Interhouse Committee
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November 25, 2003

Super Committee: next Tuesday-not everyone is going to make it…
RA meeting: Monday lunch-Jeremy and Neda

Small Issue: Food Committee Report
Natalia: Andre put out a job description sheet-it is open as a job opening as of Monday
Food Committee members will be interviewing: if you have any questions for the candidate tell
Natalia; only three food reps have come up with questions; head waiters can also come up with questions
What is her job description: food forecast, costumer service, responsible for problems in UG kitchens, her 8 hour days were more like 12 hour days
Many problems in last few weeks with her being gone? Some problems for Natalia-because three people dealing with her position
Dress Dinner: CDS no longer does it…its now all caterings responsibility
It not good at all-slow and low quality

Tom: run through the Room and Board increases for next year's frosh the Faculty Committee for
Financial Aid
2001 asked to present what it would take to make Room and Board program pay for itself
Increases between 5-8%: not enough
Board 15%; Room 9% of money charged to Tom
Numbers have to be approved? Yes that and other things
Waited dinners: 14% of dinner moneys go to (only 1/6 of problem in Board program)
Room and Board positives and negatives would go/come from one bunched fund
Find ways of outperforming housing by having special summer programs
Themed Dinner: maybe get rid of?
Is not that good and wait too long
Open kitchen for breakfast: North Kitchens, 730 AM
Declining balance flexibility
There is some talk about: if people want to add dollars to debit card to spend over the weekend at local stores
Hope of presentation is to catch up with these two and then go back down to just 5%
After '06, want to hold even for a while
Avery losing $150,000 a year
Too many things open for small size
Lots of financial loss from this perspective
Anything on list that we could do differently?
Bring is more help from local synagogues etc. to help in the Kosher and Halal stuff (pay for some of the costs)
Want a dialogue out of this…what are we doing with students and what are we working on?
There will be a significant increase to billing to students-and this will probably come on top of tuition increases
Kiplingers has that overall cost of Caltech makes it number one for cost of best education
Yay! More people coming to Tech because its number one of the list…!
Exhibition Cooking-gone!
Agreement on how to proceed
Should IHC do this or Food Committee
Don't want to totally lock out Food Committee, because they've been working on it

Ath list additions
Lloyd: Logan Linderman
Fleming: horseshit!
Set some sort of precedent

Doesn't have any sort of Lloyd House membership or social membership
Voting for Logan to join Lloyd's Ath list: 4-1-2
It is suppose to be done a week ahead of time
Vote that it is okay that it is short one week: agreed
Page: Christian Parison added to Ath list?
Fleming and Lloyd: not that he's a good or anything
A little last minute…seems a little sketchy

Poll survey of people who went to picks

Major Issues: Faculty-in-Resident
Resounding No from Ri
No kids, having them live in SAC better than in the House
Hiring and Paying or not
We should talk about this
What is the goal?
Not one more person pulling people out of their rooms-have that!
Specify level of involvement and how their role is different (what are they not suppose to be doing)
One for each of the Houses?
Less incentive to meet
Not much accomplished
Don't want to have one more person stopping people from their lives…not one authority figure
This might be a give and take situation-agreeing to have faculty in resident is a big step to convincing donors that they should give money to the house
Flaw in logic though-faculty doesn't want to be authority but donor thinks that there is an authority
We're here to represent the student's opinions-we should do that
We shouldn't just go in and give them the opinion of pros
Make concessions, on both sides
Go in there with list of pros and cons…but make sure we say that it is a bad idea

Interview process
Confidentiality clause
If all the students are against it then they won't give it a chance-can't make it a productive matter, and won't help students and make Prof unhappy as well

**************************************
Pros
Stuff fixed when broken
Advocate on Faculty Board
If Faculty knows how much the work is…can help in controlling the sets severity
Letters of Recommendation (questionable)

Cons
Inter-house Parties (4 AM music)
General late night noise
Possibility of disciplinary action
Mistrust of faculty and administrator
Children
Wouldn't like dinners
Questions from administration
Constraining behavior around adults and faculty (don't want added stress)
Dying of House Traditions
Taking away the easiness and comfort around the house (pj, boxers, nakedness…)
Perception of authority figure
College is a place where you explore a lot…and having an adult figure would take this away
Houses can be put in uncomfortable position as well as their residents

Guideline
2 and not 7-nowhere beyond 2 (compromise)
Student selected-if not completely, should have veto power (even if empty)
Somewhat secluded location for the faculty
Non-authority role
Student advocate
Not a job: Driving force in wanting to live with students, not for monetary gain
Trial period: anytime they want to bail out (both sides?)
Deans...2 year batches…need some kind of out

Plan of action
Be in communication with Karen (grad student)-because she agrees with us
Know what we want to say
Talk to RAs and see what they think…email them…
Talk about Faculty being RAs…why not now…!

from my meeting with the RA's yesterday (jeremy at least you should read this):
general opinion, this is not a bad idea, won't hurt students, won't take
away from traditions, faculty don't want to be authority and won't try
if students go along with this it would be a great idea
a faculty in residents would be
a neighbor with power
"a civilizing influence" (exact words, wanna guess who said that?!;))
if they get to meet the house and the people, good for the house should play the role of academic influence/advising
better to have more than 2 total
rachel suggested 1 for every 2 houses (4 total), because they can attend more dinners and get to meet the students more which is the ultimate goal
programming important part of faculty in resident's job
could have fire-side chats (again exact words...i don't remember who!)
bridge between other faculty and students
"civilizing influence" (yes, again, becuase we're all cavemen)

there needs to be some financial support
some office needs to fund this so it will always be in effect
shouldn't have to pay for apartment--the faculty will take the job because they want it and not because of aparment
faculty won't be overbearing
can give them separate entrace to apartment, sound proof walls
won't hear things that they don't want to
don't want to be overbearing, won't be authority --> worst case will call the RA

final thoughts: don't be afraid of this...change isn't always bad. The houses won't be avery, no one wants that, and a faculty living in the house won't make it avery.


Maintained by Elise Kleeman
Last modified 03-05-03