DormCon General Body Meeting
Date: April 4, 2024
Location: Baker Upper Dining
Food: pepper skys
note
If you find any issues with the meeting minutes, please email dormcon-secretary@mit.edu
TL;DR (will be created after the meeting)
- Updates from exec: DormCon GBM Updates 4/4/24
- Elections! More info: DormCon Exec Descriptions for Elections 2024
Full minutes
-
Agenda:
- Introducing Elections
- Floor placement discussion (was postponed from last meeting)
-
please try to speak up when you give your updates!
Exec updates
-
dining (tyra/ananda)
- concord market things
- because we spoke a lot about them
- but don’t remember what I said
- first of all tyra + ananda got quoted in the tech today [cheers] what an influencer
- going to concord (group from gsc, dormcon, ua)
- rebecca + ananda talked with team that will be active on campus
- they’re planning for their opening to be flexible. putting a lot of thought but if students give feedback they want to aim to meet those asks
- they will be settling in and new concept
- 10 year contract so they want to be involved in the community, plan to stay for a long time even beyond that
- will have a kitchen area maybe will do cooking lessons, student groups can propose ingredients + recipes
- they aim to become one of the biggest caterers, hopefully will be cheaper than what rebecca/ananda saw which is what they charge to concord businesspeople (students budgets are different)
- organizing an mit dining forum, reserved lobdell where mark/heather
will show pictures. plan is future of the stud (™). free boba! 7-8pm
[insert date] originally going to have the week before but
rescheduled to after concord market trip so we can share that
experience
- hoping that people will come! please come
- stuff in the launchpad
- results. things are in flux. want all restaurants to stay but that takes a lot of work
- hopefully will have updates next week
- ua will release findings on food insecurity survey
- expect news and ways to solve food insecurity on campus soon!
- macgregor situation coming soon
- concord market things
-
housing (jordan/sruthi)
- presentation with hrs to prefrosh parents about housing ™
- very successful. lusi was there and did amazing :)
- lots of questions
- will be at hrs cpw table at midway! hrs swag??
- if you know anyone who is intending to fill out housing extension form, that is due wednesday april 17 at noon (two weeks from now) and they should just fill out the form now!
- meeting with hrs on monday
- planning to talk about macgregor stoves
- next house stoves..? for summer housing next house is not a cook for yourself dorm so that is interesting.
- if you have anything else we should bring up. stove related or otherwise lmk
- presentation with hrs to prefrosh parents about housing ™
-
uc rep (guy/hanu)
- talked to rich and he said people who have dining plans will be able to
get tap access to dining dorms sometimes around may
- did not confirm exact situation
- as mentioned at prev meeting bunch of situations of what hours at what dorms
- he just said yep
- will figure out exactly what is happening
- talked to rich and he said people who have dining plans will be able to
get tap access to dining dorms sometimes around may
-
i3
- checking in with i3s from dorms
- things seem to be going well except a few people who will be bugged into replying
-
advisors (lusi/amanda)
- double thumbs up
- apparently for undergrad housing racs are making room assignments. coming back to us on april 15th.
- spring extension form is due april 17th at noon as jordan said
- q: could the forms be dumped before the deadline? summer housing was
emailed once and people missed priority deadline
- lusi: you want more emails from hrs? bet. yes will put request in
- q: for overflow housing (rooms that were turned singles → doubles, doubles
→ triples) will they be turned back?
- as of right now we anticipate we will need to use same overflow housing as last year with the expected incoming class of 2028
-
cpw/rex (maddy/farin)
- send out form for mattress reimbursements over spring break
- got final list of people who will be emailed shortly with details on how they will get reimbursement
- lots of people requested mattresses this year (300s)
- given budget, we have plans to sponsor mattress part and then buy pumps for the dorms
- dorms should have the amount of funding they will get from dormcon for cpw
- rounds of questions
- q: if you run out of money for the air mattress thing is it possible
to see who has requested mattresses in the past
- will not need with our strategy but if needed will consider
- q: if you are hosting multiple people do you get multiple air
mattresses
- sure but really brushing up against that
- q: are you planning to reimburse individual people? will people buying
be cpw chairs or people
- it will be dorms or people but leaning towards people because if someone ends up not needing
- q: if you run out of money for the air mattress thing is it possible
to see who has requested mattresses in the past
- good luck 🙂
- q: have you guys talked about the cpw desk helpline? this exists. frosh
can call. 24/7 helpline. putting posters around the dorm. sometimes
prefrosh end up having hard time finding food
- was also big last year because tap access problems
- dorm tours for cpw
- just send us times
- will try to make it happen
- cpw next week!!!!
