier 1 single)
    • seems like hrs wants this to happen sooner than we anticipated. probably not next year but the year after
      • or at least trying to transition to it
      • discussing softer transitions with hrs
    • elimination of tier system + room type price differences
    • as far as we know would not be tied to renovations
    • q: is it likely that it will be the tier 1 prices?
      • from a meeting last year the projected prices were less than tier 1 single
  • david friedrich really wants to talk to us about this and will be at next gbm in two weeks
    • if you know people with opinions show up and you’ll be able to ask questions
      • if you can’t make it, dormcon-housing-chair@mit.edu (or dormcon-housing-chairs@mit.edu !!) and we can pass it along
    • also helen wang is coming
      • senior associate dean for community and residential life
      • strategic employee within dsl
      • pretty new (just got hired this school year) so getting a feel for what dormcon is
  • q: would it not solve their issue to have finaid to cover tier 1 singles?
    • david is like oh this is a problem with sfs
    • we think it’s the difference they care about not as much what’s covered

• underclassmen rep (hanu/geoffrey)

  • housing chairs + luca(from b3) looked at hrs’s new mural policy draft
    • overall policy is fine
    • seems a little heavy handed
    • but nothing we didn’t expect
    • q: in what regard?
      • cameron: hrs is trying to revamp mural policy to reflect dorms that have panels/canvas. copy pasted from random transition team docs and working groups. jumbled together. we moved stuff around so it made sense. but it’s the same stuff you’ve already seen
      • geoffrey: one interesting detail is conflict resolution over murals. one of our edits was establishing the chain of human resources within the dorm. there was a clause that said if the art conflict cannot be resolved within the dorm, hrs is going to assemble a panel of faculty and staff and students to review the thing in question and give the final decision.
  • looking into collecting data on 2027s experience with cpw hosting
    • heard anecdotes surrounding negligent hosts
    • trying to get info for suggesting changes
  • we are going to involve ourselves more with the toptionality convo started last year
    • spoke with alan about where they went with the topic
    • if dorm prez have thoughts on this, let them be known
    • we want to re-review the policies again and see how much further we can push
  • geoffrey is on student org working group
    • hanging out with suzy every other wednesday
  • does anyone know when the next ua council meeting is?
    • next monday at 8pm, 3-370

• tech (nate)

  • funding policy fully updated on website
  • the changes:
    • we will fund events with up to $1750 per event
    • still up to 50% of the event

• secretary (sunmee)

  • no updates

• dining (tyra/ananda)

  • some concerns with dining being closed over weekend and poor communication
    • only communicated to people living in the dorms but people from other dorms go to those dining halls hmm
  • working more on food insecurity
    • gsc has specific committee for this
    • trying to focus a lil more on that
  • working on holding dining hall forums
    • within dining halls
    • hoping that you will get tapped into dining hall for free if you go
    • discuss with mark and heather how to improve dining and pricing and such
    • upcoming not sure when exactly when they are happening

• treasurer (melissa)

  • we need to vote on abc funding. on agenda

• p/vp (mitali/rebecca)

