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Contents 1 Past Retreats 2 Minutes 2.1 Snaggs 2.2 Things Most Pertinent 2.3 Constitution 2.4 Bad Ideas 2.5 Facilities 2.6 Grundge Expectations 2.7 Rules of East Campus 2.8 Renovations 2.9 TV Lounge 2.10 Housemaster Search Process 2.11 Giving a Proper Farewell 2.12 Integrating New Housemasters 2.13 Security 2.14 Inter hall Communications 2.15 EC Perception Around Campus 2.16 Relationship with Administration 3 Guests

Past Retreats

• New exec, hall chairs, frosh go away from campus, talk about issues
• Brainstorm things that are important, accomplishments
• Give feedback to Snaggs as to what she should lobby for
• Last weekend of IAP

Minutes

Snaggs

• Welcoming, pat yourself, first EC retreat ever. Laughing involved and working and fun.......
• Andrew Ryder, Barbara Baker and Larry Benedict sponsored this retreat
• Ground rules
• Respectful of other people while talking, no bashing ideas
• Full Participation from everyone
• Interact with people you dont know, Learn Names
• Open to new Ideas
• Be productive
• Respect for space, "You stole what?" ~Harvey
• Lunch at 12"30 maybe with Marilee Jones
• Intros, etc

Things Most Pertinent

• interhall communication
• caring about EC
• More East/West Mingling
• Stigma Attached
• EC's Perception

Constitution

• HouseComm attendance
• Having a list of all comms that we have, and update it as responsibilities change or begin/cease to exist. Listing go in by-laws,
• III, 1, c: Can only hold one position in Exec
• Have By-Laws available online, not currently available
• No Judcomm, do we want one> Rewrite codes and send to Institvte Judcomm for approval and send people to raining.
• Simmons and Random have working Judcomms, main purpose is for mediation
• All electinos are run by execcomm- change to appointing an outside person not running in charge of the election. Already done in the past few years: make it official
• PR Comm
• Someone in charge of presenting things to rest of Campus
• By-Laws:
• Up the Exec discretionary fund, lots of projects go over budget, and then there is nothing that can be done, $150 is not ok anymore.
• Comms go here
• Elections: not a member of housecomm for a term? Technicalities: hall chairs, two terms, juniors/sophomores.
• RAC, Soccomm, WebComm, Rush Chair are required to have a proxy or be available during the summer.

Bad Ideas

• Bad Ideas Chair: Make a comm, having them deal with funding, organization, get in IAP guide, etc.
• Get a West Campus person to co-chair and help bring more people to bad ideas.
• Bad ideas FAQ, when are things going on. Confusion as to when things were going on, Getting Critical Mass.
• Signs labeling projects, who is doing what?
• Update the EC website, make it more wikki based, everyone can work on it as opposed to only one person working on it
  • Schedule on the wikki. Link only sent to ec-discuss, senior-haus, and bad-ideas. How to better send out schedule?
• Info Session for people who are unfamiliar with how things work.
• Use things in Bathroom readers are a good way to get word around
  • postering in other dorms bathrooms........
• One thematic event/project going on that everyone can work on.
• Mad Libs as ways to get good bad ideas
• How can we get more people? website, meetings, postering? what will work better? Town Cryer? Infinite Slide?
• Selling points of bad Ideas to give to people to help get them to come. What is the Incentive?
• Get a Faculty member who is really into building to come and work on projects with us. Will also help to change perception. Different Faculty every year, can help in hyping things up.
• Corporate sponsorship?
• info session for people who are unaware

