DormCon GBM Minutes 10/10/2024

Date: 10 October 2024
Location: New Vassar Mezzanine
Attendees:

Presidents
- Baker - Claudio (for Camila)
- Burton Connor - Kyna
- East Campus - Chris (for River)
- MacGregor - Tyler
- Maseeh - not present
- McCormick - Jyotsna
- New House - Amanda
- New Vassar - Michaela
- Next - Leo
- Random - Bianca + Lauren
- Simmons - Gabbie
Exec Members
- President - Jordan
- VP - Ananda
- Secretary - Lauren
- Treasurer - Leo
- Underclassmen Rep - Eugenie
- Dining Chairs - Daniel + Gabriel
- Tech Chair - Gabriel
- JudComm - Geoffrey + Tyler
- Housing Chairs - not present

note

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

TL;DR (will be created after the meeting)

apple picking updates for presidents:
- location is not yet set (trying to figure out where 10 buses can fit) but will be!
- liability forms will be sent out - presidents should send to their people!!

Full minutes

Exec updates

Underclassmen Rep (Eugenie)
- sent out form about Stata food availability!
  - concerns about hours not being long enough
  - lots of responses saying it’s too expensive ($6 for pb and j)
  - around 100 responses!!!
  - should coordinate with dining chairs
- JudComm (Geoffrey)
  - 2 constitutional amendments!!
  - “sleep is more important than dormcon”
  - constitutional amendment #1:
    - clarifying all instances of the word “meeting” to show difference between GBM and exec meeting
      - 50 instances of “meeting” - unclear.
  - constitutional amendment #2:
    - finalizing that president population votes are based on dorm’s max capacity
    - question: how does that work? the population votes?
      - each dorm prez represents themself + the max capacity of their dorm
      - for population votes, a president can assign all or part of their population vote to a certain choice
      - sort of like ranked choice
      - for example: simmons president has more of a voice than random :(
      - if you come to GBMS can OBJECT to your president’s vote
        
        you have 1 vote out of 3,000 :)
        
        “it’ll be very effective I promise”
        