  • had suzy meeting just after last gbm
    • follow up on a lot of previous topics
    • smaller version of cameron/jordan housing pricing updates
      • we hope that you all with come next week to give input to hrs
    • covid communications
      • at the beginning of the year it was unclear what support was going to be given
      • talked about working on communication
      • never really happened and then covid spike kinda went away
      • did have conversation that if they are not communicating their support it’s not really helpful
    • larger discussion on the role of house teams w.r.t. student gov
      • want to make sure this is clear for house govs
      • every relationship is unique, dependent on personality
      • main thing suzy said is that they should be a mentorship kinda role, without micromanaging
      • will talk about this more in a sec
      • both house teams w.r.t student gov and w.r.t student support
        • for both of those situations if there are issues they suggested we direct to helen wang
        • her job is to deal with situations like this
        • you can reach out to us or directly to helen wang and she will help navigate
        • also if you are an individual student and want to talk about next steps you can also reach out to us/helen wang
      • another resource is the mit hotline
        • hotline.mit.edu
        • can report instances of conflict with house teams or staff
        • did emphasize that this is something they pay attention to
        • upper admin of dsl is made aware
        • complaints through hotline are routed to appropriate area
        • non-anonymous complaints are usually more conducive to conversation but if people want to do anonymously want to make sure people have that space.
        • they want your name on it so that you have agency over what the actual resolution is and they can contact you
    • concerns around starrez and privacy concerns
      • people changing their names
      • brought this up with suzy
        • a lot of people are aware starrez is an issue
        • a lot of people like faculty might not necessarily be aware of these things because of the environment where they grew up
        • getting required trainings for staff to mention things about trans or queer students
        • if you don’t have this topic out there people are not going to educate themselves
        • putting into training will not fix everything but is avenue for starting convo and getting more people aware
  • issues with postering
    • two weeks ago there was postering policy meeting w/ ifc, ua, panhel, asa
      • proposed changes to postering policy can’t exactly share but is on the radar
        • q: do you know when?
          • they are continuing to get feedback. going to run by heads of houses. dk when that meeting is, in a couple weeks. actively going through changes
          • generally talking to heads of house about concerns should work
        • q: a policy for all dorms??
          • institute-wide policy. but implications within dorms
    • suzy nelson just sent out an email (like 10 min ago)
      • rapid response group (faculty/staff) will decide whether a poster follows mit guidelines
        • so like poster black ops??
  • if anyone needs resources we are here. dorm prez chat is also open for sharing concerns
  • apple picking
    • ty all for helping with logistics
    • it happened and it went well
    • enjoy the gallon of apple cider we brought back
    • in these minutes (at the top) there is a screenshot
      • there was an initial allocation
      • actual numbers deviated
      • almost every dorm except for simmons had less people show up but we have the same cost to cover
      • the cost is going up but to apply evenly it will go based off night before we left numbers (5-10 people more)
      • getting $500 from sole to help offset, dormcon will be providing $500 to help offset too.
      • ended up as $35/person
    • q: seems like logistics for apple picking on back end seemed pretty chaotic. worth thinking about how to make it better for future?
      • yes we will get to this
    • any objections/concerns about funding/costs?
      • there will be an email sent out
    • reasons for chaos:
      • we didn’t have too much to go off of.
      • got some things from amanda who got things from previous area directors
      • a lot in the dark for many things
      • going to spend a lot of time compiling what went wrong/right, what we learned in a way that’s easy to understand for next year
      • there are things on our end but if you have feedback from students. ex. did people like apple picking and then getting cider and donuts on their own, or should we include that in the package?
      • if you want to share now that’s cool, if you want to think that’s cool
      • cameron: our house team was very willing to pay for cider and donuts. idk if that creates class differential between people who get that and those who don’t. back and forth around the form was a little complicated. unsure if it should be more or less decentralized. a lot of back and forth with residents.
        • nate: should probably do more decentralized next year. decided to do point people but only a few days before. setting that up earlier and then combining.
        • nate: for cider + donuts. we can get a field trip package which is technically k12 but whatever (there is a company package which is more expensive). we should try to do that if we can do that within cost.
        • mitali: if buses get figured out earlier might be cheaper.
        • cameron: setting expectations up front is probably the best things
        • amanda: not everyone has 4 friends to split apples with
      • jordan: an estimate sooner. we also asked house team for money. we said we basically need this by tomorrow and she said yikes.
        • nate: should probably book buses early. having numbers up front. setting expectations a lot earlier to have cost figured out.
        • rebecca: also difficult because we didn’t know actual numbers and how many people would flake. we have data from this year now
      • sara: tried to decentralize random because we had waitlist and then the people accidentally filled out the official form and they didn’t end up going. so letting each dorm figure out in case of too much interest
    • if you have other thoughts reach out to rebecca/mitali/nate/sara (email apple-picking-2023@mit.edu). trying to improve for next year. hopefully was good experience!

Onto the agenda

• abc funding

  • abc happens every year. costume party. anything but clothes. officially alternative body coverings.
  • generally not most miserable
  • asking for $500. will help to make sure we have enough for numbers we typically expect
  • q: when is it?
    • 21st of october
  • q: are you asking for $500 or $525
    • $525 rounded in my brain
  • budget breakdown: [INSERT???]
  • do we feel ready to vote
  • sara: what is the vibe of the dormcon account?
    • we can cover this
  • [person vote by dorm presidents]
    • passed!!