Facilities

• Dennis Collin: Asst Director of Housing Operations.
• Talbot Kitchen: Was scrubbed and cleaned top to bottom over the summer.
• What are we willing to put up with, and what are expectations. Open communication with House Manager.
• People with EC power write to larryben, get a meeting set up to go over things that were covered.
  • Gyms, larryben has been matched more than dollar per dollar in most cases in the dorms.
  • A/C not working
  • New equipment shoudl be bought, maybe a TV too?
• Getting "real" cable to Talbot lounge and Prichett would automatically make them community gathering place, and would provide entertainment that we could not get elsewhere in our rooms/halls. Direct TV?
• Talbot AV: is awesome..... except not having a VCR.
• Bike Purge: too many bikes for the number of people who use them, nessecary for old unused bikes to be taken away to give people who use them a chance to store their bike. Responsibility of JoeG.
• No ventilation in the Shallow Goodale Bathroom
• Lights in rooms are a problem, they make the room look worse, they don't make us more efficient, instead of using the flourescent light, we buy 6 incandescent lights instead.
• Light Quality Survey; Gabi started this, Ruth to maybe take this on as a senate project.
  • Look into getting cool spectrum lighting in EC.
• Talking about engery waste, Millions of dollars of heating cost. Heat is too high, everyone in EC leaves their window open while no one has their radiator on because the dorm is so hot. Is there any route source to turn down the heat.
• Grass possibility: what can be done? tougher grass? Grounds has been neglecting the situation.
  • could astroturf be an answer?
• Puddles outside of the dorm entrances, they are several feet wide and require getting your feet soaked to get into the building. Mostly a problem in Wood and Goodale.
• EC will have elevators after renovations. Make sure they are heavy weight. freight elevator. Also will make us handicapp accessible.
• How is rent going to be affected after the renovation? Will the renovation costs be put into our rent?
• Washers and Dryers: Dryers seem to be eating money, also, tech cash machine is debiting your account without giving credit to the dryer.
  • dryers not drying well, lint buildup in the exhaust pipes? Needs throughough cleaning.
  • Dryers are missing one of the three paddles that help move clothes around.
  • Soap and Detergent intake has not been cleaned? mold growing on the insides of them.
• why does it take so long to do things?
  • Gas in West Parallel off for a week
  • 5E fridge still not replaced
• He has lost a man, how can we get JoeG another worker.
• WE NEED MORE HELP. Things are harder to get done, yet we lack the number of staff workers.
  • Students hired to help out around corners. Can this be a better solution in getting things done.
• Stoves leaking gas. Said fixed but still broken.

Grundge Expectations

• What should be left out in the hallway and expected to stay, What are things that should be grunged.
• What are expectations on both ends about getting things cleared out.
• WE THINK: Stairwell= grundge.
• Broken appliances not being taken away.
  • 2E still has broken Fridge
  • 4E needs new ovens/stoves
  • 5E needs new fridge and freezer
• What are the responsibilities of Facilities and the house Manager, Who do we need to call in cases like a fridge in the courtyard?
• Set a day to leave things outside to be grundged. Will help residents know when to keep things in their room.
• Work Closets: some on every floor. Which ones are ok to have things stored in them, and which ones need to be kept clear.
  • shelving and storage space in them.
  • Access to sink closets/ utility sinks. Things that should go down there and not the kitchen sink. (mostly a problem in the west parallel)
• Spring Cleaning?
  • 4E does this yearly
  • 2W when things get unbearable it gets cleaned
• Kitchens
  • MIT pays someone to keep kitchens clean (kitchen bitch). Is up to individual hall governments to set standards and rules for what should be done. Really a problem that should be set by halls.
  • Getting kitchens fixed is currently not a possibility until we clean our kitchens.
  • Letting us know that things are going to be done will give us motivation to get things out and clean our things.
  • Staff is willing to clean counters in kitchen if the counters are free of plates and scraps. Even when things are clean, sometimes the staff don't clean it anyway.
  • Get a notebook/whiteboard where we can open communication with the cleaning staff.
    • leave notes back and forth between staff and students about concerns
    • people will be more likely to leave notes and messages if it is casual and not official like by desk.
• Joe Comm: Issues can be brought up to housecomm, then the following friday ExecComm meet with Joe to channel issues to him and see what can be done.

Rules of East Campus

• what are you expected to have in your room?
• Installing electronics in your room/ electronic door opener.
• we need to get an actual set of rules of what kind of modifications are safe for our rooms and approved.
• Can there be an approval process for making/installing something in the room.

Renovations

• Renovations: can't be held up much longer. What do we want to be preserved. No quotes, but within the month, a decision about a new building being made.
• Make EC look more respectable
  • make sure that it won't mean giving up freedoms to do things with our walls.
  • Mural Preservation: Panels can be removed. Panels on 4E in Goodale can be torn down by hand? No good....
  • Murals very important, easy, inexpensive way to preserve community.
  • Renovations committee, Archiving group, cuting murals out
• Busting walls, make Bigger lounges, even by a few inches. GRT's need more space, loosing rooms for that.
• Bridges, 3rd floor. Request sructural attachment points.
• Possibility of Shutting down EC one parallel a a time or to shut down the whole thing for a full academic year.
  • Ashdown becoming a new undergrad dorm maybe. Old enough for people to have freedom over the building. Help the economical divide on campus by having another cheap housing alternative on the west side.
• What happens when they are over? How will this be handled? Is there a gauruntee that people can return to where they came from.
  • Senior house got renovation 94, how were things done? SH is considerably smaller though.

