Here is a discussion of MIT’s dorm on east campus, Senior House, undergoing a change, because of
low graduation rates of its residents. Its also the oldest dorm on campus as I remember. I don’t know that
I agree that Senior House is the only LGBT friendly dorm or living group at MIT. WILG and other living groups have been LGBT friendly in the past.
Odd for that to be posted here. But to fill you in…MIT has many dorms to choose from; Each w/its own culture. Senior House (SN) has difficulties for complex reasons. Because the students have deep feelings about their dorms and because the cultures across (and sometimes even within) dorms are so different from each other and often from anything anyone would experience elsewhere, there has been a lot written about the changes in SH. If you compare the dorms at MIT to nearly any other college, well… you can’t.
I think it would be hard for someone who does not know MIT to be able to put the information in that article into perspective. At MIT students are given immense freedoms in a way not true of most colleges. When most colleges talk/write about students leading things or being in charge, they often mean that there is an advisor who weighs in heavily but behind the scenes. That isn’t true at MIT. Students drive a lot of what happens on their own and they resent it when staff involve themselves-something they rarely do. So yes, students already part of SH, going into 3rd year and beyond, are not happy. Some suggested change in SH is a sign that decisions are being made differently, and are speculating that the administration is moving towards a more conservative top down type of administrating and not allowing as much person freedoms.
But there is plenty of evidence countering such claims. East Campus, for example, one of the oldest and largest dorms allows students to paint and build walls and other things in the dorm, tear down and reconstruct within the dorm and/or room.; cats allowed, etc. If it were to happen, and I doubt it would, that there are troublesome aspect of East Campus or any other campus, and they are put under watch for a year, they should encourage each other to work towards a healthy climate and, say, for example, remind each other that receiving shipments of illegal substances is not advisable. Just don’t. MIT is trying to ensure safety.
And, in terms of all the hoopla about SH being markedly different from other dorms in terms of SES and other factors, not really. That makes a good claim, pulls for a supportive response and seems to support a conspiracy but it’s simply incorrect. New House has a higher proportion of URM, for instance and twice the number. Both Random and New have a higher proportion and larger number of students from families in the lowest income bracket. True about 40% (or 30 students) of SH self identify as LGBT but they hardly have the lions share. 40.8% (or 20 students) of Random and 38% (or 82 students) in East Campus self identify as LGBT. It is not the highest on any of the dimensions except for having markedly lower graduation rates and other problematic outcomes-which are not necessarily outcomes caused by SH.
As per today’s letter to students SH will be closed for undergraduate students and open for grad students only.
Here is the MIT Tech article about Senior House, with comments from some MIT alumni.
https://thetech.com/2017/07/13/senior-house-grad-dorm