• head of house thing

  • one thing suzy wanted to do is ask for blue skys exercise
  • what is your ideal head of house or house team relationship?
    • to guide convo with heads of house we want to know what students expect of house teams
    • discussion here and form will be sent out later so that dorm execs have time to think about it
    • will anonymize everything when we send it
  • discussion:
    • cameron: I don’t interact with house team that much
    • jordan: a little hard to onboard new members of house team. very weird and never really onboarded. not sure of how to onboard a house team. new since we got new ad. in the semester we didn’t have an ad, we got used to dealing with head of house
      • onboarding is not really your job
    • mateo: we don’t really interact with head of house. but when we do it feels like they are imposing themselves.
      • gym stuff
      • dining closure
        • last dining event we had too many people so they decided that it would be new vassar only but that decision was made without student input
    • cameron: one useful thing. separation of powers between house team and student gov
      • house team is more there for support
      • would be helpful to know what their domain is
      • and making sure prez feel empowered to say we are going to do this thing because is what the students want
      • rebecca: seems like it will vary from person to person. idea of mentorship is very vague
    • jordan: would be helpful to have some sort of how to bring up if you have a problem with your house team. don’t know how to approach that kind of conversation. worried about damaging relationship. willingness to take feedback would be helpful
    • new house facility chair: I feel like I can help with somethings but not others. for example we wanted to get piano tuned but then head of house said let me take care of it. more defined role of what house team handles
    • give us your problems with heads of house and also what you think their role should be
    • sara: have meeting with heads of house every two weeks. could be email most of the time but sometimes is helpful. would recommend some sort of recurring communication. every two weeks is a lot but it’s been good for us.
    • jordan: our house team tends to stay out of our gov until crisis which is nice. and they help with the crisis which is good.
    • [student from mccormick]: speaking as a resident. our heads of house are pretty involved with house gov. they want to be involved. will often see them at meetings. as a resident, it was hard because the image I had is that they are super open and can talk to them about everything. but talking with them one-on-one they don’t really support in that way. would like it to be upfront about expectations. if students cannot determine what kind of problems they can expect heads of house can solve then the heads of house can be upfront about and direct people to get help. there can be tension sometimes with regard to that. if they are micromanaging then they are not seeing students on an equal level which doesn’t seem fair.
    • geoffrey: not even sure that house team knows that murals are happening. I just put a bunch of stuff on the wall. never got a single email.
    • daniel: I talked to house gov as dorm gov and dorm resident. very different experience. as a dorm resident, seems like they are better at resolving those sorts of things. in gov feels like they’re not listening as much.
    • cameron: can be a power imbalance sometimes. they treat themselves as the adults in the room
    • sara: one time got an opinion that was regurgitated from some admin but no clear communication. (ex. having locks on closets)
    • q: are students involved in determining head of house? [yes]
      • if you are interviewing (for ex) for assoc head of house, then hoh opinion is held more highly than students’
      • for internal hires works slightly differently
    • [student]: can be different from perspective from normal resident. ec house team sends reminders that they are there for you, here is a thing to sign up for swipes. I don’t think I’ve seen this from other houses.
      • seems like very independently done
      • can inquire into this
    • on resident vs gov. approaching heads of house as gov you have support of other people on your team. but for just resident feels intimidating sometimes.
    • cameron: drawing boundaries very clearly for student gov jurisdiction.
    • we will send out something and would like to hear from all of you

DORM PREZ UPDATES

• new house

  • going to get piano tuned

• next

  • finally got a pcard after like 6 months
  • have a budget now

• new vassar

  • almost got guest list up and running
  • no express guest list
  • max 5 people per resident

• baker

  • piano drop
  • everyone will probably see an email about that within the next week!

• mccormick

  • elevator has been better
  • constitution has not been updated since 2014

• bc

  • mural policy with geoffrey and luca and jordan
  • we hope they take the version we made because it makes more sense
  • having issues with music room
    • couple people are working on having music room have better instruments
    • people were using music room even though we had sign that it was undergoing improvements
    • emailed keith about having separate tap for music room so people can be kept accountable
      • kinda like makerspace
    • if anyone has experience with people damaging house stuff
      • other tap access stuff. they had moira list and students could just add people
  • trying to actually for reals do toptionality
    • draft policy
    • all floor chairs (burton-side) said looks good
    • sending to house manager and ad
    • ad is on board, house manager will prolly have concerns
    • house manager is not in charge of night watch? so how do you have them be chill
      • jordan: if you are on toptional floor you just know when your nightwatch came through and you just wouldn’t be toptional.
      • toptional events - would go down and tell nightwatch
      • cameron: will tell residents to be aware in policy
      • jordan: our policy was make a good effort
    • then will go to heads of house, who knows what they will say
    • connor side just didn’t show up to the meeting
    • seemed like most people were happy with. suites make it easier to isolate
    • if an entire floor votes for toptional floor
      • some suites are shared between two floors. do those have to close doors all the time?
    • goal is toptionality by next gbm

• ec

  • moving into space in basement of stud tomorrow
  • recurring conversation about social events and how to still have people come to ec stuff
    • never really ran small events for whole dorm before
    • movie night? board games?
    • do other dorms do this?
      • next house has social chair and social comm that does this
      • ec has been fairly against the idea of a social chair
      • closest thing ec has are facs (friday afternoon club)
      • bc medlinks are very organized. tiedye shirt event. heads of house do study breaks.

• random

  • someone got in flame war with webmaster, need new constitution
  • looking into gift fund link
    • emailed people to make giving fund
    • they said random has had one since 2004
    • apparently last summer I asked and was told it wasn’t asa recognized account
    • will email them again
    • cameron: you can have house cost object on giving page
      • sara: yes we try
    • daniel: yes I have had people on tech callers donate to random hall
  • keep have stuff getting stolen
    • laundry supplies, 2 bikes?

• macgregor

  • trying to renovate gym
  • heads of house hosting event (fallfest) this sunday. pumpkins
  • getting big communal kitchen in first floor area?
    • lots of residents expressed pushback

• simmons

  • ananda did not give me updates
  • how am I? welllllllllllllllll

rebecca: pls pls pls tell people to come to next gbm. we want input and will have free dinner. direct feedback to admin!

nate: ask people about their apples, lmk.

TYYYYY