        “but it is funny!!”
Secretary (Lauren)
- Thinking of making a calendar
- might just expand/share out Jordan’s calendar?
Treasurer (Leo)
- works with the $ that dormcon gets from the dorms
  - $10 per resident per semester
- need to approve DormCon’s budget for this semester!!
  - in the exec updates doc
  - [PUBLIC] Copy of [DormCon] 2024-2025 Budget
  - will be its own agenda item
Advisor (Amanda)
- apple-picking updates are Their updates
Dining Chair (Daniel)
- met w executive director of Bon Appetit
- want to schedule kitchen tours?
- available to people who are Here. who are On Campus. who Exist. just generally want to know if there Is interest
- are presidents interested in having their dining chairs do that?
  - general yes.
- “how were the vibes?” “really good.”
  - tell me about yourself! let’s just talk! lots of things learned about where the fish comes from
    - apparently it’s caught on Monday and we get it on Tuesday - more sustainable and cheaper than restaurant fish :) - used more in international markets. fish knowledge!!
- working on food waste on campus
  - meeting with Dawn and Susy Jones (not Nelson)
some reps not here
Housing
- met with HRS senior leadership again
- McCormick is having issues getting student involvement and feedback, HRS is aware and Cares… they want student feedback
  - “values document from residents would be helpful”
  - didn’t really bring up to exec - only knew because they told Farin - frustrated because they reached out to one person and not all of house government - they missed emails
  - sent the transition team one email and never followed up
  - didn’t put exec on the transition team mailing list and didn’t CC exec
  - only reason they found out was because Farin told them - asked them to reserve rooms for dorm-wide community meetings - didn’t know anything about miscommunications until very recently
  - student involvement might be down because they’re not being communicated with :(( - transition team members showed up to meetings, same format two weeks apart at the same time, defeats the purpose somewhat
  - appreciates that HRS is trying to keep them involved, the main question is what is going to happen next year, and they’re having them pick out decor
  - friction there - people want to know where they’re living, but they’re being asked to answer questions like “if the floor of your dorm was lava, how would you design it” (????)
  - miscommunication there - genuinely appreciates what they’re doing, but there’s not student engagement because they aren’t seeing what they want to see, unfair to ask students to put input into silly things when they’re worried about real things
  - half of the students won’t even see McCormick reopen
  - is McCormick exec now on the transition team mailing list - might not be - add the mailing list
  - transition team is 6-8 people
  - about the size of EC team, maybe slightly smaller, EC reopening committee is ten people
  - BC’s teams similar size
  - EC had too many subcommittees - a lot of them didn’t do anything
    - might be helpful to parallellize
    - queries about decor + design are important (HRS has it in their mind b/c in January or so they need it finalized for bidding, to get a contractor to do it), but students don’t care about what couches they have when they have larger concerns
    - student support subcommittee is to talk about the next two years (during renovation)
    - what are the lounges going to look like, what are the changes, etc.
    - create subcommittees to force new framing on them
    - EC had a LGBTQ support commitee, so McCormick could have like an all-female support committee to help with issues like all-women bathrooms, etc.
    - add directionality, could help
  - mostly resolved, talked to transition team, at least a few people are being responsive
  - values: Tasha was talking about a grant they got - they’ll cater food to have a meeting about Community Values - “this makes them feel good”
    - values pertaining to muraling :(
    - didn’t end up with columns with words on them LOL
  - not prioritizing student time
  - now HRS is tiptoeing
  - feedback from broader community, survey will hopefully go out this month, tried to encourage people to show up to community-wide town hall, scheduled during dinnertime, flying in architects from Philly, some interest
  - passing on to Temkin and Farin to bring up with HRS
- Next House facilities issues are Allegedly fixed?
- discussion on undergrads in grad housing
  - getting undergrads in SidPac involved in grad community
  - Tang is weird - they converted an apartment to an undergrad lounge lol
  - we love a lounge made by HRS
  - big update: undergrads in grad housing are being Phased Out. grad housing ALL GRAD STUDENTS. ways?
    - 25s and 26s are larger than average for covid reasons
    - presumably other years have less people?
- working on making HRS emails better, including Purchasing MailChimp - gives them the crazy new ability to send emails to Subsets of people… instead of All the people…
President/VP
- met with exec people (Suzy et. al.)
- postponed indefinitely the one-rate housing system
- David Friedrich was like “we thought about it. and then students said it wasn’t relevant. and then we looked at the money. and it wasn’t relevant.”
- would eliminate the tier system. but not happening imminently.
- used your feedback on Change Management!
  - starting a stakeholder advisory group for dining! stay tuned! they might reach out for representation
  - philosophical values of dining
    - community. collaboration. love. peace. dishwasher.
- seemed receptive to things like: maybe you should talk to people.
  - wanted to know more ways to get student feedback than booking a room in the Stud and 10 people show up
  - do they ever do surveys??
    - they’re going to have a consulting group that focuses on Change Management LOL
  - need a better survey
- APPLES. APPLES. APPLES.
  - they are having meetings about apples, dreaming about apples, nightmares about apples 🙁
- inter-dorm relations. community support? how to facilitate?

Agenda!!!

Budget, from Leo
- was told that we should pass the budget for this semester so we can Legally spend our money…
- [PUBLIC] Copy of [DormCon] 2024-2025 Budget
- starting this semester, we increased the house tax for the first time in 20+ years!!! coming off of many semesters of budget deficit, 13k in the acct
- new house tax will be $30k per semester in total, our 13k balance should be higher for safety
- two-thirds goes straight back to dorms:
  - 11k is for REX funding
  - dorm events budgeted at $8k, increased from $7k
- events fund for interdorm events? that involve multiple dorms - 🦈DormsCon🦈
  - Ananda - as someone who Tried to run an interdorm event, it’s hard, so we are thinking of offering Event Support
    - let us get together and figure out interdorm events more effectively
    - of interest? vague nods.
- “because inflation is a thing”
  - bumped allocations for food by 25%
  - $250 for exec meetings, $500 for GBMs
- detailed #s on the spreadsheet
Votes
- Baker - yes
- New - yes
- Random - yes
- MacGregor - yes
- Maseeh - not present
- BC - yes
- EC - yes
- New Vassar - yes
- McCormick - yes
- Simmons - yes
all the money we’ve spent has now been Legally spent.

