[599] in UA Senate
Re: Bill to provide free hygiene products in the Reading Room during
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (The Other Other CFS)
Sat Apr 10 00:22:31 2010
In-Reply-To: <y2pf645609e1004091706y1417e72dt416e85f47719f69d@mail.gmail.com>
Date: Fri, 9 Apr 2010 21:22:26 -0700
From: The Other Other CFS <campaignforsanitizers@gmail.com>
To: ua-senate@mit.edu
The Campaign for Sanitizers fully supports the spirit of this bill,
but encourages consideration of a few other options:
1. turn on the sprinklers on Kresge Oval, drag all reading room
occupants out there, enforce Mandatory Showering.
Pros: essentially free, much more hysterical
Cons: we hate anything mandatory
2. build a wall to divide the room into two sections, have a Smell
Sheriff at the entrance determine whether a person belongs on the
smell-free or smelly side.
Pros: public shaming
Cons: a decent wall is probably more expensive than the proposed
expenditures.
3. don't allow (smelly) food
Pros: would actually help if people followed it
Cons: too obvious
4. shoot any smelly offenders
Pros: sure would get the message across clearly
Cons: might be illegal in some states. and countries. and might
be ethically questionable.
5. close the damn Reading Room
Pros: forces the smelly people to diffuse around campus. Then
the space could be given to student groups. We hear that MITSFS would
likely still love this idea.
Cons: It has not been proven that the aforementioned
substitution would make a significant positive impact with respect to
the problem in question.
In summary, The Campaign is against smelliness, but ironically has no
strong stance in either direction on personal hygiene. So while The
Campaign supports the spirit of this proposal, it would highly prefer
a free and more amusing and shaming plan.
Sincerely,
The Other Other CFS
ps - one point of inquiry: the Reading Room has a significant smell
problem, but the neighboring cluster does not? This sure seems
counter-intuitive to us.
On Fri, Apr 9, 2010 at 5:06 PM, Janet Li <jli12@mit.edu> wrote:
> Hey everyone,
>
> I wanted to give you a heads up on a bill I'm working on, which I'll try to
> send to Tim soon so that it can be on the agenda for our next meeting.
>
> The Committee on Space Planning has been working with the CAC to improve the
> Reading Room, namely the smell. The ventilation system and everything are
> working fine, so the main problem is probably just the students themselves,
> many of whom get locked up studying in the Reading Room without taking care
> of their hygiene. We've made some posters about stress and hygiene to raise
> awareness of this problem (which are going up soon, if they're not already
> up), but for finals week, we wanted to do something more. Together with
> Jennifer Smith (the assistant director of the CAC) and some of MIT's health
> educators, we've decided to tackle this hygiene issue by having free samples
> of toothpaste, soap, deodorant, and mouthwash available in the Reading Room
> for the last day of spring classes through the last day of finals (May
> 13-20).
>
> Jennifer was able to obtain free samples of toothpaste and soap, but for six
> days of 50 samples/day, the other products would cost: $174 for deodorant
> ($0.58/piece) and $267 for mouthwash ($0.89/piece). So the bill asks for a
> total of $441 from Senate Discretionary to cover the cost of these samples.
>
> What do you all think? Since the Reading Room and its smell are issues that
> affect many undergrads, and because the UA Committee on Space Planning has
> been working with the CAC on this, I think that it's reasonable to request
> this funding from the Senate discretionary fund. Jennifer is already using
> the CAC's funds to print posters and buy the display stands, as well as
> paying for the student graphics worker.
>
> Thanks,
> ---
> Janet Li
> MIT Class of 2012
> Dept. of Biological Engineering
> Undergraduate Association Baker Senator
>
