DormCon General Body Meeting

Date: April 25, 2024
Location: New House Multipurpose Room (MPR)
Food: ???

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 4/25/24
• Run for DormCon exec!
  • Position descriptions: tiny.cc/dormcon-elections
  • Non-binding interest form: tiny.cc/dormcon-interest

Full minutes

Updates

• housing (jordan/sruthi)

  • housing waitlist/housing intent process
    • opt in vs. opt out
    • talked a while, didn’t get very far
    • but they are open to other potential solutions that are not just opt out
    • continuing to think about this
    • open to the concept of other solutions, still brainstorming
    • q: moving cancellation fee deadlines?
      • talked about why this is bad
      • but also open to discussing other things
    • every pro comes with \geq number of cons
    • communication
      • communicating the fact that you are not guaranteed housing if you don’t fill out the form when you’re a freshman
      • generally tell you more often
    • trying to get to 100% filling out the form
  • hiring new house op manager
    • interviewing for that
    • because of floating between buildings, unclear which building is getting new house op manager
  • cpw events with hrs
    • lots of fun
    • zoom for parents april 2nd
    • table at academic expo
    • lots of prefrosh had questions
      • q: what’s the best dorm
        • a: go to cpw events
    • fun fact: simmons has lowest people to bathroom ratio at mit
      • and we thought maybe maseeh has the highest lmao
      • unknown

• cpw/rex (maddy/farin)

  • met with office of first year to get dates for rex
    • told us to contact helen wang
  • they ran cpw successfully !!!! APPLAUSE
  • q: how’s mattress stuff
    • some inquiries about how/when reimbursements will be processed, treasurer will be getting to it
  • q: post-mortem with trinidad from admissions?
    • haven’t scheduled anything yet
    • would be helpful for the mattress stuff

• tech (nate)

  • election info on the website
  • if you are interested in tech or chairs you should run for tech chair! happy to talk about that

• uc rep (hanu/guy)

  • waiting on is&t for the tap access
  • fun fact: guy is now the 2027 class president according to rebecca’s explore page :0

• secretary (sunmee)

  • Short links for the dormcon election interest form and the election position description form, if youre thinking t all of any positonf you should fil tha tout

• dining (ananda/tyra)

  • check out the updates doc for full updates!
  • trip to concord market happened
    • very fun
    • happy to talk about specifics if people have q’s
    • group from dormcon went (most represented woot woot)
    • got good food
    • biggest takeaway: very interested in becoming part of the mit community, contract for 10 years
    • whatever they offer they want to be stuff that students want
    • very perceptive to student feedback and flexible
    • big focus for next few months is good system to offer feedback for them
      • smaller focus groups
      • feedback form
      • or a mix
      • to tell them what people think
    • did mention some things students want that they didn’t expect during the trip and they seemed pretty perceptive
    • more green stuff less wall of soda
  • dining forum also happened
    • lots of logistics/improvements for next time
    • seemed like good way for people to ask questions and see mark and heather
    • there weren’t that many people there but hoping people will spread things by word of mouth
  • csl (community and student life) guests
    • report on dining, nothing set yet
    • going well
    • taking input into consideration
    • doubled the number of undergrads!!
    • probably not going to directly impact any of us, maybe 27s. birds-eye view of what mit dining should start thinking about (long term)
  • greenbox survey
    • total of 7 responses :0
    • haven’t dormspammed yet
  • working with people on ua food insecurity on improving dorm kitchens
    • first steps of reaching out to new vassar desk on checking out supplies
  • fsat (food security action team) will meet again soon, hasn’t been active in a while
    • ua report has come out, should take a look
  • q: actionables with ua food insecurity stuff?
    • report is out
    • dorm kitchen project
    • how to better delegate tasks between us and stay in communication. lots of things we learn from them emailing things and not as much from talking
      • how to work on things together, not doing the same thing twice
  • q: is the report going to mit corporation?
    • unsure not as involved with this
    • report went to paul irvine and intent was to inform where mit is going to put money they said they are going to use to tackle food insecurity
      • and went to stu schmill + 14.01 prof

• judcomm (sara/mateo)

  • elections are next gbm!
  • most of you are required to be there :)
  • in preparing there was slight discrepancy in constitution, so drafting amendment so next people can deal with it. everything will be legal and fine
  • how to make elections shorter (will get out of there in 1.5 hours)
  • constitution says fall elections should be last gbm, spring elections second to last. but last section says judcomm can do whatever they want

REITERATE: if you are a dorm prez pls be there. if you cannot be there, please designate a proxy and let us know!! otherwise makes voting very difficult

please fill out the interest form because it helps us plan

• positions are elected one at a time, take nominations at beginning

• advisors (lusi/amanda)

  • each house pls get back to your area director about house taxes so we can make sure billings are updates
  • early arrivals for rex need to go to dwyght
    • allegedly went out last week to either dormcon exec or housing chairs or presidents
    • ???
  • peer mentor applications going out soon
    • if you know people interested have them fill that out

