Mmm, MIT administration crack

[dmaze]

From today's Tech (123:44), two front-page articles. Above the fold is "Dormitories Discuss In-House Dining Plans". The gist of that article seems to be that administrators think dining in dorms is really cool, but it loses money, so the solution is to force students to pay for food they don't want. Riiight. Across the fold, "Daytime Shuttle to Start in December". This article is about how MIT wants to pay $30,000 to duplicate the MBTA #1 bus during December, February, March, and April (but not IAP) so that 1,300 or so Boston FSILG residents can try to fit into a single 22-passenger minibus to get to their 10:00 class after the first snowfall. I don't understand why more people don't see this as a blindingly stupid idea. But if they're going to run a shuttle across the river, they could at least run one to Brookline; there are FSILGs there, and they don't already have a convenient T bus that runs every five minutes to serve them.

Comments

[avacon.livejournal.com]

The dining plan issue is an eternal battle. We managed to force out the MacGregor dining hall in 1992. Forcing students to pay for food that they must eat at their dorm is a hideous idea, especially for students on very limited budgets or for students who stay late at lab and want to be able to eat on campus and not a 20 minute walk away from lab. *sigh*

[avacon.livejournal.com]

The dining plan issue is an eternal battle. We managed to force out the MacGregor dining hall in 1992. Forcing students to pay for food that they must eat at their dorm is a hideous idea, especially for students on very limited budgets or for students who stay late at lab and want to be able to eat on campus and not a 20 minute walk away from lab. *sigh*

[eichin.livejournal.com]

Yeah, ditching "commons" was one of the few things that the institute seems to have gotten right since I graduated...