[1959] in Discussion of MIT-community interests
Re: [Mit-talk] Separating threads: Student Committee
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Jessica H Lowell)
Tue Jul 4 03:51:14 2006
Date: Tue, 04 Jul 2006 03:50:51 -0400
From: Jessica H Lowell <jessiehl@mit.edu>
To: faber@alum.mit.edu
In-Reply-To: <e9cc53d60607031116o4bbd4dal5df34497412769b2@mail.gmail.com>
Cc: "Pius A. Uzamere II" <pius@alum.mit.edu>, grace <gkenney@mit.edu>,
Dheera Venkatraman <dheera@mit.edu>, ua-scatr@mit.edu,
mit-talk@mit.edu
Errors-To: mit-talk-bounces@mit.edu
While there are certainly benefits to having a group that includes admins and
faculty as well as students, I would point out that some very successful
groups, for instance the group that wrote the SAC Unified Proposal, were made
up of students. I would venture to say that the Unified Proposal was pretty
effective at shaping policy.
If you make it into an Institute or Presidential Committee, you reduce student
represenation to a small percentage of the committee. And just as admins who
are so inclined can give only lip service to a student committee, they
can also
give lip service to student reps on a mixed committee.
As to your other point, accountability for student reps has been discussed ad
nauseum within the UA over the last several months. I believe there are some
plans to have regular or semi-regular updates next year.
- Jessie
Quoting Jacob Faber <faber@alum.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
>
Quoting Jacob Faber <faber@alum.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
>
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