Apple picking.

email went out.
have we been getting confirmed interest?
- Gabbie - hasn’t sent form, scared of collecting money, Venmo not preferred, cash is too much of a pain
  - Jordan: “Does not preferred mean not allowed?”
  - Amanda: has tax implications, formal answer is that it’s Not Recommended, everyone just uses Venmo… goes to treasurer and treasurer transfers to house
  - Jordan: if enough money goes through Venmo, they decide you’re a business and report you to the IRS
  - can technically collect $ on Engage, but you have to have an official Atlas event…
    - they take money off it (like 5 or 10 percent) yikes
  - will flake rate be lower on Saturday than Sunday?
  - Ananda: we should make an experiment out of this…
  - Bianca: the confound of dorm population, which dorms are more likely to flake.
    - all the randomites are going. all of them. no flaking. random will Be There.
question on numbers - are people getting close to the original interest number?
- McCormick - yes probably.
dorms looking for more spots?
- Random would love more spots? maybe?
- EC also has high interest
- will be considered
other question for presidents:
- google form?
  - BC: they fill out, confirmation email, pay to confirm spot; otherwise spot is given away.
any other questions?
- location will be useful.
  - still an unknown - trying to figure out where the buses will park
  - alley from Maseeh to the Stud? behind W31, where the Boston SafeRide shuttle parks?
  - there’s also the turn-around but it won’t fit 10 buses (that is a lot of buses)
  - Mass Ave seems worse - last year they did Mass Ave “which is just a fascinating choice to me” - Jordan
  - something like Kresge. don’t say that though. just in case.
  - Geoffrey: The Outfinite? would be really funny?
    - you’d hit something. -jordan
  - Vassar, but gathering people there would be a pain
  - could file buses through turn-around one at a time?
- trying to have one bus per dorm, approximately - Baker has more, Maseeh has less, trying to balance, your one dorm rep will stand at front of dorm bus and check people off the list
  - thinking of doing a spreadsheet with tabs for dorms, checkboxes as to whether they’re checked in (gave dorm rep their liability form), checked off (doing Our Best to make sure we don’t abandon people at the orchard…)
  - printed last year, but could be good to have a spreadsheet, especially for waitlist reasons, and for communication between dorms/buses
  - will have it by Next Thurday, “Lord willing sooner than that”
- waivers?
  - bianca has all the good questions
  - people should print, hand it to them when they arrive, does need to be physical paper. should be as many as possible beforehand, but some people will inevitably forget.
  - liability form will be sent out.
- “those apple cider donuts are calling me!”
- need a new dormcon position for apples… apple chair…
- Eugenie: my problem??
  - no. next year’s underclassmen rep.
- freshman: “I’m a freshman and I’m excited about the apple trip. it seems like it will be quite fun.”
  - :))) apples :)))
- there is grass in an apple orchard. you can ascend the trees. there are ladders.
- apple orchard is CASH ONLY
McCormick: how finalized should list be?
- can be edited, but should have a solid list by Thursday. And dorm rep’s name, preferably, and preferred Google sharing email address.
- will have edit access in case of last-minute swaps.
- will go in follow-up email

Vote on amendment!

Scratchpad Abridged DormCon Constitution
one amendment or two?
two different things…
Jordan: if it doesn’t pass, we consider as two, otherwise consider as one
reminder about what they are:
- 1: clarifying meaning of “meeting” in constitution
- 2: determining population votes by dorm’s max capacity instead of current residents
query: why max capacity and not current pop? just for convenience?
Jordan: never done based on real population because it fluctuates a lot
- in practice we use max capacity
so this is just to be more convenient.
- “that was a pre-covid lifestyle.”
- “these days we’re all about simplicity.”
how to count capacity of dorm under renovation? take pre-renovation number.
you can in theory assign parts of population to different parts.
Geoffrey will “strongly consider election fraud.”
Votes
- New: yes
- Simmons: yes
- McCormick: yes
- EC: yes
- Baker: yes
- Next: yes
- NV: yes
- MacGregor: yes
- BC: yes
- Random: yes
- Maseeh: not here
87% pass :)
in pop vote, do dorms not here count? majority of all dorms or dorms present? majority of dorms have to be there for quorum, and then we need majority of dorms there have to vote.