• i3

  • meeting w/ some dorm i3 chairs about i3 guidelines
  • found a workaround to have more lax copyright policy
  • every dorm that submitted videos got feedback by now except bc + simmons (still under review)

• p/vp (mitali/rebecca)

  • mitali + rebecca are graduating soon! (APPLAUSE)
  • meeting this week, supposed to be suzy but now david friedrich + helen wang meeting
    • hoh discussions. suggestions for how to deal with that (see agenda below)
    • fsat and csl and dining recommendations, they said idk lalala yay
    • re: macgregor. it’s fine. they will have summer renovations even though they will have summer residents
  • all quiet on the dormspam working group front
    • started in november. almost may! and we don’t know
    • they gave us draft version 1 then version 10 and then silence…
    • hopefully something by end of year?
    • they said end of march initially
  • project to improve info on rex and floor placements
    • getting more first years to participate in floor exchange
    • adding small blurb about each dorm on guide to residences page (same place that has hall style vs. suite style, number of singles, etc.)
      • waiting on few dorms to fill out form that was sent out
    • on the individual pages there are couple paragraphs about dorm culture, there will be more details there as well
    • graphic that lives on the page that says floor placement processes and process of fyre and stuff
      • don’t unpack, participate. ashley will make it look dsl-y and yay
    • over summer working with helen wang on history and benefits of selecting your dorm and culture. something that you all could be involved with
  • idea of having joint development of talking point between house govs and house teams during rex
    • saying easy to opt out vs. concern from dorm gov
    • meeting at beginning of school year with house teams to make sure everyone is on same page
  • having couple meetings with dsl data team
    • surveying on housing price change
      • re: proposal brought by david during gbm last fall, some positives/concerns
      • next step is doing survey on house price change or some focus groups to collect more data on how students feel about this
    • historical data from post-rex survey
      • stress/satisfaction with rex
      • belonging in community
      • looking at trends
  • rex dates and food policies being worked on
    • hopefully updates soon
    • meeting with helen tmrw

Agenda

• elections

  • if you have any questions talk to position holder
  • dorm pres: take a few minutes at house gov meeting to mention dormcon! if you want one of us to come and say a blurb let us know
  • if you are in this room you should run unless you are graduating

• updates to housing chair responsibilities

  • having culture chair on dormcon brought up at previous gbm
  • proposal that dormcon exec came up with is to update housing chair responsibilities to include cultural stuff
  • meeting more regularly with helen wang + tasha coppett
  • already have standing meeting with david/rich on facilities side, and we only have high level discussions in p/vp meetings so adding specific things on cultural side
  • talking with helen on how that would look, maybe having hoh present
    • power differentials?
    • if it is housing chair’s hoh vs. neither ..?
    • you want hoh in convos sometimes
  • very much pilot responsibility that we are open to changing
    • next year we can reevaluate
  • q: if we make new positions are they going to be voted on for elections this year?
    • at this point not looking at making new position, just changing existing one
    • adding position would be next year if that happens

• pulse survey on hoh responsibilities

  • sent to dorm prez
  • brought up to helen
  • of prez in this room, who would say you haven’t had some level of convo about this
    • a few people
  • helen is going to tell your hoh to reach out to you, would be good to reach out to them too
  • mcc: great deal of communication with hoh + gras.
    • go to house team meetings every two weeks for first 20 minutes where we exchange updates. to check on what’s going on. ask for feedback.
      • we find that very helpful.
    • they also come to almost every house meeting.
    • always expectation that we can come to them for anything. really enjoy having that level of comfort.
  • random: actually getting new hoh so maybe not worth to have this now but good to have info from other dorms so we know how to onboard new hoh
    • check back in with dormcon next semester!
  • tyra: as part of dorm kitchen thing, reaching out to tasha in the context of responsibilities of hoh in dining
  • helen gave suggestion for initiating these convos for anyone who is continuing
    • frame as reflection on the semester
    • to define roles
  • ec: got community liaison at beginning. wanted to meet with anyone who was considered student leader
    • that helped set the tone with rcl on how much involvement we wanted her to have
    • historically want house team to be as hands off as possible
    • had meeting at beginning of sem on what we wanted to achieve, helped to stay on same page
    • last week met to reflect and updates of how it went and plan moving forward

• check in on dorm tax

  • voted to raise it $5 -> $10
  • reminder to account for that in setting your own house tax
  • any feedback/thoughts, have you heard anything from your dorm residents?
    • guy: people in baker don’t like that we raised it, made it clear that we don’t have money
      • in the future trying to index to inflation so it is not as much of a big change
      • they said what do you do for me. baker doesn’t really ask for dormcon money much. told them to ask
    • ananda: any specific plans? other than responsible fiscal activities
      • up to next year
      • had trouble with events (set caps lower than what we’ve funded in the past) and cpw/rex funding and providing for food
      • providing as much without as much concern
      • for ex: over the summer we wanted to do more inter-dorm events. having money for outreach to hold more events since people don’t understand what dormcon is
      • more student engagement to hold forums without stressing about it
    • david: nh residents seem fine with raising $5. thought about raising more but not sure. curious to see what other dorms
      • other dorms are raising $5
      • random: people were generally in favor of raising for dormcon because funding for cpw/rex

Pres updates

• maseeh (kennedy)

  • boat cruise this weekend
  • one more exec team meeting after that and we are done!

