DormCon General Body Meeting

Date: February 15, 2024
Location: Simmons Multi-Purpose Room (MPR)
Food: Otto’s pizza

note

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

TL;DR (will be created after the meeting)

A NOTE TO ANYONE READING THIS RN: these minutes are highly disorganized at the moment, when sunmee is done with a few psets will come back and sort through :) in the meantime if you have any questions/concerns pls email or whatever
[2/20 update: sunmee is so behind on this sry tech chair SOB]

Full minutes

Proposed funding guideline updates: 02152024 DormCon Funding Proposed Changes

mitali: getting started to get through our packed agenda. welcome to dormcon spring 2024 edition! few special guests with us today!

melissa nobles: hi chancellor melissa nobles. hello! good to meet you all

sally kornbluth: hi I’m sally kornbluth

david friedrich: hi

peter cummings: hi I’m peter cummings from student life. working on dining with mark and heather

helen wang: new senior associate dean for res life

mitali: slightly weird setup for dormcon. but we are very informal. if you have anything to say please jump in. we are taking minutes but if you have objections come talk to sunmee. dormcon is a collection of all 11 dorms on campus. also have exec members. we typically do exec updates to start with. introduce yourself, name, pronouns, dorm, position. after that we will give brief updates. we want to keep updates short. then we will do president updates. introduce yourself and tell us briefly what you’re dorm has been up to and any challenges you have been facing.

Exec updates

• maddy: she/her, baker, cpw/rex chair. met with trinidad and ec cpw/rex rep to discuss their space. we have spaces and backup spaces and rain spaces too. for next steps as we wait for elections to finish. we will work on general cpw info for dorms and plug for hosting on dormspam.
• ananda: she/her, simmons, co dining chair
• tyra: macgregor, ec until renovations.
• ananda: bearer of bad news ig. met with mark and heather (from dining). la verdes contract has been taking longer than expected, earliest is late fall. any questions/comments please talk to us. working on temporary solutions including more vending in the stud (such as those with toiletries). the hope is also subway vending machine.
• tyra: anywhere between 1-2 months in terms of timeline. also some vending machines in building 4. apparently doing very well. different kinds of vending machines. heard that it’s out of stock so getting it stocked more often. these came in iap. now one in building 56 in the lobby. similar vending machines in the stud.
• ananda: second floor of the stud is struggling with sales. technically 3 spaces but only 2 have kitchens. sending out survey for student population to decide which of the three will shut down. if you have thoughts please reach out to us.
• tyra: please email us if you have ideas: dormcon-dining-chair@mit.edu
• nate: tech chair, he/him/they/them, maseeh (formerly ec). spring meeting schedule is now on the website. also link to add to google calendar. for new presidents we put names on the website. look out for an email asking for what you want me to put you on the website as. if you have website questions about your own dorm websites let me know dormcon-tech-chair@mit.edu
• sara: she/they, random, one half of judcomm
• mateo: he/him, new vassar, other half
• sara: no updates. did a lot of amendments last semester for constitution.
• sruthi: next, she/her. one of housing chairs
• jordan: ec affiliated, housing chair.
• sruthi: housing intent form due feb 28. dorm prez pls remind your residents. feel free to direct any issues. health/safety inspections happening next two weeks in all residences. sitting in on interviews for hrs person overseeing renewal/renovations.
• jordan: contact us if you have questions!
• i3 chair: reached out to presidents about updating mailing lists and to admin about timeline.
• hanu: one of two underclassmen reps, ec
• guy: other underclassmen rep, baker. reaching out to is&t regarding expanding tap access to dining dorms during dining hours.
• hanu: lots of issues we have heard from prefrosh about their hosting situation. working with mit admissions for more robust system for accountability and satisfaction.
• lusi: she/her, work in hrs. housing chairs stole my updates: to fill out housing intent form. also spring extension + summer housing.
• farin: other cpw/rex chair.
• sunmee: secretary,
• rebecca: she/her, burton conner. vice president. currently have covid so I’m virtual. thanks for being here!
• mitali: maseeh, formerly ec. president. they/them pronouns. our updates. had a couple of meetings with suzy and some of our special guests. communications around rex processes. how to market and make sure freshmen are engaged but know their options. if you were following in the fall we were discussing changes to house pricing structure to make more equitable across dorms. thinking about next steps to gather more feedback such as focus groups or surveys. meeting with liz green (director of surveys/assessments) to talk about surveys and discuss rex survey data. you should have gotten your house’s responses for those. talking about how to do data collection process.
• another meeting to talk about muraling. heard updates about incidents in bc last december. exerting ownership over space while maintaining spaces. also how policy decisions are passed down to students. documenting student input and how things were decided so that new students know what happened.
• rex food policy. will come up very soon in gbm. collected a lot of feedback last semester and continuing to brainstorm for next year. other gap programs like iap dining dollars and how they have been successful. how to work on rex food policy to make sure it’s also successful.
• head of house relationships last semester. ideal relationships with head of house and house team. planning on meeting with heads of houses to improve relations.
• new projects we will pitch for the semester. we will bring those up!
• retreat this coming monday. if you have not rsvp’ed please do! discussing dorm finances, tax structure, any questions you have related to p-cards, etc. a couple sessions about leadership and building self-awareness.