- send out form for mattress reimbursements over spring break
-
judcomm (sara/mateo)
- impending review of election procedures
- get ready for an amendment or three
-
tech (nate)
- going to publish elections page on website shortly
- will have details that will be sent out in other ways
-
p/vp (mitali/rebecca)
- suzy meeting today
- first topic: macgregor kitchens
- tl;dr: they are open to looking into pilot programs for safety that are not taking away stoves
- seems to be some miscommunication
- seem to be open to student input
- details on pilot:
- removing kitchenettes is not off the table but maybe not removing all at once this summer
- looking step back to see how fire safety can be improved
- “kitchenettes in a hallway is insane”
- suzy open to improving that
- room placement process stuff
- want to develop more general communications between students and house teams and hrs so all sources are giving same kind of information
- more positive messaging regarding in house processes
- dormcon is making additional resources for the website, updates on that soon
- taking that language and making sure house teams are using that language so that everyone is on same page
- support for food for early returns for dorms
- ngl we haven’t thought about how we’re doing it this fall
- open to the idea of financial assistance and having dining halls open
- haven’t figured it out, going to review last year and review budget and how much they can request from mit
- seem to want to formalize into something that happens every year
- individual dorm basis since some dorms have a lot more early returns than others
- seem pretty open to things
- if you have thoughts let us know
- q: on timeline for this. on simmons process we don’t change budget
over the summer. decisions on how we’re spending have to be made
by early may
- q: when planning budget for next year are you thinking about
rex food budget?
- rex budget is what we will use for rex food
- shaking heads
- @ presidents: please put the date you will finalize budgets in the chat, that would be helpful!
- q: when planning budget for next year are you thinking about
rex food budget?
- q: rex chairs have expressed that they might hit the budget. we
would struggle a bit so would like to not have to change current
budget
- part of idea of working individually with dorms
- helen wang is the person leading the idea of what this assistance will look like
- q: have there been any discussions of making it what happens over
iap where you get some money that you can use to buy food or cook
meals
- did suggest this
- nothing they said no to
- nothing is certain, they haven’t started thinking about it
- first topic: macgregor kitchens
- dormspam working group recommendations being finalized
- cannot share yet
- but not looking like how we wanted to
- but not sure we can do about it because lawsuit and outside pressure
- they were willing to work with us in the beginning, but now there is outside pressure
- at this point working on implementation to not screw students over
- q: was removing dormspam ever an option for the group
- technically was an option
- but really wasn’t going to happen
- q: what’s going on with meal swipes thing? rumor that you have to have
60 meal swipes
- it is a rumor
- *macgregor thing is not a ploy to put everyone on the dining
plan*
- mark and heather did not know
- suzy did not know
- q: how are they going to enforce it
- good question guy
- suzy meeting today
Agenda
-
DormCon elections!!!
- exec descriptions for positions we are electing in the spring: DormCon Exec Descriptions for Elections 2024
- anyone can run for dormcon position whether you have experience with admin or dormcon or whatever
- want people to come and represent diversity of perspectives
- same time as gbm, but usually a little longer than usual (will try to make it not too long)
- if you hear people complaining about housing like woah there is a dormcon position for that
- you can also run if you’re interested (@ presidents or anyone here)
- if you want to talk to anyone specific, we put contact info on that document. if you don’t know who they are, talk to mitali/rebecca and we will connect you
- also you can shadow meeting
- housing meeting! dining meeting!
- if interested shoot mitali/rebecca a message
- want people to know what they’re getting into
- please show up or proxy (MAY 9th)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
-
floor placement processes
- general discussion
- how your dorm is feeling
- how it goes now, how it goes during rex
- hearing concern, friction b/w student govt and house teams, etc.
- some prompts
- want to hear how you feel about how floor placement processes are going
- how your communities have been impacted by floor process
- how your process has been impacted by mutual selection removal policy
- bc: spring transfers came through, bc is having flex process. also
internal switch process (people who are unhappy on floor have opportunity
to switch to new floor) and running that transfer soon
- are a dorm affected by deletion of mutual selection
- pros: does create less stressful experience for frosh somewhat
- cons: harder to have continuity in the community. sometimes someone who doesn’t want to be on the floor ends up there but sometimes end up loving community
- would be nice to have some more input on where the frosh are placed
- but it’s going ok not the worst
- also rooming is due super early this year. one community it’s not
possible for them to do rooming (kosher) because we won’t know which
kosher frosh we get until they talk with rabbi at cpw. been talking to
dwyght
- jordan: if other dorms have similar issues. it is pretty significantly earlier from past years from rac perspective. if your dorm is having issues shoot dwyght/paul an email. they are open to arranging some extensions.