[jordan and ananda simultaneously burst into inexplicable laughter]

president + tech chair updates

Tech chair updates
- join-dormspam website is now LIVE!
  - we should have posters!!
  - Eugenie might make posters
  - “the worse the better.” “MIT students looove comic sans.”
  - the new website works! so well! yay!!!!!
  - join dormspam.
MacGregor (Tyler)
- Halloween event - plans not finalized, scavenger hunt, costume contest :))
- MacRager night - November 9th, might have a plus-one system
- website getting renovated
- catering kitchen just finished!
- fridge, freezer
Next (Leo)
- good things! had large amount of mochi donuts event :) successful
- have a competent maker space chair
- Next Haunt going well
- after a “short period of six months” - finally got P-card, only took twenty emails
  - “and they say they don’t make it easy”
- short-term facilities crisis is mostly resolved, aside from one (1) elevator
- long-term discussion of preventing this from happening to a different dorm every year
  - “on the menu”
- Simmons social chairs RESPONDED TO US - not yet sure if inter-dorm formal is happening late this semester or early next
- can call it february formal
  - “that’s… a thought…” [neutral statement]
- country kitchen treated poorly by summer residents :( large bag of unwashed dishes (????) two trash bags of dishes 4-month-old unwashed dishes
  - assembling a “bomb squad” of next exec members to clean the dishes
  - :( yikes
  - “they’re evil. that’s evil.”
  - “could keep it forever like the random milk”
- trying to figure out what to do w Athena cluster printer room
  - everyone has a different printer situation
  - McCormick prez is hallucinating PCs
  - people have whole rooms for printers?
- express guest list fully works now :)
Random
- some amount of Bathroom Stall Drama…
  - people woke up. most bathrooms have two toilets (buddy toilets) - people have organically taken down stalls between toilets, but as bathrooms have been renovated they have stolen our buddy toilets, so then they’re one toilet bathrooms, someone in HRS decided they need to be multi-stall bathrooms, so they put stalls around the new single toilets - new ceilings - it was complicated - people were unhappy
  - HoH sent out a survey about it
  - 100% response - 53 responses - all were no, some were “fuck no”, etc.
  - now they’re uninstalling the stalls. eom.
  - someone from HRS was wandering around like “but don’t you need a stall??” and residents said “? no?”
- new floor wants to be cat floor
  - cat policy from 2004, website is perishing with certificates, we plan to go to HRS with a new policy
  - “there’s no one in HRS who cares about our cats”
  - stay tuned.
- we have a bike door in the back, to our basement, which is where we store bikes
  - allowed to use from 7am to 7pm because it goes to the alley, we are trying to talk to Keith about extending the hours? so people aren’t locked out at 7pm? if anyone has tips on how to ask keith
  - BC: it works better when you have the home court advantage
  - Jordan: have a bike ready. demonstrate.
  - there’s a tap pad and then you have to hold your ID up to the camera to get in, it’s all very fancy
  - Keith tends to be reasonable if you have good reasons
  - Leo: they don’t set the policy, they just enforce it
  - bring Keith in and ask him to lug a bike down the stairs. “mens et manus.”
New (Amanda)
- new reservation system!!
- tagged a lot of bikes because people just Leave them, planning an internal bike auction
  - if you don’t remove in two weeks, it’s an unused bike
- planning a frosh formal
- apple picking
  - 42 people signed up
  - using Venmo
  - waitlist after first people
  - David will send out form tomorrow
New Vassar (Michaela)
- finally got laundry money, less than expected, sometimes machines let you do laundry for free lol
- decrease in apple interest
  - last year 65, this year 35
- house gov has had trouble connecting to house team :(
  - dining chair has had 2 meetings cancelled within 5 minutes of time - yikes
  - trying to track them down in person
  - assistant HoH
McCormick (Jyotsna)
- 50 people for apple picking
- coordinating things with AD
- annual first year boba study break last week
  - frosh are asking for a boba study break every week lol