moving on to president intros. intro + brief updates on your dorm!

• camila: she/her, baker. big exec turnover. getting everyone situated. started planning for piano drop. our facilities manager is requesting we build a metal ramp to use for years to come. planning to partly fundraise from baker alumni but we were concerned and didn’t know how much money is in baker reserves.
  • mitali: we can talk after, will connect you.
• shorna: she/her, next prez. had transition last sunday. next house pi day and next act production planning has started. these are longstanding traditions and things seem to be going well.
• nina: maseeh treasurer/proxy. last weekend + iap we had house retreat. went well. layed out plans and things we want to see for the next semester. improving communication between house team. we have dorm-wide olympics coming up. pre-covid tradition, bring it back. starting to plan maseeh boat cruise.
• gabbie: new simmons prez. getting started. first house meeting this sunday. no real updates yet.
• bianca: one president
• lauren: other president of random
• bianca: just got started. transitioned on tuesday. first house meeting and elected other exec members. only 2.5 hours! working on budget. getting new head of house over the next few months.
• hanu: proxy for river, ec president. had first house comm with new exec. took 1.75 hours maybe to elect.
• tyler: he/him, [macgregor president]. planning ski trip and pi day and field day later in the semester.
• mateo: new vassar president. constitution approval vote live. elections will happen over the next few weeks. things related to country kitchen. last week of iap operations manager threatened to close the kitchen for cleanliness issues. that didn’t happen but we will have meetings to discuss. last week there was a big group of people that used the kitchen and didn’t clean up which didn’t help.
• new/mccormick/bc missing :(

welcome and congrats to presidents!

• melissa: how long are the terms
  • mitali: most are one year (calendar) and dormcon exec are academic (mostly)

mitali: open discussion time if any of guests have topics you’d like to discuss.

sally kornbluth: opportunity for us to hear what’s going on in the dorms. we also talked to alums and faculty. they have this view of mit which might be somewhat distant. we are curious what we can convey to them about your house experience and student life at mit. what’s important for you to maintain, what do you think could be improved, etc.

• guy: I’m just a freshman. what I like is that we have different dorm cultures. and maintaining unique identity for each dorm is what students want to see. baker piano drop is one of the reasons I chose baker. that makes me feel connected to mit community.
• sally kornbluth: connected to alums?
• guy: yes had alumni dinner

sally kornbluth: selection of houses by students here is unique. never heard of anything like this. you’ll be involved in recruiting students to houses. how does this really work and how do you try to talk to students who are interested?

