[299] in UA Exec
Re: You are being lied to.
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Andrew Lukmann)
Sun Apr 4 19:12:54 2010
Date: Sun, 04 Apr 2010 19:12:39 -0400
From: Andrew Lukmann <lukymann@MIT.EDU>
To: Jessica H Lowell <jessiehl@mit.edu>
CC: hwkns@mit.edu, Nathaniel Fox <natefox@mit.edu>,
Alexandra Jordan <amjordan@mit.edu>,
Anthony Rindone <arindone@mit.edu>, UA Senate <ua-senate@mit.edu>,
UA Executive Board <ua-exec@mit.edu>, cfs@mit.edu
In-Reply-To: <20100404182617.cqihx0qdz4wsg4cw@webmail.mit.edu>
Hey Jessie (and everybody else)...
Like you pointed out, a number of reliable student allies in the
administration have moved on and on the whole, less cooperative people
have replaced them. Without a guy like Immer or Larry to go to, this
generation of student leaders is (I believe) having a harder leveraging
their relationships than we did. That said, there are still a number of
people who might have a bit of pull in DSL that I would recommend people
engage, if they haven't already: Phil Walsh (CAC), Ann McCants (former
faculty CSL chair), Muriel Medard (CSL chair - though her opinions on
dining might be well-ingrained). Also, even though he is on his way out,
I've always found Steve Lerman to be a friend to students and he might
be in the position to speak (or act) a little more freely now that he is
moving to GWU.
I think it's great to see a number of students realizing that they need
to hold administrators feet to the fire when they fall short of their
own rhetoric/promises regarding meaningfully engaging students on
important issues. If you (and I do mean all of you) don't make it
difficult (or embarrassing) for them to ignore you, they will never have
any incentive to act in your best interest any time it conflicts with
the easiest path to their goals (in this case, dining cost effectiveness).
Keep it up!
-Andrew L.
Jessica H Lowell wrote:
> Quoting Daniel Hawkins <hwkns@MIT.EDU>:
>
>> Jessie,
>>
>> We tried coming up with our own proposal last year (DPC). Admins keep
>> calling it "an important piece of student input" and completely
>> ignoring its
>> contents. What's driving this is the desire to eliminate the deficit
>> and
>> "build community" around dining, which involves less choice and more
>> money
>> (but not MIT's money - they need to eliminate the deficit). Those are
>> principles that everyone in the administration (that I'm aware of)
>> agrees
>> on. I haven't talked to Matt - I'll send him an e-mail.
>
> Yeah, I saw the proposal. It looked like a good step. It's the same
> old story
> with Dining. When I dealt with that, though, it was easier, because
> larryben
> (Columbo's predecessor) was still around and he was on our side.
>
> Who does Columbo listen to? Presumably Phil Clay, but I doubt Clay's
> useful
> here. Immerman's gone, so that's a non-starter. The FSILGs generally
> have a
> stake in students not getting screwed over on Dining, since less
> choice often
> hurts their frosh and on-campus members - is anyone on the FSILG side
> of the
> Student Life staff persuadable and trusted by Columbo? Could any of
> the RLAs
> help here? If Admissions has any influence with Columbo, which they
> may not,
> they'd likely be willing to help you out with him.
>
> It sounds like if you keep working primarily with Columbo, you're not
> going to
> get anywhere. Obviously, you have to work with him, communicate with
> him, not
> antagonize him too much. But that doesn't mean you can't work with other
> people (sounds like a good project for a senator or two!). And if you
> can dig
> up administrative allies, they might be able to make more progress
> with Columbo
> than you can.
>
> Have you bugged your rich potential-big-donor alumni? Many FSILGs and
> some dorm
> living groups keep in contact with a lot of their alumni, and might be
> able to
> dig up a few wealthy folks who would be pissed about students being
> screwed
> over on dining.
>
> The UA has little real power given to it - it has to find ways to
> manufacture
> its own.
>
> - Jessie
