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DormCon GBM 02/13/2025

Date: 02/13/2025
Location: Simmons party room
Attendees:

note

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

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

Full Minutes​

Introductions!! new people :)​

  • Jordan - DormCon prez, senior, off-campus, affiliated with EC, Material Science
  • Ananda - she/her - senior in 1-12 - DormCon VP
  • Paola - New House co-prez - other is Zavian - Course 12, junior
  • Helena - junior - mech-e, maseeh prez
  • Leo - senior - course 8+old 6-2, Next, was Next prez, now Zakiya, DormCon treasurer
  • Ella - she/her, new co-prez of Random, Course 8 and some 12
  • Camila - baker prez - year 2, course 6-3
  • Michaela, she/her, sophomore, 5-7, prez at Vassar
  • Jackson, he/him, frosh, majoring in 17, co-prez of Simmons and i3 chair
  • Noura - co-prez of McCormcik
  • Farin - dormcon housing chair, 6-7
  • Sandra - course 2 - 2026, she/her, co-prez McCormick
  • Tyler - senior in Course 2, former MacGregor prez, current JudComm chair
  • Gabriel - sophomore - Course 6 - DormCon CPW chair
  • Amanda - dormcon advisor
  • Jamie - UC rep, frosh, 6-3 18
  • Julia - junior course 2, BC, she/her
  • Fernando - course 22, junior, BC
  • Geoffrey - junior, course 20, next house, other JudComm chair, he/him
  • Zakiya - prez of Next House - sophomore in 10B
  • Temkin - housing chair, 2026, 6-3 and 11, Simmons + EC, he/they
  • Gabriel - senior - 11-6, tech chair and dining chair, he/him
  • Daniel - he/him - CMS major, other dining chair
  • Hanu - they/he, prez of EC
  • Cindy - our mascot - named after Cynthia Barnhart

Intro to DormCon!

  • DormCon meets every 2 weeks at GBM, everyone on dormcon-announce, there will be emails about all the GBMs
  • Presidents’ Retreat is happening!!
    • 11-3 on Monday, President’s Day Presidents’ Party
    • we are keeping it shorter at only 4 hours, trying to keep it relevant and quick
    • learning things about how to be dorm prez
    • there will be lots of food - lunch and snacks
    • fill out the form even if not coming! will hopefully be helpful
    • DormCon is here to build bridges, connect dorms, etc.
  • structure: start with exec updates, end with presidents’ updates, agenda items in the middle