• next (shorna)

  • formal at media lab
  • special election for president because taking a gap semester! new pres by may 6

• macg (tyler)

  • averted stove crisis
    • YAY
  • field day tmrw, big bouncy obstacle course in courtyard. food trucks, field day games
    • can dormcon bring a team?
      • you can show up
  • q: how are people feeling about stove stuff
    • people are confused
    • I’m also confused
    • got some conflicting information and some people that were at meeting david friedrich + rich were confused on the heads of house’s words vs hrs words
    • some people don’t wanna talk about it any more
  • q: how hoh has been involved?
    • some indications on them possibly pushing it
    • probably will ask about it in a few weeks
    • one of them said old housing manager wanted to push this through..

• vassar (michaela)

  • delayed room assignments but done now

• new house (david)

  • also delay with room assignments because a few people we don’t know (maybe not staying in new house)
  • may 4 possible house wide bbq
  • cpw event went alright

• random (bianca/lauren)

  • updating constitution + bylaws
  • gra interviews
  • theoretically finding out about hoh at end of april
  • starting convo on language of opting out
  • cpw events got less attendance than usual. seems like some of them were put on official schedule as being a day later. none of the upperclassmen running events were given access to cpw event calendar
    • providing calendar to dorm cpw/rex chairs to see whether things got off
    • on the email that confirms events got approved was it also wrong there?
      • not sure
    • geoffrey: group exec got an account on cpw app
    • not sure whether cpw/rex chairs had access
    • will collect more info on this

• mccormick (jyotsna)

  • racs did room assignments, fairly smooth
  • a few people didn’t fill out form saying they were squatting but that got ironed out
  • cpw went fairly well. got good turnout
  • in the process of having first transition meeting with transition team for hrs. hard to find time that works for everyone so a bit of back and forth on getting that
  • final house meeting in may. by then finalize one of our new gras

• simmons (gabbie)

  • room day went pretty well
  • cpw also went well
  • scootah hockey tournament next week saturday

• baker (guy)

  • sad that we cannot access rooftop
  • piano drop delayed, sometime early may

• ec (river)

  • cpw went well
  • some issues on app with room
    • events in stud space + room on top
    • we put up a sign but facilities would take down the sign
    • nice to have ways to update if event gets moved
    • field A to run some events but since rain things got moved. we update our website but can’t mass email all prefrosh
    • they didn’t really know it was possible to change things
    • next year maybe email to event runners to double check things are right
  • q: did you know about misalignment before event happened?
    • didn’t know until prefrosh came and said it was wrong
    • did not have access to what the prefrosh had
  • relatively went well tho
  • big focus on east side festival (big alum event)
    • supposed to happen next weekend
    • hard because same time as springfest
    • typically happens concurrently with senior house event. communicating this planning with senior house alums
    • considering encampment they want to be mindful since our event is happening on the field. being considerate of throwing party next to protest
  • focusing on rex, figuring out build

• bc (rebecca)

  • no updates
  • bc cpw went well
  • had a little fair with booths for each floor

Last thing

feedback on how dormcon went this semester! open floor time : D

• ec: I like dormcon (yay)
• maseeh: some days when dormcon and ua meetings have fallen on back to back days so lots of meetings, maybe communicating to coordinate that
• tyra: we get so much done!
• rebecca: would have been good to get more people to gbms that are not exec or house govs. outreach is something we can work on every day!
  • mitali: consistently struggled with reaching out to people who aren’t on dormcon
  • jordan: not a problem unique to us, people just do not like to go to meetings
  • ananda: good opportunity is rex. dormcon meet and greet
  • temkin: we now own rex.mit.edu so tech chair could use that
  • dormcon social?? last year right after elections we did massive ice cream social with old exec + new exec + presidents
• tyra: more outreach would be good now that we have money. things in lobby 10 with free donuts and boba and waffles food truck. those things are effective.
  • all of our money goes to events that overshadow us
• if we have another rex event should be in a more visible place
• sruthi: around elections time we emphasize that house govs should attend. smaller group to reach out to is people we know that already care about this stuff
• bully your freshmen to come to dormcon
• farin: started by going to random dormcon meeting. it was intimidating because all of these people. and they all had stuff to do and I was just there. for this to happen we need something for people to do
  • major props to david who helped pub this
• open floor time like 5 minutes for anyone to bring anything up
• river: if you don’t have an update to give, what else are you going to do. my favorite time in dormcon meetings is discussions because I get to talk
• sruthi: got a lot more people than usual at housing gbm. having more forums with specific topics that people are interested and can think about
• jordan: do people read agenda sent to dormcon-announce

our inboxes are open and messengers are open

rebecca: come knock on my door I live in room [redacted]