- will work on this for future years
- if you don’t need the extension much nicer for them to have it by april 15th, but if you need it get it
- q: how long
- case by case basis
- if they don’t have frosh til cpw, then well yea
- are a dorm affected by deletion of mutual selection
- random: for as long as I’ve been there, weren’t doing a lot of mutual
selection. not impacted too much
- main issue: we don’t do floor placement first then rooms. we have frosh rank every room across entire dorm, possible because we are small
- once house team words it as an opt-in process rather than opt-out. this year there was messaging that you could just shoot a quick email for whatever reason
- we have pretty high satisfaction for frosh, but when 5-10 frosh out of only handful opt out, effect is great
- significant hardship to counter message what house team was saying.
- q: affecting culture?
- we place frosh temporarily on floor
- some frosh tend to not explore and stay on the floor, can lead to weird dynamics if there is a frosh who would like to move there but all the spots are taken
- first year we have seen and other culture shifts among frosh so not sure
- next: feel quite strongly on hrs’s decision on allowing frosh to opt-out
- most of frosh in wing are there because placed randomly
- my wing is one of most active wings in next house. maybe 25% involvement from frosh on wing. because many there because rng
- so many frosh were encouraged to opt out of something that was major part of next house and next house wing culture
- fundamental part of wing culture, and hrs should not tell them to opt out without emphasizing that dorms are not pro doing this
- bc: we don’t discourage opt out but pretty rigorous, have to meet with
area director. we don’t say you can’t opt out but there has to be serious
reason that is not just I want to stay in room
- kids who do opt out are those who want to switch out of floor and dorm. don’t connect with community and miss out on upperclassmen mentoring which is key to experience. they don’t get full dorm experience
- jordan: not just that it is detrimental to dorm community (™) but also actively detrimental to the frosh. dorm support network is one of the most critical things to getting through mit your first year for most people, kinda takes that away to not choose that.
- ec: hall rush is big for ec. my hall rush, knew decent amount of people
that if people were told that opt out was fine they would have and
regretted it. they enjoyed hall rush.
- lot of core memories for connecting with upperclassmen was hall rush
- for dorms with communities by floor/hall. not many moments to see entire dorm community and that’s why it is significant
- changing topic just a bit re: new rooming dates
- housing points could not count on cpw volunteering points which is something people rely on to up their priority because this goes into single room preferences
- ended up preemptively counting them and told they would be taken away next fall
- other point: deadlines being close to spring break. communication done over spring break is more difficult for those that are less familiar with the process on considering the options
- ideas rebecca/mitali had
- graphic on guide to residences website. don’t unpack, etc.
- each dorm has page with overview. adding a part that says 1-2 sentences about floor placement process
- helen wang wants to have a video of upperclassmen/dorm exec saying why this process is important and how it helps
- additional ideas on how to improve communication?
- q: hypothetical video one per dorm? or..
- very hypothetical rn. could be or couple people from “different walks of life” with different dorms that have different processes
- one thing they kept saying is that this could be on i3, not sure if it fits there but if you have a dorm tour vid. might want to send 30 seconds talking about process and hyping it up. probably a lot more effective than look there’s a bunch of upperclassmen!
- re: bianca’s point: creating communication scripts between house
teams and dorm execs. if e.g. you have a new area director coming
in they have understanding.
- area director said just email me don’t even need to talk. said that hrs gave them new directions in how to talk about this
- is this the case and how much leniency do we have on how we
can communicate about this?
- not sure if hrs is trying to make it intentional change in communication
- amanda: area directors were told to let opt outs happen for any reason. not sure how we can interpret that. told that they need to be able to opt out
- a lot of the conversations have been on how it happens. even if there is a directive we are pushing to standardize language on what goes to the first years so we have more control if there is opt out for any reason then you still say benefits of opting in
- q: worthwhile/possible for area directors/house team/dorm exec to
have conversation on how they want to communicate? for ec when a
message goes to house team it goes to exec and they want to let us
know. they ask us almost before they sent an email or we send the
email. doesn’t seem to happen in all dorms but seems like it can
help things
- yea this is a bit of what we discussed today as a potential solution
- you write a script “advising script” as something you agree on
- yes but also in general if hrs sends a message on what they
need. is it worth it in those events for house team to go to
exec first to make sure people are on same page. sometimes
things are time sensitive and area director needs to jump on
something
- something you need to be intentional about
- culture shifts for some of house teams
- q: is there a way to come up with standard process to opt out like
there is a form that you fill out. baker doesn’t really do a hall
rush process.
