Residential Council

Members present: Jesse Goodman; Victor Long; Adam Deitch; Jonathan Marcus; Pamela Dubyak; Joshua Troy; Chris Guhin; Ada McElroy; Allison Shaw; Olanma Okoji; Alexander Merkler; Brookes Brown

Members absent:

Lottery: Pam encourages people to come to information sessions to provide information to people about the lottery and learn the specifics. We may examine Quiet/Substance Free Housing situation again, which has, contrary to our intent, not changed in housing.
Policy: Applications to 111 Brown St., light outside Machado, and figuring out which freshmen should leave during conflict in double need resolution.
Program House: Nothing.

UCS is moving forward on lounge renovation, they want two Res. Council people to look into fabrics and such.

Allison Shaw is a member; Andrew Feinstein and Laurel Rapp are not.

1. Chad Mank spoke about vacancies: program houses are assigned first, special needs next, and, after that, seniority is considered. He admits that there is a need for improvement. First, the proxy system seems to be not trusted by students, who instead emailed, but, students revised their preferences too late or suites they wanted to join were filled. This could be fixed by giving preference (as well as proxy) forms to the OIP, creating a vacancy pull-in form to confirm who should join a suite, and making sure people use their proxies. Many students were unhappy this year, but everyone is now housed. Chris goes off on how there should be an extra column on the preference form to figure out if students don't get filled into doubles in which dorms they would be interested: Mank notes that forms are in flux and that he will work on them.

2. Forsberg brought the issue of moving before break into a new suite: when this is not done it presents problems for people moving into rooms. The issue of whether and how to be stricter to ensure that rooms supposed to be vacant over break are was considered. Last year, the policy was that you had to move out of your old room, whether or not you could move into a new one; Josh suggests that this should be paired with strictness on those moving out to go away from Brown.

3. Summer waitlist: should it go first to people without housing, or should seniority trump that? Jesse says that, if seniority does not trump it, many more would not select in the lottery, as they would feel that they could get better selection through the waitlist. Forsberg decries artificial room changes, to which Jesse considers how primal seniority is. Seniority was then discussed.

4. If freshmen don't get along, both are moved for fairness and to take Residential Life out of a judicial role.

5. Chris motions that Quiet Dorm and Substance Free should be switched. Three floors; (11-1-0) Josh objects to not considering issue enough; Jesse agrees and wants to talk next week. Chris, in his defense (he does get to write the minutes: thus the level of specificity), notes an extended conversation on specifics of Quiet/Substance Free Housing last year that seemed to provide enough details for comfort.

6. 111 Brown St. will be discussed next meeting.

Submitted by Chris Guhin, Residential Council Secretary 2003-2004