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MIT’s Senior House dormitory closes, and a crisis blooms at colleges

wired.com

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Re: MIT’s Senior House dormitory closes, and a crisis blooms at colleges

#71

Post by mhalle »

CptMauli wrote: post #20

> five minutes later they started emailing our parents—and > then all undergraduate parents Can somebody explain why the University would email the parents? What do they have to do with it? The students are of age, right?

A related question is, what other equivalent email/postal mail do parents get about their kids? Things may be different recently, but my parents got nothing from MIT short of bills, grades, and fundraising. The article seems to confirm this is still true.

Back then, there seemed to be an implicit understanding that MIT, maybe unlike other places, gave you a lot of rope, and it was your job as a student to use it wisely. No parent got a letter saying their kid was caught on a roof (unless they were jumping, an idiot, or hurt somebody).

On the other hand, one autumn a few years after I graduated when I was still advising, I was at a brunch for the parents of new students. The Dean of Students at the time addressed the gathering by saying, "Trust in us. We will take care of your children".

I found it jarring then, and I find it jarring now. One dean, one speech, one fall, but wrong at so many levels.

Re: MIT’s Senior House dormitory closes, and a crisis blooms at colleges

#72

Post by peapicker »

program_whiz wrote: post #54

Perhaps because we now see childhood as extending much further, and college as more an extension of highschool? I mean, you stay on your parents health insurance until 26, and most students are having the bills largely paid by parents. According to this report, its 41% parents/relatives (savings+loans), 34% scholarships, 25% students (income/loans). So 75% of the tuition is the University and the Parents, and that's…

I have to disagree specifically with health care costs... the way the system is structured, with the costs involved, decent healthcare for most sub 26 year olds would break them financially... because the healthcare system is broken, not because the young people are. As a parent with a 17 and 19 yr old, I'm happy I will be allowed to continue my children with decent healthcare at a time when the system is so screwed up, and they will be primarily students in university and grad school.

Re: MIT’s Senior House dormitory closes, and a crisis blooms at colleges

#73

Post by snakeanus »

jdietrich wrote: post #14
pc86 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you think it's likely that we have great minds flipping burgers now, it stands to reason there were minds greater than Jobs, Gates, etc (RMS? really?) flipping burgers then, too. I've seen this sentiment expressed before and it always struck me as the intellectual equivalent of "kids these days!" without much merit. Some people will waste their talent. Some people won't.

>RMS? really? The dude wrote EMACS, GNU, GCC and the GPL license. He more or less single-handedly invented the concept of Free software. If RMS isn't a genius, then I don't know who is.

He also played a big part in ITS, the lisp machines and published multiple papers on Lisp, AI, and CS. Unlike Jobs and Gates he made actual contributions to the whole field.

Re: MIT’s Senior House dormitory closes, and a crisis blooms at colleges

#74

Post by g-clef »

tptacek wrote: post #68
jpmattia wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What's the actual story here? Not sure of the context of your question exactly, but a quick summary for non-alums: MIT has had a dorm system for many decades where students choose where they are going to live. This tends to aggregate similar personalities/lifestyles into various dormitories. Senior House was a dorm with a reputation: It tended to attract a personality that might be described as "edgy", and was perc…

So if that's it, this is just a numbers story. MIT is an extremely selective school. They're loathe to reject 92% of their applicants only to send people they accept to a dorm that increases by double digits the likelihood that they'll fail. The dorm is a support system for the colleges; the colleges are not support systems for the dorms. When that problem persists for years on end, eventually it becomes the administ…

Thought 1: Correlation/causation. It's not clear if the house causes the higher likelihood of failure or if the folks who are more likely to fail are drawn to the house. I can see arguments for both.

Thought 2: I don't think Wired is trying to write a story about intrigue as much as using the Senior House story to illustrate the larger trend of universities becoming more homogenous.

Writing a story that says "Universities are getting boring. 3 universities closed their counter-culture houses in the past year. Here's some quotes from people" is going to be, frankly, boring to read. On the other hand, a story that says "3 universities closed their counter-culture houses in the past year. Here's the story of one of them" is going to be much more compelling. It makes the story more personal, and therefore easier to understand and relate to.

Re: MIT’s Senior House dormitory closes, and a crisis blooms at colleges

#75

Post by jpmattia »

mejin wrote: post #61

How could Steer Roast be cancelled? Based on my understanding of the article, Steer Roast is a 3 day party. Can't the students (18+ adults) just rent a campground nearby and have it there?

