July 29, 2:30pm EST Reps Meeting
Agenda:
Welcome to Natalie and Meredith to the reps meeting!
· Introductions
· Describe purpose/role of reps
DEI Efforts –
· What are the main DEI efforts the JP has concerns about/how can JP students promote diversity?
· Letter to Peter de Menocal
Steinbach Scholar Updates –
· Updates with Steinbach planning?
· Any resources needed?
Social Events –
· Sci Communication, Welcome BBQ, Queer Prom
· Thoughts on successes or where we can improve
· Call to students for new events
Katie ASK
- In-person trivia?
JP Rep Elections – In September?
· When do we start planning elections?
JP Photoboard
- Update physical student center photoboard?
MIT SidPac Housing
- What’s the deal with it for the fall?
- Possibility of additional requests for “regular” usage? MIT policies on room occupancy?
Notes/Minutes:
- General intros
- Introduced Natalie – new CDEIO start 8/1
- Rachel and Logan will meet with her to discuss student asks
- Programming for DEI
- Faculty vs. student DEI engagement disparity
- Livingston report – aware?
- Ask about a student-focused (or at least a Reps-focused) listening session – target when semester is in full-swing
- Kathi was potentially setting it up? Maybe 2-3 mo into Natalie’s term
- Stewart: idea to bring up – faculty expectations for students to engage with DEI. Stardardized expectation for faculty/advisors for supporting student involvement
- Logan: send ideas/thoughts that come up to Logan and Rachel via slack/email. Will report back next meeting
- Rachel: major issue is students are supported as navigate the program. It is a problem if students are expected to “tough it out” as a minority. Can Natalie provide support/ideas/infrastructure to make minority students feel more supported/included?
- Letter to Peter de Menocal about listening session
- Logan will contact Noah since that was something he and Lei were doing
- Steinbach Scholar stuff
- Planning going well, at the stage where just need to send reminder emails
- Reps can help plug the events to their respective departments, encourage students to attend talks and sign up for meetings
- Lots of 1 on 1 meeting spots available, reach out to any students if you think they’ll be interested in meeting with the Steinbach Scholar
- Thoughts on a potential virtual happy hour? Will people attend?
- Maybe more attendance earlier in the day, e.g. 3pm coffee hour (Steinbach Scholar is on west coast)
- Perhaps attendance will be low in the summer, especially since there are 2 informal Q&A lunches
- Encourage everyone you know to attend events!!
Social events
- BBQ went will for the first-years
- First years – jp-wahoo@whoi.edu
- Using slack, groupMe
- Jp-all doesnt have fall start students yet. Kris/Jing will work to add the students
- jpstudents@whoi.edu DOES have fall start students
- Science Communication event – zoom event. Looks great
- Queer Prom is set up as an event. In-person. Gonna be great!
- Guidelines for new in person events –
- Carpooling is unclear if allowed – masks required for carpooling if not all are vaccinated, but cannot ask if people are vaccinated
- Generally ROOT is supportive of in person events, but somewhat vague
- Follow MIT rules, since they are more strict than WHOI stuff
- We can support students to start requesting events – do a call for events!
- Logan will ping Noah since he already wrote up an email. We should encourage mask-wearing in vehicles.
- Katie JP ASK topic – JP ASK wants to do a kick-off in person event before the mentee form opens, to get mentor forms open. Hold a pizza party (Reps suggest ice cream/popsicle party). Sounds like a great event! Schedule a date AND a rain date.
- Rain date may be unnecessary if use the tent on Fenno or another area
- Open event to all
- Science Communication workshop – encourage Max to send the information to jpstudents@whoi.edu since it is more academic-focused?
- Logan will do this
- In person trivia? – thoughts on interest? Stewart could help host/facilitate.
- Similar work load as Gather.town trivia
Housing
- SidPac – 4 person unit? 2 bedroom, 4 person. Couldn’t have it last year bc covid restriction
- Kris chatted with Meg who said apt are at half capacity, so only 2 people at a time for $4,000/month. Is it worth it? How long will this last?
- Reps have request for semi-permanent housing for someone to stay every other week
- Maybe do a new unit in tower 4? Could rent 2 studios? Is that more work?
- Pricing? Pretty spendy $940/bed/month in SidPac. Can it be cheaper if only 2 bed in SidPac?
- Studio pricing in tower 4? Efficiency apartment $2270/month.
- https://studentlife.mit.edu/housing/graduate-family-housing/graduate-residences
- If cutting prices, >1 apt?
- Current needs – maybe Mon/Tues per week during the semester\
- Kevin: hard to know what we can offer students now until we talk to Tasha. Can’t always promise SidPac is available
- Stewart: @Kris, perhaps ask Tasha if a 3bd apt at Ashdown would be available? It would be $1200 per person per month, so we could do 3ppl for $3600
- Logan: encourage students to have a “backup” plan in case of SidPac being at capacity
- Stewart: sparse 4 person options. Possibly a 3 bedroom option could work?
- Tasha/Kris/Stewart? – meeting tomorrow to discuss housing options
- Katie – what about off campus/non-MIT housing? Kris: may be harder to manage/maintain, but did have something like that a while ago. What about a 5-6 br house, with one person living there year-round, managing it. Logan: Def would want it near a t-stop and maybe MIT. Kris: Could go through MIT-based off-campus housing list for good landlords. Logan: Who pays the damages?? Cynthia: subsidized housing for someone in charge of cleaning/managing the apartment. Logan: what is the timeline for this? Kris: Lease begins Sept 1. Katie: happy to help out find things
- Course video links – may be challenging for some folks, but hopefully no-one will need
Student Center Photoboard
- Stewart wil send poll to all people to upload photos for people to include on the board
- Goal – Get this by September timeframe, especially since 2nd years are not on the photoboard
Reps elections – timeline, organization
- Lea: September – ask for self nominations that are fair/open to all
- October – changeover meeting
- Need to do OGE funding letter as will – We should go ahead and request because student life fee is up. Goes to Ian Waitz and Blanche Stanton
- We still have a fair bit of funding (~10k). Kris: “I hope Max puts on a really nice queer prom and spends a bunch”
Next meeting – discuss the next stuff/changeover etc
- Target the 23rd-27th for the next meeting