TV Lounge

• Big Screen TV in basement? why not talbot?
• Basement needs a new paint job in the ping pong table area, roll up carpet for easy removal in case of cleaning, etc.
• other ideas are putting the TV area in the space by the mailboxes and vending machine moved to basement.
• Vote on location of the TV lounge space.
• Light switch? can make viewing TV there a problem. Windows also present a problem.
• High traffic area might also pose a poblem when trying to concentrate on a movie or program.

Housemaster Search Process

• previous meetings: read applicants packets, commented, mostly people who applied for Next, this

made people unhappy; EC now can nominate new candidates and 5 nominations so far

• Friday, Feb 10th open house to talk to all the applicants
• deadline end of Feb., but we're kind of behind; deadline will probably be extended
• possibility of moving EC website to Athena locker to help applicants learn about EC
• probably limited to tenured faculty
• recruiting administrators with a connection with EC may create a conflict of interest
• how do we get EC as a whole involved in the housemaster process?
• recruiting from existing hall fellows? do halls have hall fellows? if not, THEY SHOULD!
• need generate more interest in the faculty for the EC position
• Getting all of EC involved in search
  • we NEED a bigger pool of applicants, can throw an event, promotions (video, etc) to attract people
• do we want a housemaster with young kids?
• letter directly to faculty
• what happened to the names sent to Ryan? is there a list of people asked? can we see it?
• put together a movie to send to faculty... We love Milo. video need it by Thurs...
• make sure to highlight the openness of people in EC, EC aged but not dirt, don't show apartment
• each hall with have a chance to evaluate strengths and weaknesses and Benedict will sit down with Hockfield to make the final decision
• we should know the final decision by April

Giving a Proper Farewell

• build them something big, awesome, EC style, giant bust (made of butter?)
• something classy in Talbot, Julien's jazz group
• hold weekend after patriots day
• classy event: Talbot v. Walker? Walker has more space, nice dinner, a ball
• open up discussion to EC
• how can we 'legally' get Julien on the cover of NY Times... :^)
• where are we getting funding? a kindly housemaster perhaps? *Hint hint*
• get a committee together to work on this; no hall chairs as members...
• talk to Larry Benedict for funding?

Integrating New Housemasters

• talk to alums on how introductions were done before
• get NHMs to participate in rush
• in beginning of fall '06 have a dinner with each hall
• have 'handlers' for the house masters so they can ask questions of them
• have each hall write a page introducing themselves
• create a book for the house masters
  • with basic info for NHMs
    • email addresses of hall chairs
    • talk about awards we have won
      • NY Times
    • Bad Ideas
    • good relationships with admins, etc...
  • Make sure we show them the 'good side' of EC along with our culture
• talk to Allen Guth, good relationship with EC

Security

Card Access For all Dorms:

• • EC is unique in terms of security with HF Zs
    • EC is more exclusive than other dorms because of HFZ system
• what is the difference with giving someone a HFZ and not a key to their room? what does this mean

for other people who leave their doors open all the time?

• checking out HF Zs to people in exchange for one's ID so individuals from other dorms can visit and

get onto halls

• • desk should have more HF Zs loanable to residents
• security issues with the doors being easily slidable (glasses, knives, etc...)
• create an area (like a TV near the mail, in basement, or in Talbot) that does not require HFZ access
• frosh can't check out EC if they are not temped in EC
  • don't base our policy on CPW or Rush
• we should publicize the guest list policy to residents, halls should have a guest list as well
  • how to let halls know they have guests
    • hall doorbells connected to the lounges that is connected to a light in the lounges
    • hall phones in good and highly favored
    • intercom system connected to the lounges
• there's a lax of security in dorms, depends on the desk workers, dining hours, etc...
• was brought up at dorm comm, but lukewarm response, many dorms have serious security problems, very lax during dining hours
• would we want to make just EC global access if the rest of the campus doesn't want it? what does EC get out of this?
• can specific people apply for card access in dorms that they don't live in? What's the difference between this and being on a guest list?

