[1938] in Discussion of MIT-community interests
[Mit-talk] Separating threads: Student Committee on Administrative
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Jacob Faber)
Mon Jul 3 14:16:54 2006
Date: Mon, 3 Jul 2006 14:16:44 -0400
From: "Jacob Faber" <faber@alum.mit.edu>
To: "Steven M Kelch" <kelch@mit.edu>
Cc: "Pius A. Uzamere II" <pius@alum.mit.edu>, ua-scatr@mit.edu,
mit-talk@mit.edu, grace <gkenney@mit.edu>,
Dheera Venkatraman <dheera@mit.edu>
Reply-To: faber@alum.mit.edu
Errors-To: mit-talk-bounces@mit.edu
I'm separating threads here so folks can choose what they want to read about.
"By keeping SCATR a student oriented committee with lesser ties to the
administration and strong ties to student representation, it can more
effectively evaluate student opinion, persist in the long term, and
avoid administrative political maneuvering."
While I agree that a student oriented committee has its advantages,
such as its ability to gather and evaluate student opinion, legitimacy
really is at issue. Admins really only give lip service to most
student committees, where institute and presidential committees can
(and have) shape policy. The sad fact is that most admins see
students as children.
I also realize there are issues with having a mixed group, such as the
resume-padding problem and the fact that you can easily choose the
wrong people for these important committees. For example, I was on
the Committee on Campus Race Relations with a student member who
refused to admit racism still existed. Why was he/she on this
committee? To this day I have no idea.
Also, in theory student members of institute/presidential committees
stay in contact with other student representatives. Undergrads are
selected by the UA and there is supposed to be accountability there.
(I know that I failed at this when I was in office, but it would be a
great thing to see regular reports from committee members to the
cabinet/senate/cocomm/someone/anyone/bueller?)
On 7/3/06, Steven M Kelch <kelch@mit.edu> wrote:
> That's essentially the idea behind SCATR, but a little less formalized.
> The difficulty in creating a committee where *everything* has to come
> through is that there are a lot of decisions made every day, from minor
> ones to major ones. Where do you draw the line? Who decides when someone
> has gone over the line? There will be just as much controversy.
>
> By keeping SCATR a student oriented committee with lesser ties to the
> administration and strong ties to student representation, it can more
> effectively evaluate student opinion, persist in the long term, and avoid
> administrative political maneuvering.
>
> skelch
>
>
>
> On Mon, 3 Jul 2006, Dheera Venkatraman wrote:
>
> > a nice thing to have would be some sort of committee of students and
> > faculty members that such changes would be *required* to be proposed to.
> > basically, say, any infrastructure changes, major art installations, and
> > changes to the campus that are not time-sensitive repairs should need to
> > be signed off by them. kind of some sort of congress deal. like say if
> > MIT comes up to us next week saying they want to cut down the trees in
> > the EC courtyard and install another transparent horizons, and they
> > don't get the signatures needed, they shouldn't be allowed to do it. and
> > if they wanted to make a curriculum change but didn't get say over half
> > the students' approval, it shouldn't be allowed to happen.
> >
> > i don't know. very cursory idea here, not sure how to properly formulate
> > this, but basically, there needs to be some sort of check system on the
> > administration.
> >
> > -dheera
> >
> > --------------------------------
> > dheera venkatraman
> > http://dheera.net/
> > dheera@dheera.net
> >
> > On Mon, 3 Jul 2006, grace wrote:
> >
> >>
> >> ...and we're not going to get a chance to learn until it's already
> >> official. note that this was announced in the summer, when the UA or
> >> dormcon can't investigate and [if needed] protest. look - the admins
> >> aren't afraid of our horrible harsh criticism. they're afraid of
> >> having
> >> to waste time on meetings with students, lying about how much they
> >> value
> >> our opinions. the things that we bitch about being half-baked are
> >> generally actually near-finalized policies that got leaked. yeah,
> >> often
> >> times we have only partial information, but by the time we have full
> >> information, things'll have reached the point where the admins will
> >> inform
> >> us that such and such a policy has been in the works for years, and of
> >> course the single student committee member was an adequate
> >> representation
> >> of the student body's desires, and blah blah blah. it's not our
> >> criticism
> >> that they're afraid of, it's the fact that we might find out in time
> >> to
> >> stop things.
> >>
> >> and bullshit - it's not too late to delete the accounts from the card
> >> office servers. we're talking bits and bytes here, not stuff that's
> >> really irrevocable. now, will they reconsider, or at least listen to
> >> criticism? probably not, since without dormcon & the ua to raise a
> >> hue
> >> and cry, odds are we won't even be able to get them to talk to us
> >> until
> >> after it goes live. but nothing's actually irrevocable until it
> >> starts
> >> happening, and some stuff [policies and non-physical stuff like this]
> >> can
> >> be changed even afterwards.
> >>
> >> -grace
> >>
> >>
> >> gibbering like hunter thompson on a revolutionary drug, kelch@MIT.EDU
> >> said:
> >>
> >>> This has not yet proven to be a "stupid idea". None of us knows
> >>> enough about
> >>> it to pass judgment. Many of the problems we chalk up to the
> >>> administration
> >>> are actually students jumping to conclusions. We complain when they
> >>> don't
> >>> come to us with brand new, unrefined ideas for our input, but when
> >>> they do we
> >>> attack them for being half-baked. Is it any wonder we don't hear
> >>> about things
> >>> until they are so far in development?
> >>>
> >>> From what I have been told, the accounts are already created, they go
> >>> live in
> >>> less than a month. Whether or not students use the accounts is one
> >>> thing, but
> >>> to my knowledge the accounts already exist on the servers and so a
> >>> reversal
> >>> isn't possible or logical.
> >>>
> >>> skelch
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> On Mon, 3 Jul 2006, David Glasser wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> On 7/3/06, Steven M Kelch <kelch@mit.edu> wrote:
> >>>>> I am going to push Rich Berlin for a press release of some sort
> >>>>> (which
> >>>>> they may already have prepared). Hopefully we can find out more in
> >>>>> the
> >>>>> next few days.
> >>>>
> >>>> Why is this useful? It seems to me that once MIT has put out a press
> >>>> release saying they're going to do something stupid, they have even
> >>>> more of an excuse to not reverse themselves.
> >>>>
> >>>> --dave
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> --
> >>>> David Glasser | glasser@mit.edu | http://www.davidglasser.net/
> >>>>
> >>>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> MIT-talk mailing list
> >> MIT-talk@mit.edu
> >> http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/mit-talk
> >>
> >
> _______________________________________________
> MIT-talk mailing list
> MIT-talk@mit.edu
> http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/mit-talk
>
--
Jacob W. Faber
Phone: 857.928.2838
_______________________________________________
MIT-talk mailing list
MIT-talk@mit.edu
http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/mit-talk