• gabbie: they had i3 videos which I thought were very helpful. you get a good feel for what the dorm culture might be like. I’ve lived in simmons since freshman year. particularly interested in scootah hockey. we ride on scootahs and play hockey a couple times a year.
• hanu: I’m ec i3 chair. very interesting to see videos. saw one from 2004 and people are still doing the same thing. empowering to see how strong a community is.
• maddy: student-athlete on the crew team. there are certain dorms that have higher concentration of people in a certain sport. baker is crew, swimmers, lacrosse. vassar is field sports, basketball, football.
• camila: also student-athlete. knew where my sport was and spending time at cpw with different people helped me choose.
• sally kornbluth: did dorms really display themselves over cpw? [yes]
• bianca: didn’t have cpw because it was virtual but we at random pride ourselves on having many events and nice to show prefrosh what it can look like to live there.
• sally kornbluth: seems a little crazy that it actually works out.

melissa nobles: mentioned briefly about how covid ruptured some things. process now is reclaiming but are there new traditions that happened since covid? we also talk to alums and they have a particular view and some still hold but their experience may be quite different.

• mitali: can speak to covid experience. freshman year was entirely virtual. [ec] does hall rush and we select our floors and have mini version of rex. interesting to see what people did what they did 2 years ago. there was a certain wall we used to paint over each year. and they forgot to do it my year but we remembered to bring that back. we’ve also found space to make new traditions. our hall became very food-centric. really liked baking. had people in the kitchen all the time. one person suggested thursday night waffles. everyone loves to bake and everyone is living in different places but we all convene to bake. mix of old and new and I think that’s a cool thing about the dorms. there are traditions that people expect but also when you’re there you have the autonomy to make the community your own. as a freshman you have people to look up to and over time you become the person passing that forward. and shift the culture and make new events.
• sara: my first year also all virtual. spring semester lived in random but could only be in my room or other room where I could socialize with 5 other people. I would walk the halls and tell there are stories happening here. great to see people bringing back traditions about paintings or dents in the wall. tell stories that make our space our space.
• jordan: would agree new + old. and connecting with alumni. my floor has one of the older traditions. every night at 11pm we drink hot cocoa (dates back to 1975)
  • sally kornbluth: must have a very big container
• since covid we are trying to have alumni cocoa and invite people. and last year one of the people who started the tradition showed up and cool to see all that happened
  • sally kornbluth: is attendance pretty good? [varies]
  • melissa nobles: do you switch up the cocoa recipe
• hanu: you also learn a lot in ways that you don’t learn in the classroom. a class that ran last fall on ec history. there was one quote that half of the mit education happens outside the classroom. I think I understand that not only in the sense of in ec you learn how to use power tools to build a roller coaster. but also learn how to coexist with other people. you both chose to live in this space. learn how to run events in your community and handling budget and you do that because you care about where you live.
• shorna: one thing unique to next. we have student groups centric to next house such as next act, next bake, etc. very exciting to sing a capella casually or put on a musical. very indicative of next house culture.
  • sally kornbluth: are people in acapella groups gravitating to this house?
    • shorna: meant to be more casual so people can spend time with people they like

melissa nobles: community building + organization seem to be the big things

• hanu: at other schools you have your room and your roommate but all your friends are across campus. most of the people I talk to have a situation where most of the people they talk to are in their living communities
• melissa nobles: visited caltech, seemed similar
• tyra: connecting back to selecting dorms through rex and in-house. freshman year I lived in ec. I didn’t go to cpw. when I first did my housing form I put ec as my 8th choice. I thought it was cool but I wasn’t sure because I hadn’t been to cpw and you hear that it’s intense or whatever. rex was very helpful seeing the roller coaster seeing the creativity and all the people. that made me want to go for residence exchange for east campus. that was one of the best decisions I’ve made. I think in each dorm anyone can find a community. it is important to select the right dorm but place for everyone in each dorm.