Exec updates​

  • Dining chairs
    • Concord Market opening delayed to mid-March - the fire suppression system has a problem 🙁
      • bumping feedback form!
      • concord market opening meme
    • Food from Home - people submit recipes to dining halls, and dining makes them
      • Lunar New Year happened, lots of feedback, people filled out form, feedback went to dining, then to Bon Appetit, to make it better next time
      • planning to run again - maybe a Caribbean night?
      • Stud Dunkin officially taking mobile orders, rewards points, gift cards!
    • New signage at Maseeh
      • promotes DoingWell website, food security resources, etc. - applicable to people in dining hall? because a lot of it has to do with, like, time to CFY
    • feedback form for Next House - reaching out for specifics on who it’s going to go to, etc.
      • Next Dining sent a feedback form to next-forum, goal is to connect them with Mark and Heather, who are in charge of MIT Dining (along with Amanda)
        • Mark is retiring!
    • planning to print more feedback forms for dining halls?
      • most responses from dormspam
      • will dormspam periodically
  • Tech Chair
    • have updated website, has all GBMs for semester!!
    • might add section with, like, how to make mailing lists
    • looking for replacement tech chair to have more time for dining chair/etc.
      • election will be held at the next GBM
      • drag along your dorm tech chairs
      • having one position lets you also do random stuff with DormCon
        • “be really good at being a tech chair. or be mediocre at being a tech chair. I’m not your mom.” - Jordan
  • Housing Chair
    • they meet with HRS (mit housing) and RCL (residential and community life - area directors et. al.)
    • Fire Day is happening
      • will be smoking up a floor in BC, and other fire day activities™
      • meeting about funding soon
    • feedback on StarRez to Helen Wang, who is a BIG FAN
    • RCL hired floating AD, who will do both programming and take over ADs who go on leave, renovations, etc.
    • lots of things about McCormick renovations, which aren’t relevant anymore
    • meeting with HRS tomorrow
      • they’ve started designing a new website, if you have feedback on color palettes/timelines/web dev, send, and become tech chair!
    • should discuss McCormick
      • it’s getting delayed renovation
      • they were told Tuesday around noon, general feedback was shared around Wednesday at noon, it was pretty sudden, McCormick residents were emailed around 2 or 3pm on Tuesday
        • As soon as they tell anyone, “the cat is not in the bag”
      • delayed by an academic year
      • dorms likely to not be at capacity
        • good, but means less $$
      • they’re maybe going to get new McCormick news tomorrow
        • we want an email. an email is wanted. email.
      • what is fire day?
        • in 2018 and 2019, East Campus demonstration about fire safety, smoked up a floor, let students play with fire hose and stuff, let you put on the uniform, CPR trainings, etc., obviously didn’t happen in 2020
        • excitement!!
        • will smoking up a floor make people not put their bikes in the hallway??
      • Regular fire, not FYRE
  • Secretary
    • GBM schedule for the semester set, sent out over email + there is a gcal!!!
    • RSVP for retreat has been sent out, please fill it out!!!
    • Guest list for GBMs has been updated for everyone new on the prez lists + exec
  • JudComm
    • for new dorm prezes: DormCon has a Constitution!! we follow it as much as we can!!
    • we have come into a situation, twice, may have been lapsing in our adherence to the Constitution
  • Underclassmen Rep
    • Eugenie was going to meet with Mark and Heather about Stata meal swipe survey results - getting meal swipes available at Stata
      • an hour before, they cancelled
      • next week is weird because Presidents’ Day
      • meeting them in 2 weeks!!
    • Jamie might be revising the Instagram account - so true!!
      • mit_dormcon
      • “we’re hip and cool with the kids”
  • Amanda
    • floating AD will be covering for BC, their AD going on leave
  • CPW
    • email went out yesterday - document with all the deadlines, relevant info for dorm CPW chairs, went to dorm prezes and CPW chairs
    • if you haven’t elected CPW chairs, do it!!
    • if you want extra events, has to get in by February 28
    • document is beautiful!!
  • i3
    • sent email asking presidents to update mailing lists for i3 chairs
      • if you haven’t, do that!
    • no deadlines/guidelines out yet, but meeting with MIT admin people in the next few weeks
    • i3 is the videos each dorm makes to introduce their dorm to first-years, posted on Guide to Residence website
    • please make sure to read the guidelines, let Jackson know right away if there’s a problem
    • last time - the guidelines said no copyrighted music, and several videos had it :(((
    • last year, deadline was April 13, but deadline for this year hasn’t been set
  • Treasurer
    • we made it through the fall semester w/o running out of money - yay!
    • recap of funding for fall semester: [PUBLIC] Copy of [DormCon] 2024-2025 Budget
    • biggest change for dorms - REX and CPW funding both went from $500 to $1000 (yay!!!!!!!)
      • >=$1000 for CPW
  • Presidents
    • Committee-type things happening - IDHR has a new (?) student liaison program - Farin will be our rep (!!)
    • high-level dining committee, Ananda, Camila, and 2 other undergrads are on it
      • 1 meeting last semester
      • “don’t talk to me.” - Camila
      • next meeting postponed, might happen eventually, will talk more when there’s more info !
      • Ananda, Camila, someone from New, someone from a sorority
      • will be updates at some point!
    • meeting with Suzy Nelson, dean of student life, “our bestie” - David Friedrich, Helen Wang, Peter Cummings “all our besties. we’re all bros.”
      • they need students to join committee on Student Life
      • final report went to high admin, who went “this is a problem!” and created high-level dining committee
      • committees spawn committees spawn committees……….
      • hopefully something will actually happen this time
      • every two weeks, at McCormick, Monday afternoons, lots of free food, occasionally have to think about things?
    • other things DSL is thinking about
      • increasing Dialogue Within The Houses™
        • This is about the realtalk thing
        • Helen: “we bought it, so now we have to use it”
        • everyone is being pushed to push it on us
        • Daniel used to work in that lab
      • concerned about # of students feeling lonely, loneliness is on the rise (jazz hands?)
      • trying to stress how dorm communities are important for belonging, hoping to increase sense of belonging, connections to other people you live with
      • they’re also on board with this
    • Also thinking about dining - everyone is
    • Ananda - spent IAP in Brazil and still has candy!! they have fruit that’s native to the Amazon region of Brazil!!

DTYD Funding Request!​

  • Dormcon DTYD proposal
  • Fernando and Julia - Burton Third floor chairs, annual spring party, DTYD for 55 years!!
  • campus-wide party, open to everyone on campus
  • live band for first hour
  • DJ’ed for remaining 2 hours
  • cash bar present for those of age
  • because there’s alcohol, it’s expensive! requesting $2000 from DormCon
  • Leo (treasurer)?
  • Hanu - who’s performing?
    • typically they scout the Berklee website, also looking into bands on campus
  • “talk to me about your decorations that are going to cost $1000”
    • balloon arches
    • backdrop/mural vibe for people to take photos
    • letters
    • want large space to feel filled and vibrant, tape murals on pillars, dance floor, lots of things
    • “sounds expensive”
  • last year, not charged for police detail
    • detail present since there’s alcohol at the event, first point of contact if something goes wrong
    • if they need to escort someone out, etc.
    • high variance on whether they need it, so they just assume they do?
  • How did it turn out with ABC?
    • ABC is dry
  • last year’s DTYD?
    • unsure
  • when is it
    • April 12th - week before CPW
    • the following week is 4/20 and Easter Sunday “so we thought there might be some conflicts”
  • limited in funding sources because there’s alcohol
  • DormCon funding also can’t be used on alcohol
  • post-event report (esp if they don’t get charged for police detail and move money around - can’t be used for the alcohol)
  • Voting:
    • Simmons - yes
    • EC - yes
    • MacGregor - not present
    • Random - yes
    • New Vassar - yes
    • BC - yes
    • New - yes
    • Maseeh - not present
    • McCormick - yes
    • Baker - yes
    • Next - yes
  • 100% yes!! budget passes :)