Steer Roast was one of the more insane events on campus. Certainly you can throw a party anywhere, but student-organized parties probably wouldn't happen far away; There is barely enough time for logistics while handling MIT's course load.

Apocryphal story: In 1987, MIT made Playboy's list of Party Schools. [1] Sounds crazy, right? The backstory: The writer/reviewer was in Boston, and somebody convinced him to check out Steer Roast. Around day #2 of party, the writer asked somebody was it like this all the time? To which the resident said yes, interpreting "this" to mean Steer Roast as opposed to the more general party atmosphere of MIT.

[1] http://www.fiestafrog.com/playboys-1987-top-40-party-college...

Edit: I should mention that the actual picnic (Sat afternoon) is an event that alums/families/profs used to show up. Eg. Doc Edgerton was a regular, and really seemed to enjoy himself the years I saw him.

Re: MIT’s Senior House dormitory closes, and a crisis blooms at colleges

#76

Post by tptacek »

g-clef wrote: post #74
tptacek wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So if that's it, this is just a numbers story. MIT is an extremely selective school. They're loathe to reject 92% of their applicants only to send people they accept to a dorm that increases by double digits the likelihood that they'll fail. The dorm is a support system for the colleges; the colleges are not support systems for the dorms. When that problem persists for years on end, eventually it becomes the administ…

Thought 1: Correlation/causation. It's not clear if the house causes the higher likelihood of failure or if the folks who are more likely to fail are drawn to the house. I can see arguments for both. Thought 2: I don't think Wired is trying to write a story about intrigue as much as using the Senior House story to illustrate the larger trend of universities becoming more homogenous. Writing a story that says "Univers…

Right, but the same correlation/causation problem recurs for the "homogenizing" narrative if all that's really happening here is that administrations won't tolerate dorms freighted with double digit increases in dropout rates.

Re: MIT’s Senior House dormitory closes, and a crisis blooms at colleges

#77

Post by Icedcool »

sulam wrote: post #47
mejin wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's one thing that really struck me as weird in this article. I'm not living in America but just like I would expect my boss to only contact my parents in an emergency, I would expect my University to only contact my parents in an emergency (and graduation).

Speaking as someone paying what is effectively a second mortgage so my nephew can go to school, I expect the school to let me know how it's going. I'm not saying MIT is in the right here, but if you want parents or others completely disengaged, then you need to not engage them financially.

You should ask your nephew how it is going. As an adult.

Re: MIT’s Senior House dormitory closes, and a crisis blooms at colleges

#78

Post by JackFr »

mejin wrote: post #52
sulam wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking as someone paying what is effectively a second mortgage so my nephew can go to school, I expect the school to let me know how it's going. I'm not saying MIT is in the right here, but if you want parents or others completely disengaged, then you need to not engage them financially.

That's very generous of you. When my parents got married, my grandparents paid for their honeymoon. Had the resort where they were staying reported to their parents what they did there, they would have been outraged. Would something like this also be accepted in America?

Of course not, but it's hardly the same.

For the sake of argument, take the university at their word: that they believed there was an unsafe environment fostered in this dorm, and that the students were markedly underperforming their peers. As such the University is selling a defective good to the parents, and they are trying to remediate it.

That sounds quite reasonable to me.

However, are they infantilizing the students and preventing them from growing in maturity and judgement in the process?

Yep, they sure are.

The problem US universities are finding themselves in, is when parents are ponying up small fortunes, they are not interested in preserving 'freedom to fail' which is necessary for growth.

Re: MIT’s Senior House dormitory closes, and a crisis blooms at colleges

#79

Post by TheAdamAndChe »

indigochill wrote: post #10
jdietrich wrote: post #2

I wonder if there'll ever be another Steve Jobs or RMS. I wonder if we've destroyed all the places where brilliant weirdos can thrive and closed off all the paths to success other than a handful of narrowly prescribed routes. I wonder how many of the greatest minds of our generation are flipping burgers or making coffee.

I was chatting with a guy on the plane the other day who was bemoaning the disappearance of old-school BBSes and rise of homogeneous social media sites. I think my answer to his concern and yours are the same: There are still places for clever weirdos. Particularly online. I know of at least two hacking communities, for instance, which only let in people who can hack the invite process. At that point, you can assume…

That's true, and it offers a way for those types of people to group together. However, if those kinds of people aren't given a way to succeed in college or any other kind of upper-class signalling system, they won't ever get into positions of power where they can thrive.

More and more, college is selecting for a certain kind of personality while weeding out those outside of the norm.

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