melissa nobles: there is also a certain power of randomness. some of you in classes you think you’re gonna love it and others that you think you’re gonna hate it. I imagine that’s also part of the learning. Learning what you don’t know but you just have to try

• jordan: you do have to live somewhere. and you’re the average of the people you spend time with. I think I’m a different person as a junior because of where I lived. I had friends that were on ec exec and that’s been a significant part of my life at mit. if I lived somewhere else I would’ve had a different experience.
• farin: always thought that strength of organizations of mit speak to the intensity of life at mit. not surprised that caltech also sees similar things.

sally kornbluth: there is support group aspect of this. there is no easy way through mit which is not true of a lot of places.

• ananda: the reason I got involved with simmons gov. we have big house gov meetings. you can put insane proposals to turn simmons into a waffle house etc. a senior talked about a tradition of fall formal with next and mccormick. had never done anything regarding event planning. moved to us for high school and impression had been taylor swift you belong with me. senior showed me things and that was life-changing. not only do we want to continue traditions but also bring people in. a lot of us have spent unpaid labor hours thinking about dorm culture because we really care.
• mitali: flip side. you get drawn into these roles because there’s a lot of fun. but also there’s difficult aspects of being a leader and there’s a lot you learn. because we are very close-knit we find conflict and learning to navigate through that. I think I’ve grown so much as a person through my living community
• sally kornbluth: that is something you take into any role you take on.

melissa nobles: don’t want to be too heavy. there’s a lot going on in the world. a lot of our conversation has been about the importance of dorm life. in what ways does what’s going on out in the world and in the middle east, the presidential election. there are a lot of things. how do you navigate that? do you think that’s the outside world and I have my life and my classes or is it something completely different. would like to get insight about how the world out there is coming to my world here at mit. and is it a choice?

• guy: seems like a choice. whether you decide to agree cordially about the disagreements you have. I have many friends where I disagree but that doesn’t mean I can’t be friends with them
• gabbie: had amazing conversations with people in community. having people you feel you can be open with no matter the views. any people that might have more personal connection with issues at hand. had great conversations in lounges and dining halls.
• bianca: conversations on floor have been the best for difficult or hard to understand topics. understanding we are people that care about each other but there are things we might not agree on. also recognizing where it’s not appropriate to have certain topics. then we can take a break and do other activities. having conversations but also having place to not think about hard things whether it’s world issues or classes

sally kornbluth: seems like space in living communities is allowing difficult conversations but also opt-in/opt-out.

• sara: conversations in kitchen/lounge are often world issues. you are bound to be somewhat involved in those conversations. something our community has learned is that there are times when the conversation is productive and others where we just need a break.
• geoffrey: thought about night work a history of hacks and pranks at mit (book). what makes dorms so special in this context. why does where student lives at mit matter. living groups are safe houses. rain gear to keep us safe when firehoses turn on. students talk in terms of not just being at mit but being part of sigma chi or macgregor. just as much a part of the experience at mit as general requirements. not every student hacks but every time a person puts a car on the dome they put a ray of sunshine

sally kornbluth: thanks for letting us come!

mitali: we are moving onto budget and more mundane things

• funding updates:

  • dormcon does fund events hosted by people in the dorms. we have linked a document with updates that we are making to funding.
  • dormcon used to have a much larger budget than we currently do. we imposed a cap of 1750 to make sure we don’t run out. general rule is that we fund up to 50%
  • not including publicity in total of which 50% we fund
  • submitting budget 48 hours in advance -> 1 week in advance
  • post-event report to discuss final expenses and adjustments if needed
  • capping party funding at $500 (e.g. floor parties)
  • randomizing order of voting

• any questions/concerns about these changes?

  • nate: is there a worded definition for party?
    • leaving it to be a little flexible

• judcomm: I don’t believe we have to do a vote but we can do one to check the vibes [yus]

• [INSERT VOTE -> YES]

• mccormick introduction:

  • rose: one of 3 mccormick co-presidents. junior studying cs and business analytics. no updates yet. held first house meeting.

