CAMBRIDGE, Mass--Dean Rosalind Williams today announced that the Orientation/Residence Fall '98 Committee of faculty, students and staff will be chaired by Professor Kim Vandiver, professor of Ocean Engineering and a member of the Task Force on Student Life and Learning.
The members are:
Students:
Marion Groh, a junior in EECS from Mariel Marly, France who is President of Student House, and independent living group at 111 Bay State Road in Boston;
William Shen, a senior in economics from Brecksville, Ohio who is the committee chair of the InterFraternity Council O/R Proposals Committee, and former Rush Chair and current president of Phi Delta Theta, 97 Bay State Road, Boston;
Pamela Mukerji, the President of the freshman class who is from East Northport, NY and lives in the East Campus dormitory;
Ashesh Shah, a senior in economics and mathematics from Huntington, Indiana who is President of the Dormitory Council and a resident of the Next House dormitory at 500 Memorial Drive, Cambridge.
Faculty and staff:
Andrew Eisenmann, Associate Dean of students for residence and campus activities;
Suzanne Flynn, Professor of foreign languages and literature and chair of the Committee on the Undergraduate Program;
Paul Gray, Professor of electrical engineering and former President and Chairman of MIT;
Charles Stewart, Associate Professor of political science and housemaster at McCormick Hall.
Professor Vandiver said the committee needs to determine the important guiding principles on how we run MIT orientation and residence selection. "We need to see if we can find some ways of better implementing those principals for the Fall of '98.
"The Fall of '98 should be seen as an experiment. It's an opportunity to try some new things and improve on them in following years. It's important to see it as experimental and not as practices that we are going to lock ourselves into forever just because we do them next Fall.
Dean Williams said the committee will be working intensely with an initial report to the senior administration by Saturday, Nov. 15. The reason for the brief time is that any changes that get made have to be decided upon quickly because early decision applicants must decide by Dec. 15, and these changes will obviously have some effect on those decisions. The early timetable would also allow time for a report to the faculty at the Nov. 19 faculty meeting, and for commitments MIT has to make soon in order to put things into place for next Fall,
Dean Williams said at the Oct. 21 meeting that the final decisions would be made by President Charles Vest, Provost Joel Moses, Senior Vice President William Dickson and herself.
Staff support to the committee will be provided by Holly Sweet, Associate Director of the Experimental Studies Group and from Robert Kaynor, Associate Director of the Planning Office.