- Ananda: talk about your values and then MIT will pay for it
- changes to house gov - got inclusion committee, country kitchen chair, needs someone to harass people who have been stealing things
  - also new VP and treasurer!!!
  - solidified those things
- dorm-wide events? later this semester? possibly going to have change to reservation process for common facilities
- different opinions on whether penthouse should be reserved, stuff happened last month
BC (Kyna)
- midnight to 4am for flex moves (?) - stapling was a problem
- social events coming up
  - ABC next weekend, “if you want to go from apple-picking on Saturday to wearing apples on Sunday”
    - correction - ABC is on Saturday
    - “the A in ABC stands for apples”
    - “Apples But Clothes”
- there are so many babies in Burton Connor
  - HoH just had a kid (eight months ago), and now their associate HoH and area director are pregnant
  - “we’re just full of babies and dogs in Burton Connor”
  - haven’t seen a mouse in a while
  - “mice were an integral part of our culture and now they’re not there anymore, it feels really weird, like i’m missing something”
- murals…
EC (Chris, standing in for River)
- pumpkin drop coming up
- events every week
- EC stud space doing well, always a mess
- reopening committee had first meeting a week ago
- things are good
- 61 apple picking responses, good interest :)
- ESF? next semester
- FredFest coming up?
Simmons (Gabbie)
- going to discuss Simmons house things at house meeting
- concerns in dorm - do you have feedback forms? to take to DormCon or UA?
  - BC has a Piazza, floor reps or section reps are good
- email is broken?
  - Jordan for dorms@ - had to manually unmod it?
- how to get people to wash dishes?
  - the age-old question. the million-dollar question. everyone wants to know. Next House definitely wants to know…
  - people are eating each other’s food?
  - also had a trash bag of dishes :/
  - McCormick also had issues with people eating each other’s food - communications, providing communal food
  - emails have gone out from students, Amanda sent an email, both problems are still there
  - people talking about getting rid of communal dishes?
  - Next has wing-cleaning system, where each week a different wing gets funding to clean the kitchen, if a wing doesn’t clean during their week, then their money gets rolled to the next wing, and so on
    - kitchen gets cleaned most weeks
    - kitchen doesn’t get cleaned for a bit and becomes a funding bounty for the wing that does clean it
  - BC has suite contracts, fairly effective
  - problem with Simmons is that it’s corridor-style, people use different lounges, people use each other’s lounges/kitchens
  - Ananda - house team could be equipped if it’s specific students, putting posters on food security things could be good
  - EC had kitchen cameras LOL
  - Jordan: what EC actually did - each hall had a kitchen steward paid by house manager, was supposed to clean dishes when needed, place work orders, clean out the fridge, etc., worked reasonably well
    - on some floors, turned into kitchen steward doing all the dishes all the time :((
  - might be one friend group…
  - plus one to sending out email “we know that this behavior exists” - next has threatened to close spaces to tap access - exec discussed installing fake cameras
  - someone put up signs that said ‘we’re watching you’ and a bunch of eyes - ‘there’s something in psychology’
- simmons had a great party!!
Baker (Claudio, subbing for Camila)
- music room key was stolen :( but getting a new one?
- how people check out items - get lost a lot
  - StarRez check-out system
- thinking of updating gym, went to New House and got feedback
- apple picking - 40 people! apples!
  - news to Jordan, they were expecting 12 lol
  - they’ll follow up
- a… foosball… table… got stolen?
  - Claudio: “it was at night, probably.” “it was a heist.”
  - Kyna: “dude, that’s AWESOME.”
- Bianca - we take people’s government IDs as collateral, sometimes phones, someone left their shoe?
  - there are also just abandoned credit cards at desk from this :(
- Halloween contest?

TL;DR (will be created after the meeting)​

Full minutes​

Exec updates​

Agenda!!!​

Vote on amendment!​

president + tech chair updates​