• ua food security here to ask questions about reliable access to kitchen spaces especially over iap. any problems (e.g. new vassar with the country kitchen) and what would be helpful

  • tyra: for a bit of background. we’ve been talking about how dorms are split into cook for yourself and dining. but within each we have big range of abilities. maseeh and next are both dining dorms but maseeh has tiny kitchen in the basement and next has big country kitchen. anything we can do without construction to improve cooking abilities. any issues like not being used, not being cleaned up.
  • camila: not super culturally cooking in country kitchen. there is a country kitchen. we have induction stovetops but none of the pans are usable with induction stovetops. we have hot plate burners that you use in chemistry class that do work. I brought a pan from home. not a lot of people use the kitchen. it isn’t cleaned. of course staff goes in. but cleanliness is a concern.
    • tyra: do you know why that is?
    • maddy: I’m scared to go in it’s disgusting
    • tyra: seems like there’s not enough accountability. in macgregor you just clean so you can come back and find it clean. in baker ig people just use it once a month. any ideas of how to tackle this problem.
  • mateo: in new vassar. people would take pots/pans to store food they cooked. you’d walk into the kitchen and a pot would go missing. one approach was buying food container boxes. people just don’t clean up after themselves (those that use easily accessible communal pots)
  • farin: not sure if we’ve considered. for access issues. especially over iap. maybe giving dorm residents access to other dorms’ country kitchens. that might get a bit chaotic. for accountability (this might be extreme) maybe some consequence or surveillance. who is going to step up to say they didn’t clean up. if it keeps happening the house managers get fed up and can close kitchens as a consequence but not everyone.

• tyra: simmons - ad got food. macgregor has food pantry. difference in access to food pantries or food storage containers. anyone have anything from their dorm that stood out?

  • ananda: does your house support food over iap?
  • not baker
  • generally shaking heads
  • farin: mccormick has pasta nights on wednesdays (happened three times) done by heads of house
  • hanu: do other dorms have kitchen bitches?
  • geoffrey: next has rotating cleaning schedule for wings
  • jordan: I believe the official term is kitchen steward in ec. paid by house manager 7 hours a week, responsible for keeping kitchen clean. varying levels of success
  • shorna: next has rotating wing clean up schedule. with monetary incentive. if the wing before doesn’t clean the incentive rolls over to you. maybe implementing some sort of penalty. has had varying levels of success.
    • leo: paid out of our own house budget
  • resident: may not be the best incentive structure

• tyra: do you wish house team had a pantry or enforced cleaning? because that is something we could advocate for.

  • hanu: tried having cameras. it got taken away so many issues.

• gabbie: someone in simmons taped up signs saying there were cameras (not actually cameras) and somehow suddenly got clean.

• mateo: two solutions we floated with house teams

  • first cameras. mit said no
  • tap access. people that constructed said it was impossible
  • checking out key to kitchen at front desk. but kitchen is very big and if there’s one key that cuts down how the kitchen can be used.
  • checking out equipment like mccormick. so we know if you didn’t clean. haven’t implemented yet.

• geoffrey: could put to desk workers

• farin: country kitchen is always locked and you check out key at desk (always goes missing) and pots/pans are just there

• jordan: on idea of checking out pots/pans. tap access protected cabinet that you keep pots/pans in. you can’t know who tapped? but there are definitely ways to know.

• felicity: on the topic of accountability but wanted to bring up tap access

• tyra: natalie anything to add?

• natalie: no but all interesting things to know.

• mitali: one last quick point to wrap up. there is a dormspam working group. just to put that out there. rebecca jordan myself and a couple others. one main thing we are talking about is respectful communication and ways of enforcing that (similarly with accountability). if you have thoughts find one of us and talk afterwards or email us. goes for anything discussed today. see you in four days at retreat!