[252] in UA Exec
Re: Summer Housing
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Paul Youchak)
Thu Feb 25 20:52:10 2010
Date: Thu, 25 Feb 2010 20:52:01 -0500
From: Paul Youchak <youchakp@MIT.EDU>
To: hwkns@mit.edu
CC: Mike Bennie <mbennie@mit.edu>, Ashley Nash <ashnash@mit.edu>,
ua-exec@mit.edu, UA Senate <ua-senate@mit.edu>
In-Reply-To: <9d4f87ed1002251747u50de9c96nf45dabe9ba4fae4a@mail.gmail.com>
I would just like to comment that having no dorm culture is in itself a
culture.
Paul
Daniel Hawkins wrote:
> Hmm. I stand corrected. (except the thing about Simmons having no
> dorm culture - that's just true.)
>
> -hwkns
>
>
> On Thu, Feb 25, 2010 at 8:21 PM, Mike Bennie <mbennie@mit.edu
> <mailto:mbennie@mit.edu>> wrote:
>
> The Housing Strategy Group (HSG) is currently addressing this
> issue. The undergraduate student representatives on that committee
> are Aziz Albahar (DormCon President), Lyla Fischer (DormCon Vice
> President), and myself. HSG has scheduled weekly meetings for the
> rest of the term and Aziz, Lyla, and I have met (and will continue
> to meet) with Residential Life outside of HSG to work out even
> more of the details.
>
> We are currently discussing which dorms will be kept open and
> which ones will be closed. This is a very complicated process
> because some dorms are scheduled for renovations, some dorms
> already have summer programs or conferences booked (RSI, MITES,
> WTP, Interphase, etc.), and some dorms have a significantly
> greater number of students that choose to stick around for the
> summer. The number of open dorms is going to be based on the
> number of students that stay for the summer. We have been
> discussing issues such as storage, transportation of students'
> belongings across campus if they need to move, and the number of
> dorms/which dorms are open. It seems very likely that there will
> be a system to allow people to block together, as both students
> and the administration see this as a positive feature of summer
> housing.
>
> We had not discussed the issue of smoking, but that is certainly
> something I will bring to the table next week. Thanks for bringing
> that up. To the other members of Senate: I hope we will have a
> full discussion on this topic on Monday evening so that details,
> like the ones Ashley has brought forward tonight, can be voiced in
> these summer housing meetings.
>
> As for a time line, we are trying to get information out as soon
> as we can, but we've only had one HSG meeting so far this
> semester. Hopefully, we will have a better picture of things after
> the second meeting (March 8).
>
> Changes to the cultural aspects of the dorm are non-negotiable.
> Murals and any other unique aspects of the dorms that are
> essential to a common experience must be preserved. I can't stress
> the importance of this issue enough.
>
> To address Hawkin's point: I thought the same thing you did about
> how Senior House is unlikely to be rented out, but apparently when
> the administration rents these buildings out, it does so to people
> our age too. These aren't just business conferences and Senior
> House has air conditioning.
>
> -Mike
>
>
> Ashley Nash wrote:
>
> Do we have any time line for when they will decide and when
> they will announce which dorms will be open for summer and
> which ones will be closed?
> If not, is there anything we can do to try to encourage them
> to keep more dorms open, or at least let the dorm residents
> stick together wherever they end up?
> Senior House has a culture that thrives all year round, and we
> use the summer to host barbecues in the courtyard and repaint
> our rooms. We like watching the fireworks from the courtyard
> on the 4th of July, and we don't want to move, especially to a
> place where we can't smoke cigarettes. Have they thought
> about the ramifications of moving a bunch of smokers into a
> non-smoking dorm (which is most of the dorms on campus)?
> Also, have they considered leaving all (or at least most) of
> the dorms open and renting out a portion of each house, like
> the 1st or the 1st and 2nd floors. We rent out a floor of our
> house every year anyway, and I want to know if all of the
> dorms have been doing this, and if not, could we try it?
>
> A lot of my residents are concerned about whether or not they
> will be able to live in Senior House for the summer. They are
> concerned that if Senior House is rented out, that the
> administration will try to stop Senior House from painting
> murals, which is what they did when Senior House was renovated
> in 1996. They are afraid that the administration will cater
> to the summer tenants and not the residents.
> We are fine with sharing our house with tenants. They usually
> stay out all day and use Senior House to sleep and do laundry.
> We just don't want to be replaced by them.
>
> Ashley Nash
> Senator of Senior House
>
>
>