Constitutional Amendment​

Proposed Eligibility Amendment

  • Relevant part - currently a provision that no DormCon officer (exec member) can hold exec position in IFC, PanHel, or LGC, or principal officer of UA - list of positions on UA website
    • come to their attention that DormCon has unintentionally violated this twice in the last academic year
    • brief period, the previous DormCon Secretary was officer of community and diversity, stepped down for unrelated reasons
    • one of the Housing Chairs was recently elected SHARE chair of IFC - violation still standing, according to Constitution, we would need the position-holder to abdicate immediately
      • “we as DormCon exec have some concerns about this happening”
      • didn’t notice till Temkin told them
    • discussing as exec - should amend the clause - don’t want to lose housing chair, would be bad for DormCon’s function, the risk of conflicts of interest is relatively minimal
    • could be argued that it’s a good thing that members of DormCon have perspectives in other areas of student life
    • only body of the IFC/PanHel/LGC/UA that has such a clause
    • amendment would strike out this part of the eligibility section of Constitution
  • questions comments concerns?
    • Jackson
      • makes sense to get rid of prohibition
      • current cases seem to not be high-level exec positions
      • maybe keep some version of provision?
      • e.g., prez, vp, secretary not officer of UA? for highest officers of DormCon, not everyone?
      • in the past secretary might have had different job, but now all I do is take minutes and send emails :D
      • if UA president and DormCon president were same position, less representation which is bad, prez and VP should not be shared
    • just exec are officers of DormCon, principal officers of UA are also pretty explicit in the UA Constitution
      • explicitly not committee chairs or JudBoard or Election Commission
      • in the IFC, they have JudComm - would that be a conflict of interest?
      • not part of IFC exec
    • removing secretary from limited positions, changing “principle” to “principal’
    • now just President and Vice President can’t be principal officer of UA or member of Exec board of PanHel, IFC, LGC
  • Voting
    • Amendments are population votes - dorm presidents can assign share of dorm population to different choice (to approve or not approve) - can assign partial votes to yes and no, in percentage you prefer
    • if you are a dorm resident in attendance, you can object to your president’s vote and vote as an individual
    • Votes
      • Baker - yes
      • McCormick - yes
      • MacGregor - yes
      • Simmons - yes
      • New Vassar - yes
      • Next - yes
      • Random - yes
      • East Campus - yes
      • New - yes
    • unanimous approval for constitutional amendment, passes!

General Statement About Dormspam​

  • “my personal favorite thing in the whole fucking world” - Jordan
  • you may have noticed there have been some changes in Washington
  • no changes for dormspam YET, but there could be
  • so please don’t cause issues on dormspam “so no one reports us to the office of civil rights”
    • paper from mit discrimination training
  • the meetings are so bad.

President Updates​

  • Random
    • “we have a new government - it’s us”
      • Ella and Henry :))
  • Simmons
    • “we also have new government”
    • Skateboard is not the president :/
    • scoota-hockey game? national sport at Simmons?
      • not a lot of people wanted to organize it
      • dining closed off, get hockey rink and play hockey on scooters?
      • BC beat them to a pulp last year
  • New Vassar
    • first House Gov meeting last week
    • interviewing GRAs
  • McCormick
    • not getting renovated!
    • transitioned government, having 1st meeting this Sunday, vibes!
  • MacGregor
    • ski trip this weekend (wow?)
    • electing RACs
  • Next
    • just had transition to new house government!
    • first house gov meeting this Sunday, another one this upcoming Sunday
    • working with Next House dining staff, dining chair talking to one of the heads (Helen?)
    • dining chairs will email
    • looking into creating social events - going in with point from presidents’ update about loneliness :)
  • Baker
    • elections in December
    • transitioning to new exec members
    • lots in the works for CPW
    • piano drop happening this year!!
    • conversations with MIT PD potentially happening, admin is confusing
    • baker gym renovation! 80% of the way there, waiting on squat racks (delayed 2 months) - finishing in mid-March?
  • East Campus
    • lots happening for them, over break/last few weeks
    • site tour!! and updates on construction! pretty confident they’ll be able to move in by August
    • not confident about the courtyard (not cool) - not sure if they’ll be able to do EC build in the courtyard (Briggs Field again)
    • associate HoH stepping down, new candidates, also doing GRA search - nine GRAs at once
      • has been a lot - can only do interviews in span of 4 days (??)
    • input on new things - put arcade machine in lobby
      • “McCormick, take notes”
    • things are looking up :)