Old ec-inform@mit.edu email digests

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Feb 17, 2017

Subject: introducing ec-inform: the newest platform for nonessential discourse

Hi EC-

Part of my job as president is to act as a liaison between EC and other student government organizations like the UA and DormCon. However, there is a lot of information that I get during those extraneous meetings that is not necessarily high enough priority to bring to housecomm, but that you guys might still want to know about. That's where this swanky new email list comes in- about every two weeks (which is how often UA council and DormCon meetings happen) I will send out a sort of digest of things that are happening with EC exec and around MIT in general that I won't necessarily bring to housecomm because they are either lower priority or don't affect EC directly.

This will be the first installment of these emails, and I am sending it out to ec-residents. If you want to continue getting these emails, you should subscribe to ec-inform@mit.edu. Feel free to discuss the content of ec-inform emails on the same thread or on the list (or email me directly), but for this one please make sure you reply to ec-inform and not ec-residents.

Now for the good stuff:

In East Campus Meetings with the CSL about smoking halls in EC and Senior Haus will resume next week. You'll probably hear about this at housecomm if anything interesting happens.

I've contacted the manager of parking at MIT about designating some motorcycle parking spaces either in or near the EC courtyard to replace the not legitimate spots that our motorcycle-driving residents were just kicked out of. I don't know if this is possible or if it will actually happen, but the guy said that he would get back to me after he looks into what the options are.


In the UA Council What is the UA council? Well, Sophia Liu (the UA president) explained it as sort of the legislative branch of the UA, which is the representative and governing body of all undergraduates. The Council is a group of dorm representatives (usually presidents) as well as reps from the IFC, PanHel, and the ILGs. We discuss things that the UA exec brings to the table and sometimes vote on them. Meetings are biweekly in W20-400 and open to any undergraduate; for meeting times and agenda items you should add yourself to ua-council-listeners@mit.edu.

We voted to approve a joint statement with the GSC (graduate student council) and PDA (postdoctoral association) that Sophia signed on behalf of the UA regarding the executive order on travel and immigration. This statement, which I can't find online but I imagine will appear eventually, basically condemns the executive order on the grounds that it directly interferes with the ability of some MIT students and postdocs to study here and it negatively impacts MIT's ability to function as an institution. We had a bit of a discussion about how to approach these issues in the future- in what circumstances, if any, is it okay for the UA to make a statement on political issues? This conversation is still ongoing, but we left thinking that it is probably more okay for the UA to make a statement if a political event has a direct and measurable impact on MIT undergrads than it would be otherwise. The GSC has a policy platform (found here) that outlines the things that the GSC is permitted to make political statements about. The UA will probably begin working on writing one of those, so if you have opinions about what things should or shouldn't be on there (and if it should even exist), please let me know. I'm personally kind of uncomfortable with the idea of the UA Public Affairs Committee (which is not directly elected) making statements about political issues on behalf of all undergrads, but we agreed that the UA Council should have amendment and approval power over any statements released, which I feel a bit better about.

There was also a rundown of some of the ongoing issues that the UA committees will be working on this semester. Here are some of the ones that I found most interesting:

  • Implementing a shuttle system where you can call a shuttle to take you between any two points within a defined perimeter
  • Working with the Chancellor and the various deans of education to improve advising
  • Starting a system for S^3 where students could submit and also view evaluations for S^3 staff members to increase transparency and accountability and, hopefully, student satisfaction with S^3 services


In DormCon What is Dormcon? It's kind of like the UA, but only for dorms. DormCon takes care of CPW/REX, funding for dorm events, facilities and security issues, party registration issues, and so on. DormCon is made up of the exec board and the dorm presidents, but only the dorm presidents are voting members. DormCon meetings are also approximately biweekly and open to all undergrad dorm residents. The meeting location rotates between the dorms; for meeting places and times, you should add yourself to dormcon-announce@mit.edu.

We had a visitor from the MIT Water Club, which is working to install more efficient shower heads from a startup called Nebia on campus. It sounds like they are in the process of putting some in the Z center and hope to expand to some dorms eventually, but I have doubts about whether or not they will be compatible with EC's showers.

Party registration is complicated and annoying so the Risk Management chairs are trying to make it better, but it turns out that parties are different in each dorm and it's hard to be realistic and also legal at the same time when it comes to alcohol consumption by undergrads. The ideal outcome is that we end up with a party registration system that is simple and doesn't punish large events by imposing expensive fees and unnecessary police details but also maintains some accountability if anything at an event goes wrong.

Allied Barton, which is the company that MIT contracts with for security personnel, has a new supervisor- the old guy (Felipe) was replaced with a new guy (Jensen). This doesn't affect EC at all because we don't have Allied Barton security, but if you spend a lot of time at other dorms you might notice.

Lastly, we approved the budget for the spring semester, which includes $10,000 for dorm events (this is part of how Bad Ideas, Steer Roast, and Fred Fest get funded, btw) and $500 per dorm for CPW.


That's all I have for the last two weeks or so. Stay tuned for more!

Allie

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