- most people are opting out because they think it’s a pain. make opt out process different. not opting out because they’re stressed but rather they just don’t want to
- amanda: probably not. fight we were having since I was undergrad
- bc: reassuring frosh that they will have help moving has helped keep our opt out rates row. average 4 or 6 each year. you have to meet with someone and not just sending email. good reasons to opt out and should be an option. but meeting with area director isn’t too strenuous and potentially benefits the dorm. can see where the trends are coming from
- q: focusing on benefits part. if you’re part of welcome team.
helped with moving at desk or something did not get instructions
on how to welcome people in. so many people didn’t know they would
have to move in a week. so many parents were like can I help my
child bunk. standardizing what information you should tell people
as they move in
- absolutely
- having little cards with information that we hand out
- q: if people want to opt out talking to actual person would be
good. if someone is doing this because stressed could talk about
other elements. and requires to have conversation about it. also
important to talk about this before you even choose the dorm. if
you’re like guy and you don’t want to do a floor process. one of
the great things about dorms is that they are different. you can
just not live in one of those dorms. making that messaging clear
from the beginning will be good
- that is what we are trying to do! yay
- q: when we talk about opting out of floor processes. for baker we
don’t have floor process. you either stay in your room or you go
to random. or you try to leave and we say no. are we all not
opting out of a floor process. we just stay
- then you are all opting out?
- nowhere to opt in. all dorms are different
- some dorms are more opt in and some are more opt out
- so can’t be standardized but idea is communication
- q: if you do make a form you can put a question on why you are
moving out. so you have to give
- talking to real people seems helpful
- +1. frosh came to talk to us in person and they honestly had stupid reasons. “want a double that faces mass ave” and 90% of frosh get that. sometimes stress. and sometimes other stuff. but sometimes stupid things that are easily resolved. so talking resolves that.
- talking is conflict resolution skill! dorm is first living apart from parents situation. they are capable they can do it
- q: hypothetical video one per dorm? or..
- please text/email/talk to us with more thoughts!!
Pres updates
-
macg (tyler)
- had a wonderful start to the week on monday, informed that david wants to take almost all stoves away except entry ones. 30-40 per entry sharing 2 stovetops in cfy dorm
- if you’re in a cfy dorm you should have enough stoves to be able to cook your food (so true)
- on the brighter side, field day in 3 weeks
- q: meeting with david friedrich next week, how approaching?
- sent out form. 94-95 responses out of 300
- assembling arguments and going over that with ad
- ad talking about restorative justice[??] sentimental narrative
- working on it
- let dormcon know if you need anything!!
- one question: do you know how many fire alarms have happened by dorm
- Ec had a competition
- random had over 43 in last 4 years
- Someone used to track in discord
- fire alarms pretty frequently in ec
- something interesting is the thought process behind this. lots of fire
alarms in one dorm → let’s take out all the stoves? understanding this.
- conversation will continue afterwords
-
baker (camila)
- baker is good
- cpw chair has everything under control
- house manager gave an unexpected “I need the ramp to be done a week ago to test for piano drop.” worst case we postpone piano drop for week or two later. hopefully turn that no into a yes
-
simmons (gabbie)
- no major updates
- cpw going well
- scootah hockey planning
-
new house (fatima - proxy)
- going well
- rooming by houses so not much on our end
- big things are coming for new house!!
-
maseeh (kennedy)
- waffle night on thursday night
- cpw
- boat cruise final chaperones
-
random (bianca)
- all set for cpw
- trying to update constitution and bylaws and takes quite some time to work through all updates. ongoing process til end of year
-
ec (river)
- doing well, cpw all set and good
- talent show on april 18th and only 2 people signed up so I plan to fill the rest of the time. booked from 5pm to midnight but starting at 7pm
-
mccormick (jyotsna)
- trying to get more cpw things because 2028s will be last to be able to come back
- pretty much finalized transition team
-
next (shorna)
- lots of next act
- got all new equipment for country kitchen
- since next house will be summer housing would hrs be willing to cover part
of that since summer residents will use more
- send to housing chairs
- remodeling study space
- open mic night coming
-
bc (kyna)
- cpw happening
- new posters
- new dean on call posters. you can just call the dean on call now! don’t have to call the police if you don’t want to
- i3 happening (they just sent email!!!)
- working on bylaws. realized constitution isn’t really flushed out especially re: culture groups and getting them leadership so they have a say in the government
- working on guest list policy because we have some people who just use the gym that don’t live here. there is a guy that stays in the gym for 3 hour chunks 😢 so maybe will take away guest list access
- internal switch and rooming happening. painful but always is :)
- q: how is indigenous group stuff going?
- 2 people heading it moved out as soon as approved. lost contact with leadership for a bit but then rooming came up
- they elected a leader. 4 people initially. were in weird place initially. moved them.
- smudging policy (burning of ceremonial herbs) so they can do that in their space
- now that they have permanent space will be more settled
- trying to get kosher to get leadership which is harder because more established but historically hard to get leadership
-
new vassar (michaela)
- preparing for cpw and working on i3 video
- room preference form yesterday