Inter hall Communications

• people mostly staying on their hall, maybe mingling for parties/FACs but not much else
• we're a large dorm, hard to get to know everyone
• hold a scavenger hunt for the frosh or more specific frosh related events to build community early
• halls should invite other halls over for events... DDR, video games, hall feeds
  • people who hang out on other halls are the same people who would go to movie invites
• movie night in Talbot... halls should team up and host them
• hard to initiate a mailing list or the use of a website for impromptu social events
• maybe use tech time calendar for EC... calendar.mit.edu

Summery:

• halls teaming up to do FACs
• halls holding specific study sessions for frosh... 3.091, 5.112, etc... halls would have to give the ok

ahead of time

• co-running a party between halls
  • entry parties
  • coordinating three different halls to create the party
  • roaming dance parties
  • parties held on multiple halls,
    • food on one hall, alcohol on another
      • allows halls that aren't comfortable with alcohol in public spaces to host

EC Perception Around Campus

• how are we perceived among other students? how are we seen by the administration (for funding, facilities, relationships with deans)
• getting involved with more west-campus dominated events (ie Orientation)
• help pre-frosh see through the stereotypes that orientation leaders tell pre-frosh b/c they don't know anyone in EC
• can we get more orientation leaders for CPW and Rush
  • only had two last year, most are affiliated
• encourage frosh to participate in orientation
• the first impression that people get about EC doesn't come from EC but from word of mouth
• all dorms are guilty of bad mouthing other dorms during orientation
  • many ECers try really hard to give a fair view of other dorms

• we should appeal to parents during CPW
  • they have a large influence in what the frosh pick for their housing
  • parents complain to the administration about the state of EC
  • parents don't like the building itself, but if we get out there and meet the parents, be very nice and friendly

Summery:

• make sure we get orientation leaders; the application is really long but you will get picked because

you are form EC

• have an event in Talbot to get people to fill out the orientation leader forms (applications due Feb22nd)

Relationship with Administration

• the tech likes to report bad news, spreads to students and the administration
• get into the tech talk and invite tech to highlight good events in EC
• instead of opposing a perception maybe shift it..
  • they break a lot of stuff to they build a lot of stuff
• faculty mostly get the information from other admins
• strengthening the hall fellows program, getting influential admins/faculty to become hall fellows...\
• ”make sure that we don't hurt other people or ourselves, make sure our little place is working fine; make sure we are authentic, don't try to sell ourselves, don't try and cross the line”
• we don't' want to anger the admins but we don't need to win over all of them
• EC a few years ago tried having diner with the admins, individual halls inviting a dean to dinner or faculty --> successful
• stop trashing other dorms or trashing some of the admins
• write a letter to Hockfield outlining what we feel is isolating EC: there is a problem with the administration , how they view EC and we don't know how to deal with it... we need help with the admins
• we aren't given the services that other dorms are given, money, furniture, etc...
• we should be sure to approach people respectably and we should be able to expect that they are going to return that same respect
• "working as hard as we can, not crossing the line, and having the confidence we need when asking for what we want"
• if we want something we should present the case, and not be apologetic for things that happen at east campus

Summery:

• we don't need to do a huge PR campaign, we just need to know what we want and what we deserve and should have the right to have access to it
• EVERYONE GET HALL FELLOWS!!! NOW!!!

Guests

• 1E
  • William McGeehee
• 2E
  • Sean Morton, Jon Spaulding, Vinay Rodrigues
• 3E
• 4E
  • Brown Westrick, Ruth Shewmon, Andrew Westerdale, Gina Angelosanto, Jehan deFonesca, Chieu Nguyen, Mark Avara
• 5E
  • Sarah Hopp, Milo Martinez, Vlad Tarasov, Mandi Holmes
• 1W
  • Jose Soltren
• 2W
  • Harvey Jones, Laura Martini, Leon Fay
• 3W
  • Mandi Holmes, James Wnorowski, Theresa Euginio
• 4W
  • Jenn D'Ascoli
• 5W
  • Chris, Brian
• Houseteam
  • Snaggs, Julian Wheatley, Marjorie Nolan-Wheatley